Taking Woodstock

Plot synopsis:
Set in 1969, the film follows the true story of Elliot Tiber (Demetri Martin), an aspiring Greenwich Village interior designer whose parents, Jake (Henry Goodman) and Sonia (Imelda Staunton), own the small dilapidated El Monaco Resort in White Lake, in the town of Bethel, New York. A hippie theater troupe, The Earthlight Players, rents the barn, but can hardly pay any rent. Due to financial trouble, the motel may have to be closed, but Elliot pleads with the local bank not to foreclose on the mortgage and Sonia delivers a tirade about her struggles as a Russian refugee. The family is given until the end of the summer to pay up.
Elliot plans to hold a small musical festival, and has, for $1, obtained a permit from the town's chamber of commerce (of which he is also the president). When he hears that the organizers of the Woodstock Festival face opposition against the originally planned location, he offers his permit and the motel accommodations to organizer Michael Lang (Jonathan Groff). A neighbor, Max Yasgur (Eugene Levy), provides his nearby farm land; first they agree on a fee of $5,000, but after realizing how many people will come, Yasgur demands $75,000, which the organizers reluctantly accept. Elliot comes to agreement about the fee for the motel more smoothly. Initial objections by his mother quickly disappear when she sees the cash paid in advance.
Elliot and Yasgur encounter a little bit of expected opposition. The local diner refuses to serve Elliot anymore, inspectors target the motel (and only his) for building code violations, and some local boys paint a swastika and hate words on the hotel. However, resistance quickly dissolves in the tidal wave of peace and love (and commerce) brought to the area. The Tiber family works hard serving the massive influx of visitors and become wealthy in the process. A cross-dressing veteran, Vilma (Liev Schreiber), is hired as a security guard. Elliot also struggles with hiding his homosexuality from his family, when he connects romantically with one of the event organizers staying at the motel.
On the first day of the concert, Elliot, his father, and Vilma hear the music begin in the distance. Elliot's father, transformed and enlivened by all the new life in town, tells Elliot to go and see the concert. Elliot hitches a ride through the peaceful traffic jam on the back of a benevolent state trooper's motorcycle and arrives at the event. There, he meets a hippie couple (Paul Dano and Kelli Garner), who invite him to join them on an LSD trip in their VW Bus a short distance from the crowd. Elliot has trouble relaxing at first, but gradually melts into a psychedelic union with them. When they finally emerge after sundown, Elliot watches the vast crowd and brilliant lights of the distant concert ripple with harmonious hallucinatory visuals that swell into serene white light.
Elliot returns home from his liberating experience and has breakfast with his parents. He suggests to his mother that they now have enough money to replace him, but she cannot bear to let him have his freedom. Elliot storms out, facetiously suggesting his mom eat the hash brownies Vilma has just offered. After another beautiful day at the festival, during which his friend the Vietnam veteran, Billy (Emile Hirsch), appears to overcome his post-traumatic stress disorder, Elliot returns home to find his parents laughing and cavorting hysterically, having eaten Vilma's hash brownies. The once-brittle family (particularly Sonia) is united in joy and delirious affection.
The next morning, however, Sonia inadvertently reveals that she has secretly saved $97,000 in cash in the floorboards of her closet. Elliot is upset that his mother hid this from him while he put his own savings into helping his parents.
After the final day of the concert, Elliot decides to move to California as he packs up his things and says farewell to his father, after his father encourages him to strike out on his own. As Elliot pays one last visit to the concert and looks out over the muddy desolation of the Yasgur farm, Lang rides up on horseback and they marvel at how despite the obstacles, the event was a success. Lang mentions his next big project: staging a truly free concert in San Francisco with the Rolling Stones—the infamous Altamont Free Concert.

Tags: anti war

Review:
It's all there, the music, the rain and mud, the buzz on the soundtrack replicating the buzz on the sound system at Yasgur's Farm.But if you want to get a feeling of what Woodstock meant on a personal level, then Ang Lee's your man and you've come to the right place.How Lee managed to film this recreation without using real footage, I have no idea.
This movie completely captures how amazing people can be when they remove themselves from the hum drum monotony of their day to day lives and get together with like minded strangers for a few days of complete freedom and joy.A great feel good movie with a lot of veiled depth about the people that helped make Woodstock one of the most famous events the world has known..
Building a sweet coming-of-age comedy around a major American cultural event of the Sixties, 'Taking Woodstock' is lodged on the periphery of the legendary half-million-strong August 1969 "peace and love" rock concert held on Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm near the hamlet of White Lake, in the town of Bethel, New York.
Though Lee's young protagonist, Elliot Teichberg (Demetri Martin), a gay Jewish every-youth and the dutiful son of an impoverished middle-aged couple whose decrepit motel has useless pretensions to being a Catskills resort, is depicted as making it all happen by, as head of the minuscule township's Chamber of Commerce, linking up charismatic, bushy-haired young promoter Michael Lang (Jonathan Groff) with enterprising dairyman Max Yasgur (Eugene Levy), Ellie remains a peripheral figure of the concert, not even the witness of any of the 32 acts performed on stage.
Ang Lee's new film lacks the somewhat hackneyed solemnity and pretension of his (admittedly far more emotionally powerful) 'Brokeback Mountain' or (much more stylish) 'Lust, Caution,' but his idea of depicting a great event, like Breugel, by magnifying peripheral figures, is a nifty one.Elliot Teichberg is the main such Breugel figure, but his parents, the long-suffering Jake (Henry Goodman), and the rigid, paranoid Sonia (Imelda Staunton) loom large for him and us, humble laborers who make the crucifixion come to life.
On the other hand, the borderline caricature depictions of Jews, Schreiber's amiable but overly broad transvestite, and even Emile Hirsch's clichéd, if lively, battle-scarred vet, all could have been thought through better.Broaching such large events even peripherally, Lee and his writers, James Schamus, Elliot Tiber (author of the source memoir) and Tom Monte, arguably do owe us a bit more of the sex, the bad trips, and the music itself -- which can't be left outside the story of a great concert, whether its protagonist got to the stage or not.
Equality for many racial and sexual minorities were fulfilledor are being so fulfilled at this timeand one of the more ironic points of the film was actually scored during the trailers that preceded the feature: the previews for Michael Moore's "Capitalism" and that subject is what really ended the counterculture.But for Ang Lee he gives the 40th Anniversary of the Woodstock festival an original and unsentimental celebration.
Here is something i liked more than anything in the movie.......rather than WOW you with awesome music, or have them cut the camera away to show Janis Joplin or Jimi Hendrix.......they actually focus on the how this all came together, which was great......because not only was the story very entertaining, but it created this essence about the concert, that it was something far off in the distance that you would never see, and you only heard people talking about it......i mean you obviously know now what it was all about.....but it takes you on this incredible journey of this small town family, and when you finally get a small glimpse of the concert......oh my goodness, it was enough to take your breathe away.
Ang Lee does a masterful job capturing the madness and chaos associated with trying to stage a major rock festival in a rural community, even to the point of borrowing split-screen techniques from the Woodstock documentary.Demetri Martin plays Elliot Tiber (Teichberg) and does a fine job as the son torn between independence and duty to his aging parents, Imelda Staunton and Henry Goodman (five-star performances by both).
Obviously, Ang Lee drifts attention from the concerts and the music of those three epic days in 1969 to focus on the personal story of a young man and his odd family who worked and lived in the background of this great event.
Ang Lee and James Schamus like their hippie culture, and love themselves that August 1969 summer of Woodstock, and also the act of trying to capture it on film as it was to be there, on the outside and suddenly coming into the fold of looking in.
It's a been-there-done-that affair in terms of the major characters, and its more significant background subject provides more of the color and excitement in its two-hour run time.It's basically about the people behind the scenes at Woodstock (we never see anyone famous, aside from certain semi-figures like Michael Lang and Max Yasgur, portrayed by actors), specifically the young guy Eliot who got together the Woodstock-financial people to his small town as part of Bethel, New York, and helped also to give (politely putting it) a boost to his parents' motel business.
We see some of the ups and downs, the downs being things like gangsters trying to muscle their way into the earnings of the thousands of people flocking upstate to frequent the motel (and the up of getting 'security' with transvestite Liev Schreiber in an awesome performance), or just with Elliot's parents and how their attitudes stay mostly the same- what's with these damn kids and their hair and sex and drugs anyway- until towards the end of the three days of peace/love/music.It's a funny movie for at least a good amount of its run-time.
Lee's film certainly captures the beauty of White Lake, and generally recreates the groove and vibe of a specific time and place, but the narrative seemed somehow disjointed (unintentional pun) There seemed to be too many empty moments substituting for poignancy, and undeveloped stories that might have added a bit more depth to Lee's tale.Demetri Martin as Eliot Teber, was adorable but I was frustrated by his poker face (something that makes his stage comedy hilarious).
It was like watching a high-school drama student act out a stereotype on Saturday Night Live or something.Henry Goodman overacted, although not quite as badly as did Staunton, in a mediocre performance as the father.And Emile Hirsch was preposterous and irritating as a trouble Vietnam vet.An unnecessary side plot involving a theater troupe who - this is getting redundant - also overacted dragged down the film further.So basically, Lee was just making the classic mistake of poor comedy directors, confusing silliness and excess with humor.
It's entertaining enough to warrant 2 bucks but not much more.========ALTERNATE RECOMMENDATIONS========If you want to see a funny hippy movie, check out "Grand Theft Parsons", a dramatized "true story" of what happened to singer Gram Parson's body after he died.If you want to see an entertaining movie about an unsung hero behind the scenes of a famous event, look for the obscure Australian comedy "The Dish" about the lonely radio outpost that broadcast the moon landing in 1969.If you want a movie with some cool 60s music, see "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas" or "Pirate Radio".And lastly, if you want to see a movie about a guy who wrote a book claiming to be something he's not, check out "The Hoax" about the man who claimed to have interviewed the mysterious Howard Hughes."Taking Woodstock" doesn't fit into any of the above categories, despite what the DVD cover promises.
While dealing with permits, hippies, war vets, and angry locals, he meets various weird characters, the most interesting being a drag queen played by Liev Shreiber.What hurts this film is it's insistence on following a boring character around instead of focusing on more interesting people, and clocking in at two hours, it takes too long to tell its story.
Also, the usually great Imelda Staunton plays the grossest, most stereotypical Jewish person I've seen on film, who literally cannot control herself around money.The 'Woodstock' documentary remains the best window into this historic concert..
In spite of a few incidents, nearly half a million people showed that quality music, the freedom of the spirit, and a feeling of harmony can lead to a successful event.If you are looking for an authentic experience of Woodstock, however, you will not find it in Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock, a film that recycles all the grossest stereotypes of the sixties perpetrated over the last forty years.
It follows the true story of Elliot Teichberg, (Demetri Martin), an interior designer who lives in Greenwich Village and spends his weekends trying to help his elderly parents Sonia and Jack (Imelda Staunton and Henry Goodman) run an 80-room Hotel in Bethel, N.Y.Teichberg is also the head of Bethel's Chamber of Commerce and has issued an "Arts and Festival" permit to himself for what he has planned as a small chamber music festival.
The closest Teichberg actually comes to the Festival is a hill overlooking the very distant stage where he can see the mass of people and hear faint sounds in the background that sound suspiciously like music.Newcomer Martin's bland personality is sufficiently laid back to play the uncharismatic Teichberg, but little in the way of human interest is created, in spite of the fact that the supporting cast that includes transvestite security guard Vilma (Liev Schreiber) and disturbed Vietnam vet Emile Hirsch are strong, although Hirsch's role is little more than a caricature.
The film gets some nice support from Emile Hirsch as Billy,a Vietnam war veteran,who's freaked out by everything around him (PTSD,anyone?),Eugene Levy has some brief,but solid screen time as dairy farmer,Max Yasgur,who was the one to give the green light to use his land for the festival,and if you don't blink,you'll spot Richard Thomas (The Waltons),in a brief cameo as Reverend Don. Danny Elfman wrote the original music score (but the film does have a few original songs that were featured in the Woodstock festival:Freedom,by Richie Havens,Volunteers,by the Jefferson Airplane,and others heard mostly in the background).
the title has many possibilities for interpretation; not so the film...As a forty year tribute to the original summer of love this kind of works - it plays out too many hippy cliché and the straight folk are kind of cutout too....but what it really fails to evoke, to find, is the true spirit of the piece - the Love explosion - that weren't caused solely by the LSD and dope, and for us the movie couldn't make it happen: it is just a weird attempt at both pastiche and tribute that really has little magic.
There are a couple of doctored faked as 60s 8mm film moments and they actually do work better and suit the piece better than the modern filming does.Perhaps it's biggest problem lies with focusing on one small player, which is OK as an idea, but it's Woodstock, it's the ultimate everyman journey, and we don't really get that journey, we just get the hippy American college experience - it's tough to analyze why it doesn't all gel - all we knew was that is doesn't have real moments and so its all rather washed out rather than tie dyed.All in all, brilliant costuming and hair and make-up, it all adds up to though a rather too busy attempt to explain the extraordinary: some cool happenings and a lot of sexual shenanigorgasms but not enough love and peace, man.....
I think most fans of Woodstock are grateful to Max Yasgur for the use of his dairy farm for that wonderful event - but the film shows us a rather boring Elliot for the most part and misses the whole point.The movie is not completely awful - but it's not that good.
And then we realize that the movie isn't about events as much as it's about change - both the cultural change of a very strange time in American history and the personal change that we all go through.The best scene happens late in the movie, as Elliot (Martin) finally makes his way to the concert and encounters a young hippie couple.
Without giving anything away, I can say it's one of the best - and most accurate - scenes of its kind (it's both beautiful and creepy in more ways that one), and it's the true climax of "Taking Woodstock." Elliot has spent his young life trying to create moments for other people, and he finally is allowed to let go and experience transcendence for himself.
Yet it retains the wonder of the young people, for whom freedom was truly "another word for nothing left to lose." Eliot Teichberg (Demetri Martin) is as laid back as actor Elliot Gould of that era, helping his parents navigate the daunting sea of troubles for a concert on their Catskills farm that will host hundreds of thousands of hippies and hoodlums, all dedicated to profiting spiritually or financially from what looked like a small event until it became a part of the lexicon and imagination of the modern American rebellious age.
You'll find the usual elements, and a panoply of special stuff, like split screen and extended tracking shots.One thing that feels really good is the sense that an important element of the Woodstock experience is being promoted through this flick, that one rarely got from the traditional media of the time; the idea that a lot of these massive be-in affaires were simply agglomerations of people who really just wanted to enjoy something together.
The hero, one Elliot Tiler (Demetri Martin), gay president of Bethel's chamber of commerce, obtains a concert permit for $1 and on news that organisers of the Woodstock Festival have been driven from the initially planned location, invites organiser Michael Lang (Jonathan Groff) to move the event to his backyard, a rundown El Monaco Motel belonging to his parents, Jake (Henry Goodman) and Sonia (Imelda Staunton), which is on the verge of foreclosure.
First of all, I have to make the warning that, despite its title and colorful poster, Taking Woodstock is not a modern recreation of the epic festival celebrated in August from 1969.In fact, the film does not include even an original song from Woodstock, neither bands nor scenes of the concert (well, it includes one of them, but it is not focused on the concert itself).The purpose from Taking Woodstock is much more modest, because it puts the attention on the experiences of Elliot Tiber, a Jewish young man who made the concert possible when he contacted the organizer from the event with the owner from the farm where the concert would eventually be made.That sounds trivial, and it in fact is like that; but for two hours we can see details about the organization from the festival; the effect the "hippie" spirit had on Tiber and his family...and the terror from the community when they realized that the event would be much...MUCH bigger than they had ever imagined.The people who always wanted to know about those details may enjoy this film.But I am not one of them, and I found Taking Woodstock to be a horribly tedious experience.I suppose screenwriter James Schamus thought that the story of this film seemed as a good idea...a story about the Woodstock festival, but told from behind the stage...or, better said, behind the farm, where we could supposedly appreciate the personal and human angle from the event, and maybe making us to be witnesses of the efforts made by hundreds of people to make something iconic and memorable, which truly changed the world.But the horrible result from the movie is very far away from that, and it is reduced to a simplistic melodrama saturated of clichés, hollow characters and apathetic performances which do not bring too much energy or credibility.Besides, as many antiquated expressions Schamus included in the screenplay ("Far Out!", "Groovy!"), that is not enough to evoke the "hippie" ideology from that time, or the exuberant freedom (some may say "anarchy") which woke the festival up.I think that this movie needed a more focused and much less diffuse screenplay, which had a concrete purpose instead of simply showing disjointed scenes with poor narrative sense and unfunny "humor".What is more, the cast is absolutely lacking of motivation, with one exception.To start with, we have the bland Demetri Martin on the leading role.I have to say I could never swallow this comedian very much, at the same time he aspires to the niche of "likeable loser" which is perfectly exploited by Jesse Eisenberg and Michael Cera.However, Martin absolutely lacks of any presence, credibility...and congeniality.Emile Hirsch is absolutely lost with his character, and even the usually brilliant Imelda Staunton feels bland and forced on her character.The only exception I previously mentioned is Liev Schreiber, who is the only member of the cast who shows personality and conviction on his character.In summary, Taking Woodstock is a tedious and terribly uninteresting film experience which I do not recommend by any means.I suppose there are hundreds of interesting stories related to Woodstock; unfortunately, this is definitely not one of them..
The Festival was documented in the epic 1970 documentary Woodstock, but Lee's film concentrates on the creation of the Festival, the resistance the creators were faced with by the townspeople, and the dedication that the protagonist Elliot Teichberg had in what he saw as putting money into his poor parents pockets and back into the town's economy.Teichberg (played with ease by stand-up comic Demetri Martin) is a successful interior designer and President of the Chamber of Commerce who spends most of his time handing his parents money so they can keep running their s**t-hole motel, in which his miser mother tries to saves money by turning the bed sheets over rather than actually washing them.