Directed by:
Michael WadleighCast:
Joan Baez, Roger Daltrey, Arlo Guthrie, Janis Joplin, Jerry Garcia, Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker, Pete Townshend, Keith Moon, Harvey Mandel (more)VOD (1)
Plots(1)
An intimate look at the Woodstock Music and Art Festival held in Bethel, NY in 1969, from preparation through cleanup, with historic access to insiders, blistering concert footage, and portraits of the concertgoers; negative and positive aspects are shown, from drug use by performers to naked fans sliding in the mud, from the collapse of the fences by the unexpected hordes to the surreal arrival of National Guard helicopters with food and medical assistance for the impromptu city of 500,000. (Warner Bros. AU)
(more)Reviews (2)
Great music, quality weed, a flower in the hair and some space for half a million people, that's all you need to organize the biggest and most memorable music event in history. Speaking for myself, if I had a time machine, I would head to the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival with a bunch of friends right after dealing with Hitler. A unique documentary that for three and a half hours throws you into the loving atmosphere of the flower power and partly introduces you to the legends of the music of that time, which was so beautiful and specific. I don't give it full marks only because the long musical numbers on TV don't have the same effect as live, and in my opinion a bit of trimming would not be a bad thing – though that wouldn’t be the real Woodstock. 85%
()
There's just not much to add to this documentary. Besides having absolutely brilliant editing and the use of multiple images simultaneously, it is primarily a beautiful record of what the era was like and what its music was like. The music is still amazing, and those values... they are still being ignored. The rebellion didn't help much, but we can hope that something similar might succeed again someday.
()