To say 1969 was a landmark year for several aspects of culture would be an understatement. Less than a month ago (as I write this) we marked the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, the Stonewall riots in New York ushered in a new era for the LGBT+ movement and later in the year the Rolling Stones’ performance at Altamont heralded the end of not just the decade but an era.

In the middle of all of that, over the weekend of 15th to 18th of August, on Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel (near Woodstock), New York, the Woodstock music festival took place with more than 400,000 people descending on the site to hear The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and more.

The movie of the event, which was released the following March (though here I’m looking at the more recently compiled Director’s Cut), chronicles the festival in about as complete a way as you could reasonably expect, mixing musical performances, a look at those attending and the effects on the local community.

Obviously the most well known parts of the film are the performances.

In terms of sound and visual effects they are, in a way, fairly basic given the technical limitations of not just the time but the somewhat basic looking set up of the stage, sound and lighting systems. In this though all of them have their own special something.

Highlights come with the tremendous voice of Joan Baez on Joe Henry and Swing Low Sweet Chariot, the power of The Who’s take on Summertime Blues, Richie Havens semi-improvised Freedom, Santana’s career making Soul Sacrifice and of course that Hendrix set (even if he played nearly 12 hours late to an obviously much smaller crowd).

What brings a lot of these performances to life, save the more simple Baez and Havens ones, is the editing, handled by the then little known Martin Scorsese under the eye of director Michael Wadleigh.

They take multiple camera angles, clearly shot at a lower than cinematic resolution, and combine them into split screen presentations with a few basic but well used visual effects to add to the overall psychedelic and energetic feel of the event in a way that really brings them to life.

While the musical performances certainly do their job, there is a slight oddness in how they are not presented in order, but they do, with the surrounding footage capture the story of the festival.

This story begins obviously before the music and we see the stage being constructed and people making their way through the New York countryside to reach the event and it soon becomes clear how much Woodstock exceeded it’s expected scale with cars abandoned on roads for miles around and food, water and medical care all being exhausted very early on.

Throughout the film similar sections separate the performance clips, often in split screen showing a fantastic range of what was going from Jerry Garcia rolling joints to interviews with locals who have some varying views of the ‘kids’ attending the festival.

To be honest it’s surprising how many negative comments are left in, though they are usually counteracted by others defending the event shot at the same time.

With this the footage of the festival goers generally just shows us vignettes of what was going on rather than any direct commentary, though this is equally fascinating to see. A highlight of this for me is an impromptu yoga session going on that, to me, sums up the difference between the original feeling of music festivals compared to the safe and corporate approach you see at even the smallest events today (though of course both ways of doing things have their good and bad sides).

What this all does is, particularly when combined with it’s the near four hour running time, is leave the viewer with something of a feeling of having attended a festival — you come away from it to a degree bemused and exhausted but well aware you’ve had a good time and seen something special.

We are left with memorable vignettes boiled down from a full weekend and it’s easy to see how, with this movie, Woodstock became the cornerstone music festival arguably inspiring everything from Altamont and Glastonbury to Monsters Of Rock and Coachella, while the film is a must watch for anyone with an interest in not just the music but the 60s counter culture and its history and effect.