Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation (2019)

Do we really need another movie about Woodstock? In this fiftieth anniversary year of the August 1969 ‘Music and Arts Festival’, attended by nearly five hundred thousand (mostly) young people, the short answer is an emphatic Yes!

The 1970 movie Woodstock was also a documentary, but remembered (correctly) as primarily a concert film. It was released just seven months after the event and itself became a celebration, and a box office phenomenon – earning about $50,000,000 (around $325,000,000 in 2019 dollars) – the fifth biggest film that year.

The new picture, Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation, produced  by PBS and American Experience Films, includes a bit of the music, but focusses most of its attention on telling the story of the generational change that was sweeping the nation in the years prior to the Festival, the remarkable difficulties faced by the young, mostly inexperienced promoters attempting to mount the event; the near disaster of unexpectedly humongous crowds, heat, rain, lack of food and much more; the surprisingly great peace-love-understanding vibe and cooperation of the countercultural attendees; the positive reaction of the rural neighbors in nearby Bethel, NY; and the sense of an era defined. Unlike the 1970 movie, Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation has the benefit of fifty years perspective and uses it well.

It’s an excellent retrospective. Emmy and Peabody award-winning director Barak Goodman sure knows how to put a documentary together. Just how Woodstock came to be is a pretty incredible story in itself. The film’s evocation of the late Sixties is beautifully done. I got to see it at the Tribeca Film Festival a couple weeks ago. As a member of the Sixties generation, I was fascinated, enthralled and touched as I watched – seeing these tens of thousands of young people - just like me back then - enjoying themselves, listening to amazing music, feeling free, understanding themselves, with no small degree of wonder, to be part of a generation united – or so it seemed. It all made me both elated and sad. Sad for the promise unfulfilled.  When it was over, I wanted to see it all over again.

Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation will have a theatrical release beginning the end of May 2019. It will  be shown on PBS stations beginning in August, but this is one that really deserves to be seen on the big screen.  

96 minutes.

Grade A.

Premiering on PBS's American Experience beginning early August 2019.