Now Available on DVD: Taking Woodstock

As a huge fan of the 1960s music, history and culture, I have to admit that my expectations were a bit high. Still, Taking Woodstock did not even come close to my hopes for this film. The plot centers around the character of Jake Teichberg and the motel that his mother and father own. The motel has been sitting vacant for years and the family is in jeopardy of losing the place to the bank. In a certain twist of fate, Jake discovers that a music festival has been turned away by two towns in upstate New York. He is able to secure a permit to have the music festival held in his own town of Bethel. Suddenly, the producers of the festival and their staff are lowered into Bethel by helicopter. With them come thousands of audience members who inundate the sheltered town with hoards of hippies. During this historic event, Jake is battling with himself and his family over his need to leave his hometown and secure a future for himself elsewhere. Though Jake never actually gets to see Woodstock or any of the singers who performed, he does meet his first transvestite, smokes his first joint, and trips on acid. Though he basically missed the entire event that he helped save, he comes out the other side an adult.

Though it sounds like a great premise, the way that the director (Ang Lee) actually created the film made it drab and boring. Jake came off as being an extremely sheltered, neurotic, and whiny boy who was caught between his own life and that of his parent's. It is clear that his relationship with his parents created a great amount of stress for him, but his personality made it almost impossible to root for him. In addition, the characterization of the audience members was entirely one-sided. While the town laughed at them and called them hippies, Ang Lee did not do anything as a director to make the audience feel differently. The only character that was in the least bit dynamic was the transvestite Vilma who was played by Liev Schreider. Even Lee's portrayal of concert producer Michael Lang seemed one-dimensional with Lang being the sage-like hippie who spoke almost like Yoda. Perhaps the most upsetting, is that because Jake never gets to witness any of the actual festival neither does the audience! To add insult to injury, none of the music from Woodstock was even played in the movie. Basically, this is a film about Woodstock without any elements of Woodstock included in it. Overall, it was a huge bust and I believe that Woodstock experts and novices will find this film to be greatly disappointing.

-DLP