Ang Lee’s new movie, “Taking Woodstock,” is due in theaters on August 28, 2009. After watching the preview a half-dozen times, and then seeing a documentary about the 1969 music festival, I started to wonder, “will there be hairy armpits in this reenactment of Woodstock?”
The characters in the new movie are very clean, very colorful and bright. They sport manicured beards, not the type I saw in the documentary, the kind of beard growing halfway down a man’s neck and halfway up his cheeks. The girls all look freshly washed with long, flowing shampooed locks.
The real Woodstock rocked the world of those who attended, but also muddied their of feet. The festival pulled in 500,000 people without access to proper bathroom facilities, but somehow I don’t think this film will capture that particular essence of Woodstock.
“Taking Woodstock” seems to be a look back through rose-colored glasses at the famed festival, and that’s okay, but Ang Lee’s interpretation doesn’t appear to be a true depiction of Woodstock. Perhaps I’ll be proven wrong, but I think not.
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Last Sunday night, Inside Dateline did an hour on Woodstock. They interviewed some of the organizers and participants.
One striking point was made by someone who was there. (I think it was the guy who was in the seminar, and had a new outlook on life after)
I haven’t verified this, but he said one year after Woodstock Jimmy Hendrix and Janis Joplin were both dead. Drugs! WOW—what a waste.