Woodstock (film)

Woodstock
Theatrical release poster by Richard Amsel
Directed byMichael Wadleigh
Produced byBob Maurice[1]
Dale Bell
Starring
Edited byMichael Wadleigh
Martin Scorsese
Stan Warnow
Yeu-Bun Yee
Jere Huggins
Thelma Schoonmaker
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release date
  • March 26, 1970 (1970-03-26)
Running time
185 minutes (1970)[2]
224 minutes (1994)[3]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$600,000
Box office$50 million[4]($392 million in 2023 dollars)[5]

Woodstock is a 1970 American documentary film of the watershed counterculture Woodstock Festival which took place in August 1969 near Bethel, New York.[6][7]

The film was directed by Michael Wadleigh in his directional debut. Seven editors are credited, including Thelma Schoonmaker, Martin Scorsese, and Wadleigh. Woodstock was a great commercial and critical success. It received the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Schoonmaker was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Film Editing, a rare distinction for a documentary.[8] Dan Wallin and L. A. Johnson were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound.[9][10] The film was screened at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival, but was not entered into the main competition.[11]

The 1970 theatrical release of the film ran 185 minutes. A director's cut spanning 224 minutes was released in 1994. Both cuts take liberties with the timeline of the festival. However, the opening and closing acts are the same in the film as they appeared on stage; Richie Havens opens the show and Jimi Hendrix closes it.

In 1996, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

An expanded 40th Anniversary Edition of Woodstock, released on June 9, 2009, in Blu-ray and DVD formats, features additional performances not before seen in the film, and it includes lengthened versions of existing performances, such as Creedence Clearwater Revival.[12]

  1. ^ Documentary Winners: 1971 Oscars
  2. ^ "Woodstock (X)". British Board of Film Classification. May 7, 1970. Archived from the original on January 7, 2017. Retrieved January 6, 2017.
  3. ^ "Woodstock – 40th Anniversary Limited Edition (40th anniversary revisited – the director's cut)". amazon.com. April 2019. Archived from the original on April 22, 2019. Retrieved April 22, 2019.
  4. ^ "Woodstock, Worldwide Box Office". Worldwide Box Office. Archived from the original on March 19, 2013. Retrieved January 9, 2012.
  5. ^ 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024.
  6. ^ 'Woodstock' Doc: Director Michael Wadleigh Recalls Epic Music Fest - Rolling Stone
  7. ^ 'Woodstock' and 'Zabriskie Point' Are Released on DVD - The New York Times
  8. ^ Dunks, Glenn (December 6, 2014). "Team FYC: Citizenfour for Editing". The Film Experience. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 5, 2015.
  9. ^ "The 43rd Academy Awards (1971) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Archived from the original on July 2, 2015. Retrieved August 27, 2011.
  10. ^ "NY Times: Woodstock". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. 2007. Archived from the original on December 15, 2007. Retrieved November 11, 2008.
  11. ^ "Festival de Cannes: Woodstock". festival-cannes.com. Archived from the original on September 24, 2012. Retrieved April 11, 2009.
  12. ^ "Woodstock 40th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition Import: Amazon.ca: Joan Baez, Richie Havens, Roger Daltrey, Joe Cocker, Country Joe McDonald, Arlo Guthrie, Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, Janis Joplin, The Who, Sha-Na-Na, Country Joe and the Fish, Al Wertheimer, David Myers, Don Lenzer, Malcolm Hart, Michael Margetts, Michael Wadleigh, Bob Maurice, Dale Bell: DVD". June 9, 2009.