Word: woodstock
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...considering the ones Wadleigh has chosen the emphasis is fatal (one film we didn't need was a grainier Monterey Pop ). The rest is taken up with sundry interviews in which predictable subjects-freaks, police, old folks, etc.-make predictable commentary (predictable, that is, if you know the Woodstock myth-i.e., the policeman will say these are a great bunch of kids. etc.), and a variety of material which aims at revealing the life style of the populace. With the exception of the initial interview, in which an old, largely inarticulate fellow remembers that "there must have been...
There may be an explanation. Wadleigh claims to have shot more film than any other twenty-seven year old alive, and perhaps if he's 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...
...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 was drawn to the same simple events. No one bothered to film the stuff that one needs to edit a good sequence. For instance to return to the Who, Roger Daltry wore his shimmering white fringe vest, a natural attraction to a cameraman; so everybody must have filmed...
...music itself is not very good. There were thirty-five acts at Woodstock, and there are only thirteen in this film. The choices made here remain inexplicable, hence you should go prepared to be bored. A few of the heavies: Joan Baez, Richic Havens, Santana, Sebastian, Joe Cocker, Ten Years After. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, each set more intolerably mediocre than the last and if you start with Baez doing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," you can imagine where that takes you. Where are the Airplane, or the Dead, or even the Band...
...WOODSTOCK was an important event, but its importance didn't lie in ad slogans like "three days of love, peace, and music." Or rather it did; at Woodstock, hip culture proudly announced that it was just a young Yahoo America, that those long hair types you folks been fearing out there just want their drugs and music, courtesy of MGM or Warners, it doesn't matter. The ballgame was over for the Vulgar Marxists; that's what Peter Townshend was saying as he clubbed Abbic Hoffmann off the stage (no, it's not in the movie). The game metaphor...