Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace and Music (Blu-ray)

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---

Is there anyone anywhere who has not seen or at least heard of "Woodstock," the event or the movie? For young people today, it may be a part of ancient history, but for all of us it's become more of a cultural phenomenon than a mere rock concert. To celebrate the 1970 film documentary of the occasion, Warner Bros. have produced several lavish box sets, "Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace and Music, the Director's Cut 40th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition," on DVD (three discs) and the one reviewed here on high-definition Blu-ray (two discs). The boxes include not only the expanded Director's Cut of the film, nearly four hours long, but a ton of additional footage, music, supplements, extras, booklets, garment patches, notes, even a Lucite lenticular display of vintage photos.

Practically everybody knows the history of the occasion, too: Held from August 15 to August 18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm near Bethel, New York, it attracted over half a million concertgoers, about ten times more people than the organizers had planned for. The event included over thirty of the country's biggest-name bands of the time, and, yes, looking back one might wonder if it was such a big deal why it didn't also include the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, or even some old-time rock-and-rollers like Elvis, Chuck Berry, or Jerry Lee Lewis. Be that as it may, the music was great, the crowds were great, the sense of community among the attendees was great, the vibes were great, the movie is great, and results have become legendary. Every big rock concert since then has tried to emulate it. The documentary, now looking and sounding better than ever, has seen to it that people will not soon forget the party.

Director Michael Wadleigh reminds us that this was the Sixties with his constant use of split screens, varying aspect ratios, and such diversions for the music, the interviews, and the scenic shots. It was a time of hippies, Vietnam, racial tensions, civil-rights movements, women's lib, flower children, free love, increased drug use, and general social upheaval. "Woodstock," the movie, captures all of that and more.

The band roster is impressive and, alphabetically, includes Arlo Guthrie; Canned Heat; Country Joe & the Fish; Country Joe McDonald alone; Creedence Clearwater Revival; Crosby, Stills, Nash, and sometimes Young; the Grateful Dead; Janis Joplin; the Jefferson Airplane; Jimi Hendrix; Joan Baez; Joe Cocker; John Sebastian; Johnny Winter; Mountain; the Paul Butterfield Blues Band; Richie Havens; Santana; Sha-Na-Na; Sly & the Family Stone; Ten Years After; and The Who. Between the main film and the bonus selections, everyone gets his and her day in the sun. Or rain. Or evening under the stars as the case may be.

In passing, two observations: First, I find it a little ironic but wholly satisfying that of all the rockers who participated in the concert--some of them still thriving, some of them not, some of them passed on--that it is the traditional, folk, and protest singer Joan Baez who just recently got nominated for a Grammy. Second, the thing I found missing on the Blu-ray disc (and the accompanying table of contents) was any indication of the new material in the Director's Cut. The old DVD (in the old snapper case) used icons to indicate the eight additional numbers in the Director's Cut not included in the original theatrical version. Still, it's a small oversight in an otherwise impressive set.

Video:
What you have to understand is that this is an on-the-spot documentary, filmed in the open under trying conditions, largely with an Eclair NPR 16 mm camera. Not that there is anything wrong with good 16 mm photography, but Cinerama it ain't. Let's be generous and say the picture quality varies considerably from scene to scene, with plenty of grain and blur on occasion. Warner engineers do their best in remastering the film and transferring it to disc using a dual-layer BD50 and a VC-1 high-definition video encode. Although most of it is fine, actually, a definite step up from the earlier standard-def DVD, it never achieves anything like today's state-of-the-art picture quality. It is what it is, sometimes outstanding, much of the time ordinary, and occasionally looking a whole lot like ordinary definition. You'll also find director Wadleigh well into the experimental Sixties with his visual style, the movie's image size varying from about 1.48:1 to 3.18:1 and everything in between. Also, don't be alarmed when you see the first fifteen or twenty minutes of the film framed in the middle of the screen with black bars all around.