Documentaries about musical events do not really lend themselves to a review. However Woodstock was just as much a social event as a concert. For several days the fields changed into a temporary city. It is interesting to see how Michael Wadleigh displays and interprets the attitude of the crowd. He interviews the visitors, and asks them about their motives to be there. Most of them are barely grown people. Many simply follow the flow, but for others the festival is an opportunity to increase their wisdom of life. They arrive as groups and communes, and try to learn from each others experiences. There are spiritual meetings. There is recreation and fun, like the mud slides in the rain. But there are also social experiments, like nude swimming and even public drug (ab)use. They blow to make other people interesting. They may have read about the evils of drugs, and gave up reading. The cast of singers and song groups looks impressive. But to be fair, I did not like their music then, and in the film it looks truly poor and miserable. In many cases the appearance consists of screaming and physical convulsions. Today such a performance would not attract such an enormous crowd. It takes the drummers a minute to notice that their band has stopped playing. Joke: what is the difference between an electric guitar and a chainsaw? The grip. Probably it makes more sense to interpret the festival as a demonstration against war and violence. America was in the grip of the civil rights movement. Several charismatic leaders had been murdered. And most of all, there was the appalling war in Vietnam, which threatened the future of the male youth. On stage Joan Baez tells about the objection to military service of her boyfriend. If your life expectancy is just a few years, there is some cause for screaming and wild social experiments. The right to bear arms is slightly less ludicrous than the right to arm bears. By the way, why do soldier look so tired on 1 April? Because they just had a 31-day March. Actually Woodstock was a sad event. And Wadleigh must get the credit for managing to convey this message - which is a recommendation. Don't hesitate to leave a comment. I love it.
