Woodstock

I loved this book. I've read all kinds of books on Woodstock and this was from a really different perspective. It deals solely with the filmakers and the experimental techniques they used to film the entire concert event, as well as the hassles they had to deal with from the studio to get the film made and released. A real interesting read.

For those of us who weren't around when the Woodstock Music & Art Fair in 1969 happened (I was born a year after the fact), the music and the movie gives us a chance to look at what it was all about. For those of us in the younger generation that were influenced by Woodstock in some form or another, "Woodstock: An Insider's Look at the Movie That Shook Up the World and Defined a Generation" is a book that shows what it was like to be the 50 or so people who were responsible for the creation of the film. Dale Bell was part of the crew hired by director Michael Wadleigh, and through letters and interviews with other crew members, we get a chance to relive what it was about, from a perspective most of us have never heard about. By reading memories from the gaffers, grips, sound people, and even a few musicians, it's a miracle that the movie was ever made, and literally an oddity that the movie ever got finished. For young filmmakers, it offers a look into the world of documentary making, capturing an event as it happens, hoping that at least the film hasn't run out and that you have enough lighting to get you through. As you turn each page, you'll literally right there with them, either in the mud, or in a New York editing room, or in sunny California dealing with the "suits" who wanted a 90 minute movie, and couldn't see the historical significance behind the event. Once you read this, you will view the movie in the same manner again, and that's good. For the first time, you'll see the movie and realize all the hard work (and money, or lack of it) it took to document one of the most important events of the 20th century.