Woodstock: Three Days that Defined a Generation

There have been a lot of documentaries about the historic Woodstock festival, but many have not discussed much other than the performance aspect of it. This documentary lets the ones who were there discuss what it took to put the festival together, the challenges the festival faced, the unity of everyone involved, and what it meant to the country during a critical time.

Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation, directed by Barak Goodman, uses the perspective of nearly 50 years’ hindsight to demonstrate anew how the festival was both a mess and a miracle, and implicitly argues that it was a good deal more miracle than mess.

As a primer for deeper dives, including Wadleigh’s film, it’s mainly successful, contextualizing the events and providing some never-before-seen footage. Yet for those already versed in what transpired on Yasgur’s farm, Goodman’s film is really just playing the hits.

The events of Woodstock have been told, so it’s refreshing that this documentary draws out the details one might not have heard before — the food donations from the town, the volunteer Army doctors, the attendees who stayed to pick up trash.

While Goodman and Ephron’s film abides by a “peace & love 101” approach that might prove tiresome for people who already know about Wavy Gravy or the inclement weather that threatened to rain out an entire movement, this lucid and entertaining look back in time gradually twists that broadness into its greatest strength.

Given that we already have a documentary that captures the event so successfully from inside the era, it’s curious that the filmmakers don’t try to mine a perspective beyond nostalgia

This conventional PBS-style piece intends to deliver the story behind the event without much more than the slightest nod to the music, which is shunted to the side in this telling of the already oft-told story.