Word: wadleigh
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...white middle-class kids to enjoy themselves. Michael Lang was instrumental in arranging both events, and in neither case did he worry himself with considerations such as food, water, shelter, transportation, safety, sanitary facilities, etc. Comparing the footage of Altamont in Gimme Shelter with that of Bethel in Michael Wadleigh's Woodstock , it's hard to see any difference in the crowds' composition or their activities; the former looks like any other mass concert to me, and it's photographed like Woodstock or Monterey for that matter: idyllic scenes with babies or dogs, shots of breasty women, exotic clothing, close...
Woodstock. Michael Wadleigh's film re-creation of the historic three-day concert was part celebration and part sociology, an altogether epic feat of nonfiction film making...
...know from the film that Wadleigh and company don't like movies; and you'd have a hard time convincing me that they have any love for rock music either. What's missing from a sound track whose reproduction quality is very fine (and happily played very loud) is precisely the intense visual experience one gets from concerts. Two facts: the best seats at concerts are not the ones besieged by the best sound-they're the ones which afford the freest view, permitting the eye to wander at random; and great groups have great visual styles. This...
There may be an explanation. Wadleigh claims to have shot more film than any other twenty-seven year old alive, and perhaps if he'd spent less time behind the camera he'd have a better sense of structure. For Woodstock is an object lesson in how important formal control remains in even the most straightforward of shooting situations...
BEFORE the filming began. Wadleigh told his crew that when something turned them on they should stay with it. Now we know that this charmingly democratic principle wouldn't work in say, a stage production or a ballet, and there's no reason to suppose it's responsible for good movies either. Cameramen are, after all, spectators like the rest of us. When you shoot film you naturally want to have something nice and cinematic to look at as long as you're working; therefore cameramen are drawn to certain types of shots. Unfortunately, from the look of Woodstock, everyone...