Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 33 No. 15 1970
Woodstock
Woodstock
Having read the articles released by Life and Rolling Stone, I understood that this had been But, it is not until I saw this film that I realized just how big it actually was. This was life being larger than life as sometimes it fortunately is want to do.
The name itself indicates a kind of backwoods early American strength such is illustrated in the literature of that pioneer period. The film does make that connection between the communal woodlands farm existance of the 1770's and the community that formed for those three days. The film opens with idyllic shots of Upstate New York farmlands with its gently rolling hills, misty woods, placid lakes and industrious people. Then through the farmer and his tractor, the film blends the mood it has created into the catapillar tractors and cranes of the festival organizers as they construct the mammoth stage and erect the huge sound and light towers. The stage and the towers are the first physical indication of how physically large that which is to follow will be.
Slowly the things come together, the anticipation building in the film much as it would have for those who were actually there.
Then, at last, the first performer takes the stage. Ritchie Havens. One of the few complaints I have about this film is that the material Wadleigh shows the artists performing, for the most part, is not their best. Havens, for example, has far better songs in his repetoire than he is shown performing here. Nevertheless, the performance he does give is an exciting opener.
Joan Baez, the next to perform, constitutes the musical low-point of the film. The material she is shown performing is poor and the way in which she handles it is also poor. Those who followed, including the Who, Ten Years After, Joe Cocker, and Santana, give performances that offers the audience the cliched neveradullmoment. The 1950's type rock band, Sha-Na-Na-Na produced very strange results with their gold suited rendition of At The Hop. Everyone in the audience applauded and cheered, the theatre audience that is, something which was not done for any other performer.
There is no spoken narrative. Instead Wadleigh lets his camera and tape recorders capture all there is to be said. He is very apt at telling visual jokes, such as, the dope smoking sequence. Also his timing perfect in his visual effects: He knows just when to split the screen or to parallel speech of one side to the action of the other. The three sections into which the screen is generally split matches the three channels of the theatre's sound system. So, that when the action moves from one side of the screen to the other the sound follows it.
But, the music was not the only factor involved in the festival nor is it the only factor in the film as it was in Monterey Pop. The people are also important, both the faceless out-of-focus masses and the character filled faces of the individuals. The people of the town are fantastic from the first old-timer who had to eat nothing but Corn Flakes for two days to the guy who had to clean out the Porto-Sans. Then there are the audience from the toothless cowboy from 42nd Street to the girl who felt the loss of her own individuality in the immensity of the crowd. By switching from the crowd to the individuals Wadleigh does not let you forget either.
On the whole, Woodstock is the most enjoyable three and one half hours that I've spent in a movie house for a long long time. I did not suffer the usual butt-rott which usually accompanies those marathon-epics ala Gone With The Wind even when they include an intermission which Woodstock does not. Like many other topical films, such as Medium Cool and M.A.S.H., I suppose the wrong people will be seeing them. Nevertheless I hope that a few older types will-wander in and see just how the people acted in Bethel New York, the weekend the Fair came to town.