Originally posted on www.passionforcinema.com on December 11, 2009
Do you remember the dizziness that you experienced when suddenly your life was barraged by limitless happiness in just a matter of few days? The things which you never imagine would happen to you were actually happening along with the things you desperately wanted to happen. All the oft used phrases like ‘bhagwaan deta hai toh chappar phaadke’ or ‘Love makes my world will go round’ are literally applicable for that duration. The events take you by such a surprise that you don’t have even a moment to sit back and soak in the moment and tell yourself “Today, I’m happy!” You are not actually with yourself; you are actually, as often said, living the moment without any awareness of yourself. You are flowing with things happening around you. Now that, I would term as pure ECSTASY.
Woodstock festival, was indeed pure ecstacy for the hundreds of thousands of ‘hippies’ from around America. And Taking Woodstock captures this with so much heart and goodness, that it was overwhelming to see the event unfold and experience the era, without seeing a single stage performance at the Woodstock. That is what the film also does; it doesn’t even show a single live performance. The whole festival is seen from the eyes of Elliot Tiber, owner of the motel where many of the hippies crashed before and during the festival. His depressing mortgage-blues filled life suddenly transforms into a thrill ride of his life. And this is why the movie succeeds like it does. It focuses on this specific character and builds the whole event around it. Roger Ebert says, more the film is specific, more effective it is. I’m just imagining how less effective a multi POV narrative would be in this case. The film could easily have taken the route of narrating multiple stories with the common thread being the festival. But it doesn’t and that is why it is so damn thrilling along with being just enjoyable.
The things which we so often say about movies, like ‘this certain movie transported me to that era’ or ‘that certain film put me into the character shoes’, are not just applicable to this film, the film actually sets towering benchmarks for the above statements. I’m slowly realizing that this post is shaping as a big hyperbole. But I can confidently vouch that everything written is true, if you see it from my eyes ;)
Elliot Tiber is quite a dynamic person when it comes to his local town affairs. With help of his parents, he runs the motel. His mother is an uptight rude old lady, while his father is a kinda laid back, given-up-on-life old man. When Elliot reads in the paper that the Woodstock festival guys were driven away from Wallkill, New York, his enterprising mind immediately jumps on the idea of inviting the festival guys to hold their festival in his town White Lake, New York. After quite a few hurdles, the Woodstock Venture finally books Elliot’s entire Motel and an expansive farmland few miles from the motel to setup the festival. The sudden cash inflow rejuvenates Elliot and his parents. This is actually just the beginning of the journey of Elliot’s character.
I believe, true happiness is in motion. It is in being in motion, working towards something, creating something. It is in the time when you are not aware of yourself and completely lost in your activity. It is in the restlessness and anxiety of whether your target will be achieved or not. It is in the intoxication of the weed which you smoke to run away from those anxieties. It is in the work that you grudgingly do the next day, with a major hangover still in your head. It is in that break you take from work to just calm yourself down. It is in the time which zooms past you without you being aware of it. In short I believe happiness is in the time when you are busy creating your dream.
Then when you witness your dream, created in front of you, you feel the satisfaction and immense pride in yourself. When all the anxiety is done with; you are awake the whole night enjoying the achievement, and then you watch the early morning sky which changes with every minute towards the sunrise, with country music playing on the radio. That is bliss. That early morning is what everyone strives for. The aftermath is what all of us term as happiness, at that moment. But in retrospect, you won’t remember the early morning. You will always cherish the busy days. And then recalling those days, you’ll say to yourself, “I was so happy then!” So let me revise my opinion, true happiness is always felt in retrospective. The best retrospective being the immediate retrospective, that early morning.
And that is why when we see the closing frames of the movie, of the rag pickers cleaning the messed up farmland after the festival, we feel that early morning calm with the thrill in your immediate memories. It may not be the quintessential peak of the crescendo, but its more like a flat crescendo, you are at the top but your feet are still grounded.
Note: Taking Woodstock has an amazingly shot intoxication scene, when Elliot meets couple of hippies who give him some drug and invite him into their van (as above). It is one of the best I’ve seen in my limited movie watching. Till yesterday it was the Pulp fiction montage of Vincent shooting heroin in his veins intercut with a close up of Vincent driving his car. The slow infusion of blood in the syringe, his drugged eyes and the music made it helluva intoxicating for the viewer.
Do you remember the dizziness that you experienced when suddenly your life was barraged by limitless happiness in just a matter of few days? The things which you never imagine would happen to you were actually happening along with the things you desperately wanted to happen. All the oft used phrases like ‘bhagwaan deta hai toh chappar phaadke’ or ‘Love makes my world will go round’ are literally applicable for that duration. The events take you by such a surprise that you don’t have even a moment to sit back and soak in the moment and tell yourself “Today, I’m happy!” You are not actually with yourself; you are actually, as often said, living the moment without any awareness of yourself. You are flowing with things happening around you. Now that, I would term as pure ECSTASY.
Woodstock festival, was indeed pure ecstacy for the hundreds of thousands of ‘hippies’ from around America. And Taking Woodstock captures this with so much heart and goodness, that it was overwhelming to see the event unfold and experience the era, without seeing a single stage performance at the Woodstock. That is what the film also does; it doesn’t even show a single live performance. The whole festival is seen from the eyes of Elliot Tiber, owner of the motel where many of the hippies crashed before and during the festival. His depressing mortgage-blues filled life suddenly transforms into a thrill ride of his life. And this is why the movie succeeds like it does. It focuses on this specific character and builds the whole event around it. Roger Ebert says, more the film is specific, more effective it is. I’m just imagining how less effective a multi POV narrative would be in this case. The film could easily have taken the route of narrating multiple stories with the common thread being the festival. But it doesn’t and that is why it is so damn thrilling along with being just enjoyable.
The things which we so often say about movies, like ‘this certain movie transported me to that era’ or ‘that certain film put me into the character shoes’, are not just applicable to this film, the film actually sets towering benchmarks for the above statements. I’m slowly realizing that this post is shaping as a big hyperbole. But I can confidently vouch that everything written is true, if you see it from my eyes ;)
Elliot Tiber is quite a dynamic person when it comes to his local town affairs. With help of his parents, he runs the motel. His mother is an uptight rude old lady, while his father is a kinda laid back, given-up-on-life old man. When Elliot reads in the paper that the Woodstock festival guys were driven away from Wallkill, New York, his enterprising mind immediately jumps on the idea of inviting the festival guys to hold their festival in his town White Lake, New York. After quite a few hurdles, the Woodstock Venture finally books Elliot’s entire Motel and an expansive farmland few miles from the motel to setup the festival. The sudden cash inflow rejuvenates Elliot and his parents. This is actually just the beginning of the journey of Elliot’s character.
I believe, true happiness is in motion. It is in being in motion, working towards something, creating something. It is in the time when you are not aware of yourself and completely lost in your activity. It is in the restlessness and anxiety of whether your target will be achieved or not. It is in the intoxication of the weed which you smoke to run away from those anxieties. It is in the work that you grudgingly do the next day, with a major hangover still in your head. It is in that break you take from work to just calm yourself down. It is in the time which zooms past you without you being aware of it. In short I believe happiness is in the time when you are busy creating your dream.
Then when you witness your dream, created in front of you, you feel the satisfaction and immense pride in yourself. When all the anxiety is done with; you are awake the whole night enjoying the achievement, and then you watch the early morning sky which changes with every minute towards the sunrise, with country music playing on the radio. That is bliss. That early morning is what everyone strives for. The aftermath is what all of us term as happiness, at that moment. But in retrospect, you won’t remember the early morning. You will always cherish the busy days. And then recalling those days, you’ll say to yourself, “I was so happy then!” So let me revise my opinion, true happiness is always felt in retrospective. The best retrospective being the immediate retrospective, that early morning.
And that is why when we see the closing frames of the movie, of the rag pickers cleaning the messed up farmland after the festival, we feel that early morning calm with the thrill in your immediate memories. It may not be the quintessential peak of the crescendo, but its more like a flat crescendo, you are at the top but your feet are still grounded.
Note: Taking Woodstock has an amazingly shot intoxication scene, when Elliot meets couple of hippies who give him some drug and invite him into their van (as above). It is one of the best I’ve seen in my limited movie watching. Till yesterday it was the Pulp fiction montage of Vincent shooting heroin in his veins intercut with a close up of Vincent driving his car. The slow infusion of blood in the syringe, his drugged eyes and the music made it helluva intoxicating for the viewer.
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