 What a long weekendit was.
Any film recollection of those wonderful three days back then is a gift to keep and cherish.
 WOODSTOCK!
NO! I didn't go to Woodstock!
So there!
I'm not gonna be one of the millions! who claim they were there.
If all the people were there who claim they were there the crowd would have numbered 20,000,000!
A great event and great music!
Long live 1969!
(I graduated high school that year!)
Long Live "The WHO!"
 WOODSUCK !
I was thinking of buying this item, but after reading the reviews, and finding out just what is NOT included in it, I said SKIP it!! All the other bands that did not make it to the previous versions are NOT on here. I guess in order to see them you have to have a BLU-RAY player, which I don`t have, and in these tight times, do not plan to get.(In my opinion BLU-RAY is a waste of money, once you get used to it, you would`nt want to go back to standard, so your hooked on it and its higher prices). This is a NOT SO SPECIAL EDITION. How many years will it take before the regular people can have the full version. Maybe I`ll get the 50th anniversary version! PASSSSS! "Hey You, Get Off Those Towers"
The Woodstock Myth
Barring the emergence of some unknown auteur who was able to organize the filming of every moment of the experience from a hundred different angles, then brilliantly organize the result into a never boring thirty hour film, this is probably the best we are going to get by way of a visualization of the event which has reached mythic dimensions, The Woodstock Myth. With brevity, it is the story of how young people from all over the country came together for three days, peaceably assembled , existing as a self-sufficient commune, practicing the ways of the new counter-culture, together with like-minded and supportive musicians, to show the world that The Good, The True and The Beautiful could be made actual even in the brutal, repressive, exploitative world to which the counterculture was a challenge. Much supportive evidence is manifest in the photographed behavior and interviews with participants, as well residents, of nearby Woodstock and environs.
I would venture another interpretation that would, I believe, provide a more solid cognitive foundation for understanding what went on in these three days (in addition to much fine music, not including the efforts of a Woodstock resident who fled his home in the area to avoid the event (Bob Dylan). What I see in this film, suggested not clearly and forcefully exposed, is a large group of mostly middle class young people coming together to do their thing while wrapped in a cocoon of army, law-enforcement agencies, local and area "civilians" and a whole panoply of efforts by the "older folk", despite not understanding that "the times they are a-changing". What do I mean....briefly:
All normal laws applicable to their drug possession and use were suspended, all local ordinances regarding public behavior and dress and health facilities were suspended, major life saving medical assistance was provided by the military and other branches of government, public officials and charitable local citizens provided most of the food which they ate, property laws later enforced rigorously at Rock Festivals (a price for admission, respect for the property of the surrounding area and of the promoters) were suspended, including, at an anticipated heavy financial loss to promoters, allowing non-paying individuals to tear down the peripheral fences so as to attend free of charge, when others had purchased tickets. Traffic direction on a very expensive scale and many other routines of life were carried on at no financial cost or burden to participants. Finally, but sufficient unto this report, there are the pictures and interviews suggesting (though inadequate to do more than create a hypothesis for further testing) that Daddy and Mommy stood ready, whatever the circumstances in which their "kids" found themselves, once more to embrace them and support them financially and, perhaps emotionally, to whatever extent needed.
Further research, if possible, would show the later cost to life and limb, and human happiness, of the kind of behavior to which they were allowed full rein at Woodstock. Of those performing, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix are shocking examples of the cost of the road once taken, performers paid an enormous personal price of which we are probably not fully aware. For the audience, anecdotal evidence exists in what one knows personally about some participants; the full cost in physical, mental and social terms, will probably never be known.
On the other hand, the social interaction, the sex, the drugs, the contagion of crowd impulses, and the music with often charismatic performers, certainly provided many with some relief from the desperate fear of the men, generated by the risk they faced of having to engage in the dreadful experience of military conflict, relief also was provided both male and female, to the angst of youth and the knowledge they possessed that, despite the enormous wealth with which they were surrounded, social inequities and dehumanization occurring throughout the world.
Certainly, this documentary can be recommended highly despite the brief sampling from each of the musician's sets.
Just how one may interpret the myth so eagerly propagated by participants as manifest in the film, is a matter for each viewer to judge. There will be many, of course, who seek only to hear the music; there is plenty of that although not as much as one would like.
Woodstock
Great movie about the time of the late 60`s If only young people would try and understand the story that deals with NO
VIOLENCE. Great music
|
