WOODSTOCK (WB, 1970) D: Michael Wadleigh, w/ Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin. Rating: NNNNN DVD package: NNNN Rating: NNNNN
This is a reissue of the 40-minutes-longer director’s cut from 1994. It’s worth covering here partly for the stellar bonus disc’s highly informative one-hour making-of doc and a total of 18 performances, including five by bands that played the festival but didn’t make it into the film (the Grateful Dead, Paul Butterfield, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Johnny Winter and Mountain).
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Working with four camera crews and no synch sound director, Michael Wadleigh captures the joy and misery of the renowned three-day music festival and marries the crowd images to performances by great artists in their prime. The result is one of the best documentaries and concert movies ever made.
The downside is the kitschy packaging and junk inserts: photos, ticket and message facsimiles, imitation souvenirs from an event you didn’t attend – more proof, as if you needed it, that the Woodstock generation sold out.
EXTRAS Discs one and two: the movie, 60s museum ad. Widescreen. English audio. English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Thai subtitles. Disc three: 18 performances, making-of doc. Widescreen.