Woodstock (film)

Woodstock
Film poster
Directed by	Michael Wadleigh
Produced by	Bob Maurice
Edited by	Michael Wadleigh, Martin Scorsese, Stan Warnow, Yeu-Bun Yee, Jere Huggins and Thelma Schoonmaker
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release dates	March 26, 1970
Running time	184 min.
Language	English
Budget	$600,001 (estimated)

Woodstock (subtitled "3 Days of Peace & Music") is a 1970 documentary on the Woodstock Festival in 1969. The film was directed by Michael Wadleigh and was edited by (amongst others) Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker; Schoonmaker was nominated for an Academy Award for Film Editing. It received the Academy Award for Documentary Feature, as well as a nomination for Best Sound. The Official Director's Cut spans 225 minutes. There is also a solo DVD release of Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock. VH1 Classic occasionally airs the Director's Cut version of the documentary.

Artists by appearance

number	group / singer	title
1.*	Crosby, Stills & Nash	Long Time Gone
2.*		Wooden Ships*
3.*	Canned Heat	Going Up the Country
4.	Richie Havens	Handsome Johnny
5.		Freedom
6.	Canned Heat	A Change Is Gonna Come**
7.	Joan Baez	Joe Hill
8.		Swing Low Sweet Chariot
9.	The Who	We're Not Gonna Take It/See Me Feel Me
10.		Summertime Blues
11.	Sha-Na-Na	At the Hop
12.	Joe Cocker and the Grease Band	With a Little Help from My Friends
13.		Crowd Rain Chant
14.	Country Joe and the Fish	Rock and Soul Music
15.	Arlo Guthrie	Coming Into Los Angeles
16.	Crosby, Stills and Nash	Suite: Judy Blue Eyes
17.	Ten Years After	I'm Going Home
18.	Jefferson Airplane	Saturday Afternoon/ Won't You Try**
19.		Uncle Sam's Blues**
20.	John Sebastian	Younger Generation
21.	Country Joe McDonald	FISH Cheer/Feel-Like-I'm-Fixing-to-Die-Rag
22.	Santana	Soul Sacrifice
23.	Sly and the Family Stone	Dance To The Music/I Want To Take You Higher
24.	Janis Joplin	Work Me, Lord**
25.	Jimi Hendrix	Voodoo Child**
26.		The Star-Spangled Banner
27.		Purple Haze & Instrumental Solo
28.*	Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young	Woodstock

*) opening and final credits (no stage performance)
**) not in the original version, only in the directors cut

Trivia

• The documentary was reportedly edited from 120 miles of footage shot at the three-day concert.
• While they don't appear in the film, or on the soundtrack, a number of other artists played at Woodstock, such as The Grateful Dead, Incredible String Band, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Johnny Winter and Ravi Shankar played through the rain. Ironically, it was because of the Dead that Creedence doesn't appear; John Fogerty complained that the Dead jammed way past their scheduled slot, and thus most of the audience was tuned out when Creedence took the stage. Fogerty felt the band's appearance was sub-par, and asked that it not be included in the film.
• Two of the film's six editors were the future multiple-award winning director Martin Scorsese, and Scorsese's frequent film editor Thelma Schoonmaker.
• Short portions of the film are featured in the 1971 sci-fi movie The Omega Man. Charlton Heston goes to watch Woodstock in an abandoned theatre ("Good show! Held over for the third straight year.") in post-apocalyptic Los Angeles. The segments shown include Arlo Guthrie, Country Joe & The Fish, and an anonymous hippie attendee whose remarks Heston mutters along with.

• The film is rated R by the MPAA for drug content, nudity, and language, even though the original festival was all-ages.

External links

• Woodstock at IMDb

Further reading

• Dave Saunders, Direct Cinema: Observational Documentary and the Politics of the Sixties, London, Wallflower Press 2007