Watching Woodstock: The Director’s Cut (2000; Michael Wadleigh/various cinematographers) on TCM the other night, a couple of things came to mind. The first was a thought I’ve held since I was twelve years old, while the massive festival was actually taking place: Regardless of how great the music had to have been, what kind of idiot would want to spend three days crouched in such squalor? The second is a bit more evolved, in so far as the movie presents a detailed recording of a bizarre moment in history.
A subset of that – and here’s where my own weirdness creeps in – are the nuances that seem to slip by everyone. Take, for example, Joe Cocker’s rousing delivery of The Beatles’ With a Little Help From My Friends. At one point during his gyrations at the mic, what I presume to be a commercial airliner can be seen gently soaring through the distant sky behind him. It’s a minuscule detail in an otherwise busy shot; you’d have to either notice it accidentally or be one of those kooks who’s always searching for the odd or out-of-place. Cue my response. The jet immediately took my eye and my thoughts off Cocker.
The plane was moving from left-to-right…
Certainly, the passengers onboard had no idea what was happening in the teeming meadow a few miles below them. But who were those people? Where were they going? What sorts of lives were they leading? What were their dreams, successes, failures and so on? For some reason, the sight of it evoked the same feeling I get when visiting a cemetery. Every headstone, like every seat on that plane, represents a story. Never mind the 500,000 or so concert-goers wallowing in the mud. They all seemed the same to me. Those on the jet were a mystery. I didn’t spend much time ruminating over this; it was a fleeting moment, at best. But an impression was made, and it has stuck with me.
This is the unintended beauty of art in general, and of cinematography in particular. If the cameraman had been positioned a few feet in another direction, I wouldn’t be writing this now. Instead, he randomly immortalized something that brought out thoughts and emotions I wouldn’t normally have associated with that instant. Every viewer reacts to different things in different ways, but I think it’s safe to say I’m the only one who noticed the few frames in which that aircraft passed by – and got so much from them.
Though they’re filtered through the eyes of a child, my memories of the summer of 1969 remain vividly clear. And why wouldn’t they? A month prior to Woodstock, we experienced the Apollo 11 moon landing. The week before brought the horrors of the Manson murders. The rest of society was roiled by the all-encompassing presence of the war in Vietnam, political assassinations, an ascendant youth and drug culture and widespread social unrest. If you think we’re living in crazy times now – and you have every motivation to do so – it has nothing on what the world was like back then! Which makes this brief obsession with that airplane seem even stranger.
I really don’t know what to make of it. Maybe I’ll just leave it to the assessment of one of those drug-addled hippies for whom that weekend of filth, flair and fellowship marked the high point of their lives.
“Hey, man…that’s trippy.”
Richard- I was one of those idiots who went to the Woodstock festival. I didn’t crouch in squalor or take drugs. I went to hear amazing music on a level of quantity and quality rarely encountered before, at least not on the east coast except for Newport Jazz. I was there for 4 days since I drove up a day earlier to enjoy the arts fair and get a good camping spot near the “Free Stage” outside of the festival gates. I had a fantastic experience and wouldn’t trade it for anything. I went with friends and made more new friends there while hearing many of the best musicians of the era in person in a crowd of really appreciative fans.
Funny when I look in the sky and see an airplane high overhead I often ask myself where those people are going and what they think of what is below them, if they do at all. My impression of that image of seeing the airplane from the POV of the audience at Woodstock and wondering if they had any idea of what they were missing down below is like your previous post- Clouds from Both Sides Now. They saw us from above the clouds and we saw them from below. Two very different realities. I believe that we on the ground had the better of the two realities! I also believe that given everything that happened then and what has been happening now, you’re right, there is no real comparison. It was tumultuous then but approaching hell now. And it was a high point in my life but I was certainly not a “drug-addled hippie” and neither were most of the music fans there. The camera never lies, but along with the editors it certainly makes choices and commentary and is rarely objective.
Roberto – I appreciate your sentiment and you must understand, no insult was intended. Recalling the news reports of the day and seeing this docu now just reminded me of my observations as a 12 year-old – and based on those, there can be no denying that the living conditions at the festival were a bit messy, to say the least. As for the “drug-addled hippies,” well, based on what the movie shows (apart from the stage action) there was no shortage of them among the 500,000 present. That doesn’t make them bad people, it makes them people of their time. As a huge music fan myself, I’d love to hear your recollections of the performances. I’m actually in awe of that part of the event!
I often have similar thoughts when I see street scenes in old movies, the lives that passed by the lens for that moment — what happened to them, where were they going at that moment, what were they thinking?
When Peter Jackson did that WW1 documentary recently, he hired a lip reader to find out what the soldiers were saying in the silent footage. What he found out was along the lines of “hey, look, there’s a camera!”
Those were definitely crazy times! As an eleven year old it was
even crazier trying to process all that was going on in the world.
It seems like yesterday and memories are vivid. At the time most of the
musicians seemed quite old to me but really weren’t with many in their early twenties. I did think who would go to such a dirty place?
I don’t think the organizers anticipated the swell of people
that would show up and they definitely weren’t prepared for the weather
to come. The facilities were definitely lacking. I always pictured the event
as a place of mud and music. Canned Heat’s Woodstock Boogie is a must see. While Woodstock was a free for all, the airliner above was probably
on a tight schedule following strict FAA rules and could have been flying
by pilots that flew in WW2. The passengers were probably well dressed.
A few could have been smoking and reading the daily paper.
The stewardesses (flight attendants) could have been starting to prepare
a nicely served meal. A young person of twelve was probably curious and
looking at the ground below wondering what the heck was going on
below with that big crowd of people. As a young boy I would lay down in the
grass in our front yard and stare up at all the airliners on their final leg
into Chicago wondering who was up there and wishing I was there too.
Right on the money, Ken!