Rehashes all the familiar clichés of the period

howard.schumann

The so-called hippie movement of the 1960s was never about peace and love, though that was part of it, nor was it about hedonistic fun, though that too was a part. Actually, it was not even a movement but a cultural phenomenon whose essence was space exploration, inner space. Saturated by false images from the mass media, young people sought an experience of self, an adventure of discovery of their true nature while attempting to strip away the false veneer of commercialism that passed for accepted values. Though the phenomenon petered out in the late sixties, co-opted by the media and by venal drug dealers, the summer of 1969 brought a new burst of celebration of self in the Woodstock Festival, one of the seminal events of the decade.

Held in White Lake, N.Y. from August 15 to August 18, 1969, the Festival included thirty two performers including Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Credence Clearwater Revival, Joan Baez, Ravi Shankar, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and many others who performed before 500,000 people. While fears of looting, drug overdoses, and rioting were ratcheted up by the media, nothing of the sort took place though rain turned the field into mud and bathrooms were in short supply. In spite of a few incidents, nearly half a million people showed that quality music, the freedom of the spirit, and a feeling of harmony can lead to a successful event.

If you are looking for an authentic experience of Woodstock, however, you will not find it in Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock, a film that recycles all the grossest stereotypes of the sixties perpetrated over the last forty years. Written by James Schamus, the film is based on the memoir Taking Woodstock: The True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life by Elliot Tiber and Tom Monte. It follows the true story of Elliot Teichberg, (Demetri Martin), an interior designer who lives in Greenwich Village and spends his weekends trying to help his elderly parents Sonia and Jack (Imelda Staunton and Henry Goodman) run an 80-room Hotel in Bethel, N.Y.

Teichberg is also the head of Bethel's Chamber of Commerce and has issued an "Arts and Festival" permit to himself for what he has planned as a small chamber music festival. Following the ban on a rock concert in nearby Wallkill because the portable toilets were allegedly not up to code, however, Elliot offers to host the event, hoping to raise money for the hotel to ward off foreclosure. When the land in the back of the motel is shown to be a swamp, Teichberg contacts dairy farmer Max Yasger (Eugene Levy), whose 600-acre lot proves to be the field of dreams for the Festival promoter and organizer Michael Lang (Jonathan Groff).

When the crowd becomes massive, the word "free" is casually mentioned at a press conference, bringing thousands more to the small dairy farm in upstate New York and shutting down the New York State Thruway. Though the film brings us close to one of the great concerts in the last century, Lee shows only peripheral events that take place in and around the Festival and, without the music, the film has neither heart nor soul. The closest Teichberg actually comes to the Festival is a hill overlooking the very distant stage where he can see the mass of people and hear faint sounds in the background that sound suspiciously like music.

Newcomer Martin's bland personality is sufficiently laid back to play the uncharismatic Teichberg, but little in the way of human interest is created, in spite of the fact that the supporting cast that includes transvestite security guard Vilma (Liev Schreiber) and disturbed Vietnam vet Emile Hirsch are strong, although Hirsch's role is little more than a caricature. Staunton's Sonia is a hysterical Jewish woman who is constantly screaming about Jewish oppression and her performance is so over-the-top that she immediately becomes the front runner for a Golden Raspberry.

Though the audience of Woodstock was mostly in their teens (and did not trust anyone over 30), Taking Woodstock is filled with twenty and thirty-something actors pretending to be free spirits and abominations such as nude theatrical troupes prancing around the stage, neither resembling recognizable human beings. While there are moments when a hint of idealism peeks through as when Elliot demonstrates his gayness with another concert-goer and when he lets go long enough to ingest LSD with a couple in a van (Paul Dano and Kelli Garner), Taking Woodstock mostly rehashes all the familiar clichés of the age that ignore the creativity of the sixties generation, their incredible music, and their voice for authenticity.

score 4/10

howard.schumann 6 September 2009

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2123021/