You don’t watch Woodstock, so much as experience it. The 1994 Director’s Cut clocks in at 224 minutes, adding over forty minutes to the original and it still doesn’t even scratch the surface.
The Woodstock festival itself, as a means of business, was a financial disaster. It was fortunate this movie was so acclaimed as it settled a lot of debt owed to local business owners by the organisers of the festival. Over the course of three days, thirty-two acts performed, including Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. The festival has since become an iconic moment in the history of not just rock and roll, but music as a whole.
The movie was nominated for ‘Best Documentary’ at the Oscars and was also the first documentary ever to be nominated for ‘Best Editing’ and it’s not hard to see why. Going from full screen to a splitscreen of Joe Cocker performing onstage from two different angles, to then having three corners of the screen occupied by instruments, the screen is ever changing and never still. There’s often so much to look at, you really don’t know what to look at for fear of missing out on whatever else is onscreen. Someone will be giving an interview and on the other half of the screen, the camera is spying on a couple stripping naked and having sex in the fields, thinking they’re alone. Director Michael Wadleigh’s intention seems to be turning Woodstock into a trip of its own and achieved this with the help of six other editors, including Thelma Schoonmaker and Martin Scorsese.
The sheer amount of footage captured is impressive. So much never even made it into the director’s cut, let alone the original cut. It’s hard to imagine this festival being documented any more in-depth. From the sweat dripping off Richie Havens’ back to a child squatting and taking a poo, everything that happened over those three days is here. And granted, some moments of it are more interesting than others. But the impressiveness and dedication of the documentary team is worth applauding in itself and it really is hard to imagine another music documentary ever replicating this feat.
A holy grail for people fascinated with this era of music and the legend that is the Woodstock festival itself.
Score: 70/100