Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace and Music

Next month commemorates the fortieth anniversary of what most believe to be an event that can never be recreated and an experience that can never be relived in its essence. And, from all that has been written about it, documented, adapted on film or captured on audio, there is only one timeless piece of work that has allowed future generations to come close to being a part of what was nothing short of a phenomenon. Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace and Music was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. TIME magazine once rated Woodstock as being one of the two greatest accomplishments by all of mankind, the other being landing on the moon.

It’s not known if director Michael Wadleigh, while filming the festival, had gauged the significance of his undertaking to future generations, but watching this documentary it’s hard to believe otherwise. Wadleigh has painstakingly sniffed out every story he possibly could and given the time and equipment at hand, shot the festival with an incredible cinematographic sense, not sparing any view, from the panoramic perspective of the helicopter which gauges the spectrum of what was then described as ”˜the third largest city in New York’ to the most intimate portrait of an emblematic ideology. He wields that camera as if it were just another drifter at the festival ”“ in conversations with fellow beats, edging around camp settlements ”“ and that drifter unwittingly represents the many of us who weren’t even born at the time, sincerely evoking a sentiment of being there. This story is told right from the start, from the opinions of locals about the whole affair to beatniks settling in on the site and industrious festival creator Michael Lang roving the landscape on his Harley, overlooking the construction of the monumental stage. The countryside quickly metamorphoses into a sea of vagrants and drifters, a sudden burst of colour with music lovers emphatically preaching the religion of peace. One of the most defining shots that captures the conscience of the flower generation is that of silhouettes dancing against a pale blue evening sky, with Canned Heat’s ”˜Going Up The Country’ playing as background score. Given the vastness of the venue and the multitudes there, the use of montages lends some great insights into the festival, at the same time allowing the viewer to get a well-rounded perspective. In exploring the motivations and inspirations of these young radicals in conversations with them, this documentary effortlessly arrests the pulse of the beat consciousness and its minions with striking resonance.

Here is a little bit of trivia, the first performance that you see at Woodstock, that of Richie Havens, was not given permission to film by the artist, so if you notice the camera hasn’t got straight shots of him but sneaks shots from below the stage where Havens would not notice he was being filmed. Whatever Havens’ apprehensions were at the time, this documentary was instrumental popularising the artist. The live recordings on Woodstock are perhaps the best sonic experiences one could ask for; even concerts that have happened to date with state-of-the-art sound systems would easily pale in front of this string of almost perfect performances. And the unrivalled variety of music, featuring artists from diverse genres but bound by the overriding sentiment of the Sixties, from Joan Baez to Ravi Shankar, Santana to Jefferson Airplane, Hendrix to The Grateful Dead, CCR to The Who amongst thirty legendary acts, perhaps cannot be bested even today. This one sincerely makes you regret your not having been there for absolutely no fault of your own.