Taking Woodstock – Review
Well it’s the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock music festival this month; I’ve always loved the 1970 documentary Woodstock and was anxious to see what Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock was going to have to offer. Instead of simply retelling the story of Woodstock and having you watch a history of the event, you see it unfold as if you were there behind the scenes not knowing what to expect and watching it come together from nothing. I smiled ear to ear throughout the entire movie. But I should warn you not to go into the movie expecting it to really be a comedy. There were some laughs to be had but it’s a subtle and clever situational kind of humor. I guess I would describe it as a ‘feel good’ movie, which is something I loved about it.
Quick synopsis: When a young man’s blind ambition gets the best of him worlds collide as he turns his tiny conservative Catskills town into the stage for the Woodstock music festival. The protagonist Elliot (Demetri Martin) starts out with nothing but his optimism as he tries to save his parents’ motel and consequently becomes responsible for an event that defines his generation.
I never really know what to expect from Ang Lee, and I don’t mean whether or not I’ll enjoy the movie; I usually do, I mean his films run the gamut of movie genres. It’s hard to imagine the same person directing Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hulk and Brokeback Mountain. I can’t name anything they have in common besides Ang Lee. And I have to hand it to the guy, he definitely has a mastery of pacing, and Taking Woodstock is a perfect example. Even though it only ran two hours and one minute, it felt closer to two and a half hours. Not because it was running slow at all, it actually has a very organic pacing to it. It’s that Lee manages to fit a great deal of events into the movie without it feeling rushed or forced into a standard movie length.
There were also some creatively used production elements that added greatly to creating the hectic and overwhelming energy of Woodstock. For instance the use of multi-channel video sprinkled into the movie letting you watch the actions of many people at once and giving you the sense that all of this movement and action surrounds you. Every now and again there were even some handheld shots enhancing the feelings of disorder happening behind the scenes of the legendary festival. The filmmakers did a hell of a job recreating Woodstock; since there were points where it switched to 8mm footage I was curious if they used any footage from the Woodstock documentary. Looking into it I found out that there wasn’t any use of actual Woodstock footage. They in fact created scenes with hundreds of cars going back for miles and fields of people; this movie has to break some kind of record for extras.
I think that some people who see the film might be upset that the musicians who played Woodstock are never actually shown and the music is only heard from a distance and never featured. I have to disagree with them. Lets be honest 95% of the people who went to Woodstock never got to actually see the bands. It’s about a shared experience of people who just wanted, even for 3 days, to be free. And without a doubt Taking Woodstock captures that search for freedom.
Rating: 
