Taking Woodstock

♡

source: Taking Woodstock

"Even Woodstock turned out to be a disaster. Everybody was stuck in the mud and people got sick." Johnny Rivers Without the music of Joplin, Hendrix, or Dylan this depiction of the rising energy of the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival seems no more than the account of putting together any concert set in a New York meadow in the late sixties. Yet it retains the wonder of the young people, for whom freedom was truly "another word for nothing left to lose." Eliot Teichberg (Demetri Martin) is as laid back as actor Elliot Gould of that era, helping his parents navigate the daunting sea of troubles for a concert on their Catskills farm that will host hundreds of thousands of hippies and hoodlums, all dedicated to profiting spiritually or financially from what looked like a small event until it became a part of the lexicon and imagination of the modern American rebellious age. In a way, the Teichbergs' saving their farm in White Lake, N.Y. represents the salvation of America from the horrors of Vietnam and assassinations. Director Ang Lee, who has helmed much more powerful fare such as Brokeback Mountain and Crouching Tiger, still has a winning way with characters as he highlights their individual charms and weaknesses set against a much broader cultural canvas. Eliot can be an ambitious Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) in The Graduate; Liev Schrieber's cross-dressing Vilma comingles the sex and security of the freedom movement; Imelda Staunton's over-the-top angry mother of Eliot is a worst-case of a mother fighting change and a good actress poorly directed. Lee is at his best when he directs the crowd making fun with the mud and muck on the rain-soaked field. The aftermath may not resemble the end of the Civil War as in Gone with the Wind, but it does have the afterglow of a culture that has had an * of titanic proportions. It feels pretty good 40 years later when fighting for freedom just ain't the same.

I worshiped the youth culture from afar in the late sixties. I was too young to participate but did my best to disrupt jr. high assemblies with the Fish cheer. I didn't know about the Woodstock Festival until two weeks after it occurred, and I remember how much I hated being oppressed by a traditional establishment patriarchy who wouldn't even drive me across town to an anti-war demonstration. When I finally saw the documentary the following year, I knew I had missed something that was epic and iconic. (Big sigh...) I had been looking forward to "Taking Woodstock" since I first read that it was in production. I was particularly eager to see Demetri Martin in a starring role; I've admired him for some time. I've also spent quality time in the Catskills--I love that part of the country. Lee's film certainly captures the beauty of White Lake, and generally recreates the groove and vibe of a specific time and place, but the narrative seemed somehow disjointed (unintentional pun) There seemed to be too many empty moments substituting for poignancy, and undeveloped stories that might have added a bit more depth to Lee's tale. Demetri Martin as Eliot Teber, was adorable but I was frustrated by his poker face (something that makes his stage comedy hilarious). I enjoyed Liev Schreiber whose drag was not only believable, but also compelling. Henry Goodman, as Eliot's beleaguered father, was also finely developed, but Imelda Stauntan played his mother as a shrewish fishwife with virtually no redeeming character qualities. Not even after pot brownies. Seeing "Taking Woodstock" makes me miss my long lost soundtrack of the original concert, something I shall remedy this weekend. I'm also eager to watch the documentary again with it's hippie-trippie split screens and portraits of long gone poets, artists, and other kindred spirits.

A gay Jewish guy manages to get the Woodstock festival to take place in his sleepy town in upstate New York, unaware of the cultural significance the event will gain. While dealing with permits, hippies, war vets, and angry locals, he meets various weird characters, the most interesting being a drag queen played by Liev Shreiber. What hurts this film is it's insistence on following a boring character around instead of focusing on more interesting people, and clocking in at two hours, it takes too long to tell its story. Also, the usually great Imelda Staunton plays the grossest, most stereotypical Jewish person I've seen on film, who literally cannot control herself around money. The 'Woodstock' documentary remains the best window into this historic concert.

We watched Taking Woodstock several hours ago and we had no idea what this film was about. I think that this is an important comment because this film had virtually nothing to do with previous Woodstock films; it was completely different and if you knew nothing about the festival beforehand then you would not know what all the hoopla was about. Why, because the film deals with all the side events of this great happening. It deals with aspects of the event that had not even occurred to me to consider: how did they obtain the permission; who gave that permission; who were the people closest to the determination, in fact who were these people and how did the event impact on their lives? Ang Lee, the director, is a genius! He directed a film about a major historical event without dealing with the event. I kept thinking of the movie Bobby which dealt with the people who worked at the hotel where Robert Kennedy was killed; that movie was not about the killing but it was about the people who worked in the kitchen and cleaned rooms and worked at the Desk. I remember IMDb comments about how bad the film was because it did not throw light on the actual events. Much the same could be said about this film although I have yet to read anything that people have written about it. I was totally involved in the film. It never lagged; visually it was extremely interesting due to the soft analysis of the people involved: the diner locals who hated the hippie invasion; Elliot's mother who, in my opinion, stole every scene she was in; the TV guy who handled the security; the cop who took Elliot through the crowds on his police motorcycle; these personal scenes were all little jewels. See the film, you will not be disappointed.

This movie has its moments, but we don't come to really care about a single character in it, except for the brief roles played by Liev Schreiber and Emile Hirsch. And there is much more wrong with the movie than right, starting with the pointless split-screen sequences that director Ang Lee seems to have patented. Factual accuracy is in doubt. His self-aggrandizing book aside, Elliott Tiber evidently had very little, if anything, to do with the staging of Woodstock at Max Yasgur's farm. As played by Demetri Martin (never heard of him? 'nuf said), he has no charm, no wit, no staying power. Ironically, the strongest, most resonant moment is probably when the first (of very, very few) rock songs sound out-- Jim Morrison singing "Maggie M'Gill." Problem is, The Doors weren't at Woodstock, and that song came out the following year, on the 1970 "Live in Philadelphia" album. I'm a Doors fan, but why not use music from the three-day concert? None of it any good? Nobody but nobody -- not then, not now, not ever-- smokes a joint as if it was a cigarette. I thought Bill Clinton was the only one who "didn't inhale" until I saw the characters in this movie. Most dishonest moment of all: After ample nudity, full-frontal male and female, we get this: When Tiber finally wakes up with a male lover, he climbs out of bed wearing briefs. Ang Lee pours on the clichés about naked and/or inane drugged hippies, but when it comes to a bit of actual sexual reality, he's strictly Fruit of the Loom. All of which I endured until the movie went formula: Tiber's parents are established early as old-fashioned (to say the least-- they're stock characters, stereotypical farm folk), so I feared they would end up tripping or stoned, the way so many stock characters start out cantankerous so they can be transformed and assimilated for the sentimental ending. And sure enough, the scene inevitably came: they both ate hash brownies and danced like pagans. This is the last movie I'll see by Ang Lee. Hulk, Ice Storm, Brokeback Mountain, Ride With the Devil-- he can suck the energy out of anything, even sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll.

What a waste of film and money (my $8.50 to be exact). This movie took a great idea - examining the epic event by looking at the periphery, and turned it into a boring melange of stereotypes and a young man coming to grips with his homosexuality. The acting was okay, the recreation of 1960's Catskills good, the film style and editing horrid. The central theme should have been the concert and how the community of White Lake responded. Instead, the main characters personal journey (LSD, homosexuality, business) was made central. I couldn't care less. Not enough music. Too much in the way of stereotypes of every kind (elderly Jews = horrible accent + cholent, hippies = VW bus + acid, gays = bizarre cross dresser). The depiction of the main character's mother was outrageous and criminal. Rent the original Woodstock or A Walk on the Moon. Skip this bad "trip".

Taking Woodstock - Ang Lee's skewered look at the most notorious concert of all time from the point of view of...wait for it...the kid who organized it and never actually watched the concert. Sounds like a blast right? I had almost as much fun at this film as I did at Jarhead back in '05. Do not go to this film if you want to hear music from the actual concert. The main character taunts us by carelessly mentioning the bands and singers at the start of the film, and we never see/hear any of them. Stealing the thunder of the most famous concert of our time is Eliot Teichberg (Demetri Martin), sporting a hairstyle and personality straight out of a Wes Anderson film. His journey is just plain not interesting. It sounds like it would be more interesting to have read the real person's book, where he meets numerous famous people and gets involved in riots for being a homosexual. That sounds like a better film than one that constantly cheats an audience out of a great concert in exchange for Jethro Tull. My guess is that they simply couldn't get the rights. It's a film that focuses on all the wrong things. It focuses on sneaking gay love under our noses rather than making any sort of statement, as the actual writer did, about it. A film that spends more time on the preparation involved in preparing a space for a million and a half people to watch a concert, as opposed to the concert itself. I was reminded once of Kevin Smith doing stand-up and explaining why he would never direct an action film. His version of "The Green Hornet" would have involved the guys sitting around and talking about dick jokes. They see a fight occurring off-screen and go break it up, then go back to dishing about movies and whatnot. This is that equivalent. I could give the film points for the way it sweetly delivers nudity and intimacy of both hetero and homosexual variety, but I instantly take those away for the offensive Jewish stereo-typing of Imelda Staunton's character, Mrs. Teichberg, as a money grubbing witch. She is a stereotype and worse, a two-dimensional one. The hippies, too, are exactly what you would expect. I guess Elliot was the only normal guy experiencing a life-changing event. Only Liev Schreiber salvages some entertainment value as a witty crossdresser. I never knew Woodstock could be so dull, tame and boring. D+

As a fan of Ang Lee, Dimitri Martin, and Emile Hirsch I decided to ignore all of the reviews that said this movie wasn't that great. I hoped for the best that they were wrong, critics have been wrong before, so this wasn't all wishful thinking for me. Anyways I was let down, this movie was cheesy it had all these moments that were supposed to be of great importance but they just didn't live up to that. This is one of those movies that really could have been great, it was knocking on the door of greatness but too many of the pieces didn't fit. I felt that a number of the actors thought that they were in a different film everyone was playing to their own beat and because of that we were left with a largely unbalanced movie. One of the weakest links within this film was the role of Michael played by Johnathan Groff, I am not saying Groff isn't talented I think he did the best with what he was given but the part all in all was ridiculous. Its played out like Groff is some kind of omniscient at peace presence within the sixties movement, the pinnacle of a chilled out zen like figure head for the woodstock movement. To me this all came off as ridiculously contrived and unrealistic, every moment he was on screen I cringed at the awkwardness that was taking place. This movie is stuffed full of underdeveloped characters. Really the only two characters I had any attraction to were the two acid people Elliot meets on his walk to woodstock. They seemed like the types you would have run into in that time. My respect for Ang Lee has gone down a few notches, I cant help but to wonder if he realized mid filming that this film wasn't going to work. That it was going to be a decent film but not what he had hoped for. Emile Hirsch's part as a Vietnam vet gone crazy is well meaning but simply doesn't work, I will say Emile gave this role everything he could but at the end of the day it just wasn't very well written. And he wasn't given enough time to develop this person. Its such a shame that this movie is bad, because I truly feel that it could have been a really fantastic film going experience if only handled in a slightly different manner, not focusing on people as such blatant clichés. All of the actors try hard, but the writing and directing were pathetic on this film.