Woodstock, 3 Days Of Peace And Music

Whether it's the music that transcends time and has come to symbolize an era or the images that have defined a generation, the reasons to own this collection will be unique. By having the vision to see the bigger picture and the connections and skills to put together the right team, Michael Lang and his group became the architects of this landmark film. The film documents the naivety, hope, and innocence of movement that had by 1969 come to full maturity. It has been said that Woodstock was the end of the hippie movement—others have said that it was the culmination of a belief in optimism. Director Michael Wadleigh and Producer Bob Maurice, assisted by a young Martin Scorsese, filmed the three-day concert using 365,000 feet of 16mm film and hand-held Éclair NPR 16mm cameras. The ability to move close to, and amongst, the artists, audience, and organizers has made this a reference music and social documentary. Originally released in a "truncated" 184 minutes, the 40th Anniversary version runs 240 minutes and has an additional 18 tracks of rare or never-before-seen footage. (Simon Spears)

The only special feature on Disc One of this two-disc set is BD-Live interactivity. Disc Two is the supplement disc and includes the ability to Customize Your Own Woodstock Playlist (1.33:1; 1080p/24; Dolby Digital 5.1)—viewers can either choose to create custom playlists of these additional performances from Woodstock or play them all together: "One Day at a Time" by Joan Baez, "Flying High" by Country Joe McDonald, "Evil Ways" by Santana, "I'm Her Man" by Canned Heat, "Beside the Sea" by Mountain, "Southbound Train" by Mountain, "Turn on Your Love Light" by the Grateful Dead, "Born on the Bayou" by Creedence Clearwater Revival, "I Put a Spell on You" by Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Keep on Chooglin" by Creedence Clearwater Revival, "We're Not Gonna Take It" by The Who, "My Generation" by The Who, "3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds" by Jefferson Airplane, "Something's Coming On" by Joe Cocker, "Mean Town Blues" by Johnny Winter, "Morning Sunrise" by Paul Butterfield, and "Teen Angel" by Sha Na Na.
An hour of additional featurettes include: Behind The Story (1.78:1; 1080i/60; "upscaled"); The Museum At Bethel Woods, hosted by Vernon Reid of Living Colour; Opening of Festival (1.33:1; 1080p/24; Dolby Digital 5.1); Closing of Festival (1.33:1; 1080p/24; Dolby Digital 5.1); Woodstock: From Festival to Feature (1.78:1; 1080p/24); The Camera—Director Michael Wadleigh and Associate Producer Dale Bell discuss the Éclair NPR 16mm camera used by the filmmakers to document the Woodstock festival; 365,000 Feet of Film—Bell discusses; Shooting Stage—Wadleigh discusses the logic of having his crew shoot around the lip of the performance stage. As opposed to tripods, the filmmakers felt that having the cameramen be able to get right up on stage conveyed more of a sense of energy than having the cameras in a fixed position. The Lineup—Michael Lang, the festival's executive producer, and some of the acts discuss how the festival's lineup was chosen; Holding the Negative Hostage—Bell discusses an incident involving Technicolor, Warner Bros., and a mysterious second negative being printed and sent off to Warner Bros. that prompted the filmmakers to shut down editing and temporarily put all of their footage under armed security; Announcements—"Don't take the brown acid," or something like that; Suits vs. Longhairs—Wadleigh and Bell discuss their battle with Warner studio executives to get the film released the way they wanted it; Documenting History; Woodstock: The Journey—how the hundreds of thousands of attendees and performers made their way to the legendary festival; Pre-Production—the crew once again discusses the patchwork and piecemeal nature in which the documentary was put together; Production; Synchronization—the difficulties involved in synching the audio soundtracks to the film completely by eye and documenting everything by hand are discussed in this brief segment; The Crowd; No Rain! No Rain!—the famous Woodstock mud and rain are discussed in this featurette; 3 Days in a Truck—Eddie Kramer, the location music engineer, talks about the challenges of recording the show; The Woodstock Effect—a discussion of how the festival, album, and film helped to catapult many of the acts to super stardom; Living up to Idealism—the social and political legacy of Woodstock is the spotlight of this brief featurette; The World's Longest Optical—the director talks about how they blew up the 16mm format they shot in to 70mm for screening the film; Critical Acclaim—a look at the critical reception and acceptance of Woodstock; Courtesy of The Museum at Bethel Woods: The Hog Farm Commune—the hippie commune setup by Wavy Gravy helped out with food kitchens and "freak out" centers for people on bad acid trips; and Hugh Hefner and Michael Wadleigh: The Woodstock Connection—excerpts from the 1970's show "Playboy After Dark." Also included in the leather, fringe case is a lucite display with images from the festival, a 60-page commemorative Life Magazine reprint, an iron-on Woodstock patch (and who wouldn't want that?), a Woodstock fact sheet, and reproductions of festival memorabilia—including handwritten notes and a three-day ticket.

The 40th Anniversary Blu-ray Disc™ edition from Warner comes in high-definition 1080p/24 VC-1 encoding that preserves the theatrical appearance very well. Considering the age of the original, the transfer has been done as well as can be expected. The fact that this was filmed as a documentary, as much as a concert, gives the production a very polished feel. The time and attention given to the restoration makes this the best-looking version of Woodstock to date. (Simon Spears)

The sound was mixed on an 8-track machine with only seven tracks devoted to the mics. These had to record not only the artists and their instruments, but also the crowd and announcers. It's not surprising that these limitations become obvious, particularly with the bands featuring more members and instruments. However, the Dolby® TrueHD 5.1 (48kHz/16-bit) lossless mix is a big improvement, with vocals and each instrument (as long as it got a mic) intelligible and relatively smooth. The fact that some performances have truly excellent sound is remarkable. (Simon Spears)