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Woodstock - 3 Days of Peace & Music (The Director's Cut)Rating:
Release Date: 22 August, 1997 Retail Price: $19.98 OUR Price: $13.99 You SAVE: $5.99! Cast: Complete Cast (21 total) |
Woodstock - 3 Days of Peace & Music (The Director's Cut) Reviews
Perfect
Just as I remmebered it. The time was like no other in many centeries and I'm glad I lived thorugh it.
The Apex of the 60's Counterculture
The Woodstock Music and Art Festival was the culmination of the cultural and sociological undercurrent of the turbulent and radical 60's. Held on a farm in upstate New York on Aug. 15-17, 1969, the festival was a gathering of what is said to be half a million people with most of the prominent musicians of the time performing. The Dionysian entertainment was the foremost announcement of the "Love and Peace" generation of their severance from the past and their inevitable return to it.
The DVD edition of the famous event begins with noticeably substandard sound but is effaced by the sterling performances of the most memorable acts. Many of these artists began their claim to fame in the concert: highlights include Richie Havens' intense folk strumming starting the show; Santana's well-paced performance of their Rock Afro-Cuban instrumental classic "Soul Sacrifice"; Joan Baez's soaring "Joe Hill"; the frenzied Pop Music hybrid of Sly & the Family Stone; Joe Cocker's writhing Rock n' Soul version of "With a Little Help from My Friends"; one of the best rendition's by The Who of one of their best and most popular songs, "See Me, Feel Me"; Janis Joplin's impressive and gut-wrenching Blues-belting; Crosby, Stills & Nash harmonizing on their acoustic masterpiece, "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes"; Guitar Paganini Alvin Lee leading his group Ten Years After into a revved-up "I'm Going Home"; and last but not least, Jimi Hendrix's version of "The Star Spangled Banner". The choices and selections in this transfer are not perfect though: Jefferson Airplane's spirited version of "Volunteers" should have been picked over the two dull Blues based tracks shown. Grateful Dead's performance should have been featured, even at least one song, regardless of the group's protestations. Interspersed with these are features of the festival offstage with Hippies smoking their preferred substance, Yoga classes, skinny-dipping, playing in the mud, and interviews with performers, promoters, audience members, and residents surprised but generally appreciative of the masses of "Freaks" who have come to visit.
Many people in the present who lived through those times and those who didn't but wished they did glorify the era with the hindsight and distance of time, coating it with sentimental nostalgia. I could imagine how memorable the decade was: with it's defining innovations and groundbreaking events it's impact and influence are benchmarks in world history. But the reality of the moment can clearly be seen in the film. In no way does one get the feel of being in a momentous life-changing event - observing the audience one can see that people went there just to watch a gig. This revealing truth is the crux and heart of "Woodstock": the 60's counterculture movement revealed to a highly conservative America and hence the world the importance of cultivating the mind and spirit, and the essence of social interaction which is the manna of man. Unconsciously, these same people showed the importance of a balanced structure of life and society which they ironically tried to destroy and detach themselves from. The drug casualties, the splintering of the movement, and the eventual inclusion of the tribe in their middle-ages into the corporate world quite embarrasingly disclosed this. That this was already known even at the festival, considered the peak of the movement, is shown at the film when a young hippie is interviewed together with his "free love" partner. I was impressed that someone as young as he was could be level-headed and mature enough to know the actuality of the times he lived in, to distance himself, considering that he was a part of it. He relates eloquently, to this effect: "Why would half a million people come here? Is it just for the music? I don't think so. They're here because theire looking for something, lost and misguided people searching for something to put meaning into their lives." Though one can notice with a pang of nostalgia that people looked quite more mature and deep back then.
Despite it's flaws, "Woodtsock - 3 Days of Peace & Music" is an essential and revealing experience, a time capsule on a moment in history that ushered change, with all the good and compromise that come along with it.
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