Woodstock

Describing Woodstock as a concert movie is a little like calling Notre Dame a house of worship. In its scope and grandeur, its feel for the paradoxical nature of an event in which half a million middle-class bohemians created their own scruffy, surging community — a metropolis of mud — Woodstock remains the one true rock-concert spectacle, a counterculture Triumph of the Will. [1994] Read full review

Terrific concert documentary...The film that resulted — a roughly though not strictly chronological document of the much-publicized event — is an outstanding documentary, a joyful musical experience and a playful artifact of an era. [2019] Read full review

The remarkable thing about Wadleigh's film is that it succeeds so completely in making us feel how it must have been to be there. [2005] Read full review

Wadleigh crafted a film with a thoughtful flow; it tells the full story of the event, from the paranoia (and eventual acceptance) of the locals to the helpful attitudes (and eventual paranoia) of the throng. [1994 version] Read full review

Woodstock captures the spirit of itself quite well, and much of what we take for granted now in music videos and stage performance was shaped not only by the festival but by Wadleigh's film. [17 Aug 1989, p.C7]

Now, as ever, "Woodstock" is not just a great slice-of-time documentary but still the ultimate rock concert movie: A quarter-century of advances hasn't brought about any real improvements on the multiple-camera filming techniques or even significantly dated the split-screen effects and varying aspect ratio tricks. The advent of digital sound, on the other hand, has given the remixed soundtrack a theatrical glory unknown a generation ago. At this pristine volume, Jimi Hendrix's concluding bit may not be quite suitable for anyone with a heart condition, which would constitute more of the Woodstock nation than some of us might like to consider. [29 June 1994, p.F6]

If the 1960s political thrust of the movie is somewhat blunted by the passage of time, the historical, even archival, import of Wadleigh's accomplishment is all the more striking. This is a documentary in the purest sense of that word, in that it "documents" a social and cultural benchmark, the coming together of more than 400,000 young people in the meadows of a dairy farm in upstate New York for what was billed as "three days of peace and music"--but turned out to be much more. [Director's Cut] Read full review