Festival! - The Newport Folk Festival
It's the big names--like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Johnny Cash, and Peter, Paul & Mary--who command most of the attention, but they aren't what director-producer Murray Lerner'sFestival!, a 97-minute, black & white chronicle of the Newport (Rhode Island) Folk Festival in 1963, '64, and '65, is really all about. In fact, while those artists were the face of that era's folk boom, their music hasn't aged especially well; with the exception of Dylan (who appears both solo and with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, who helped him break the sound barrier in '65) and Cash, their songs were so earnest, their delivery so pristine and humorless, that these days they evoke squirm-inducing parallels to Christopher Guest's folk satireA Mighty Wind. It's the clips of, say, the Blue Ridge Mountain Dancers, with their virtuoso square dance moves; the high, lonesome bluegrass of the Osborne Brothers; the deep gospel of the Georgia Sea Island Singers and the Staple Singers; the down home Delta blues (or, as he spells it, "b-l-u-s-e") of Son House, or even the astonishing Cousin Emmy, who plays "Turkey in the Straw" on her cheeks, that remind us that "folk" encompasses a great deal more than protest singers strumming acoustic guitars. As for Lerner's stated intention to "make a film about something bigger than music… a film that was an expression of this new culture," sure, whatever; there are plenty of interviews with artists and concert-goers alike to back that up. ButFestival!revolves around the music, and therein lies its major flaw: namely, the lack of complete performances of any songs, which reduces the film's status from essential to merely interesting.--Sam Graham