Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation

There is so much great footage, it could have been done just the other week, because everyone looks exactly the same. Every festival today has some sort of debt to Woodstock in some way.

It does bring a freshness to a story that we've heard a million times.

Some optimism is required to allow for the possibility that the chaos of Woodstock offered a template for anything, but, if you inhale deeply, the film just about achieves this microcosmic ambition.

This film offers a moving remembrance of the people, music, and extraordinary circumstances that aligned to produce a cultural touchstone.

Goodman never lets the music breathe, even slapping narration over Hendrix's masterful version of the national anthem, one of the great political statements in rock history.

Uses the perspective of nearly 50 years' hindsight to demonstrate anew how the festival was both a mess and a miracle, and implicitly argues that it was a good deal more miracle than mess.

... For one golden summer at least, there really was a beautiful truce in America. A generation united under a freaky rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” and got by with a little help from their friends.

Whereas the original Woodstock movie was essentially a concert film, this PBS Woodstock documentary attempts to fill in a lot of the behind-the-scenes blanks, much like bonus commentary does on a home-video release.

If you enjoy this Woodstock doc as much as I did, you may want to check into the growing library of concert memorabilia, including the three-hour-plus concert film and record album.

The promotors lost their shirt but oh, what they created. Fascinating stuff.