Friday, September 14, at 7:00 pm
in the Rainbow Room
Faith and Film Night returns in September with the Academy Award-winning documentary on the August 1969 Woodstock concert that took place on a farm in upstate New York. An estimated 400,000 people attended the event, which ran 24 hours a day for three days.
Woodstock remains an iconic expression of the spirit of the 1960’s counter culture. However, it would have had only a fraction of its cultural influence but for director Michael Wadleigh’s remarkable documentary, edited from 120 miles of film footage supplied by sixteen cameras. It is less like watching the concert and more like experiencing it.
The entire documentary runs over three hours and the Director’s Cut, the version we’ll be seeing, is even longer. I’ve therefore selected two excerpts of about 50 minutes each, which capture the heart of the documentary and include most of its best-known sequences, ranging from Joan Baez’s a capella performance of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” to Jimi Hendrick’s unforgettable electric guitar solo of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
The film consists of about 60 percent music and 40 percent informal interviews with concert-goers; the townspeople of nearby Bethel, New York (where the concert actually took place); and even one of the men who serviced the array of porta-johns assembled for the concert. One of his sons, he said, was attending the concert; the other was in Vietnam.
Film critic Roger Ebert placed Woodstock on his list of Great Movies, writing, “Few documentaries have captured a time and place more completely, poignantly, and for that matter, entertainingly. It has a lot of music in it, photographed with a startling intimacy with the performers, but it’s not simply a music movie. . . . Wadleigh and his editors allowed each performer’s set to grow and build and double back on itself without interference; this isn’t a ‘greatest hits’ doc, and the director’s cut is even more expansive; for the first time, we learn that the notes of ‘Taps’ were associated with the Hendrix solo.”
Woodstock will be shown in the Rainbow Room on Friday, September 14, at 7:00 pm. Refreshments will be provided. If you would like to attend and need childcare, contact our office manager, Susan at skinzer@midohio.twcbc.com .