Doc Watch: Peace, Love & Muddy Memories

Two new(ish) documentaries on the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, neither of which, apparently, could score rights to performance footage:

CREATING WOODSTOCK (B) - A kind of bait-and-switch, this is a new release but almost all of the interviews of the producers of the iconic 1969 music festival are from the 1970s and '80s. At least their memories are much more contemporaneous that way. And this is a rather fascinating dissection of the nuts and bolts of putting on a massive music (and arts) extravaganza. We hear from the four main creators -- dreamers Michael Lang and Artie Kornfeld, and financiers Joel Rosenman and John Roberts. 

Director (curator?) Mick Richards mostly stays off-stage and sticks to the behind-the-scenes tick-tock of how it all went down. Don't expect Hendrix solos and Santana jams here. There is virtually no music from the event included here, and the incidental song selections are often clunky and incongruent. This clocks in at nearly two hours, but Richards makes good use of his time. Entertaining talking heads include Richie Havens, Arlo Guthrie and, especially, Leslie West from Mountain. Even some locals -- both for and against at the time -- offer insight into the hubbub that surrounded the last-minute switch between upstate New York locations, from Wallkill to Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel.

This is a level-headed reminiscence, shunning honey-soaked nostalgia, for the most part, in favor of a sometimes riveting explainer. 

WOODSTOCK: THREE DAYS THAT DEFINED A GENERATION (B-minus) - PBS has a slicker story behind the story, but it devolves into yet another hagiographic nostalgia-fest among glassy-eyed baby boomers. We still get very few musical moments from the stage (but plenty of those monotone announcements made famous by the original 1970 documentary). Footage of host Max Yasgur addressing the assembled long-hairs tugs at the heartstrings.

Barak Goodman, a PBS veteran, curates along Jamila Ephron, and they capture the zeitgeist pretty well. Oddly, all of the talking heads appear only in voice-over, so we don't get to experience the fun of comparing '60s hippies to their old-age demeanors. It's not clear why that path was chosen, but I couldn't help thinking that boomer vanity had something to do with it. Maybe the directors thought such a wrinkly visual would just be a distraction and take us out of the Aquarian moment.

Either way, by the final reel of the film, the filmmakers pile on the saccharine a little too thick, creating a hippie haze of good vibes and exclusively pleasant memories. In the end, nothing really went wrong, and it was pure heaven, according to this feel-good film. Whatever, man.

BONUS TRACK
Max Yasgur addresses the crowd at Woodstock: