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Wadleigh filmed and directed the Oscar-winning "Woodstock"
documentary about the three days of peace and music on a farm in
upstate New York in 1969, but his focus went way beyond the
performances on stage.
"What people know of Woodstock today is our film. They don't
really know the reality in any other way than we put
it,"Wadleigh told Reuters.
"I think we were pretty faithful, but another filmmaker might
have chosen to film all love songs and not really gone for the
politics. But that was what I wanted to do," he said.
The 1970 documentary was not just about the protest songs from
the likes of Richie Havens, Jimi Hendrix, Joan Baez and Country
Joe McDonald's anti-Vietnam war song "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to
Die Rag" with its famous opening cheer "Give me an F!"
The film also captured the impromptu yoga classes, the skinny
dippers, the fringed jackets, bandanas, naked children, mud slip
'n slides, announcements about bad acid, astounded townsfolk,
and even the overwhelmed chemical toilets.
"We talked ahead of time about 'The Canterbury Tales.' We tried
to get profiles of people - the nude bathing, the couple on the
road, the guy who was cleaning the toilets. He had such pride in
what he was doing," Wadleigh said.
FAREWELL HOLLYWOOD
Wadleigh, who calls himself a "hardcore leftie" at the time,
abandoned Hollywood more than 20 years ago and helped set up a
nonprofit called Homo Sapiens, which campaigns for sustainable
development. He divides his time between a farmhouse in Wales, a
boat in Europe and trips to Asia and Africa.
Fifty years ago, he was a 26-year-old who had taken a leave of
absence from medical school to make independent films about
human rights and ecology when he was asked to film what was
planned as a small three-day music festival in upstate New York.
"It wasn't really a straightforward festival. It was supposed to
be about ecology. The organizers wanted to get people back to
the garden, back to land.
"I wanted to do the film about music and politics. So we made a
deal that I would get final cut," he said.
Wadleigh rounded up 100 of the best camera and sound people he
could find, including a then unknown Martin Scorsese, and shot
more film than Hollywood had ever known for a single movie.
"We had really researched what we wanted to do in terms of the
bands and their music. I was heavily lyrically driven. I wanted
to make sure that every song was a socially conscious song," he
said.
The film used multiple imagery and split screens - a technique
that was innovative at the time - and Wadleigh cut his initial
four-hour version to three hours, 10 minutes.
Movie studio Warner Bros was "utterly convinced it would be a
disaster. But people lined up around the block and the reviews
came out, and the rest is history," he said.
After the film won the best documentary Oscar in 1971, Wadleigh
wrote screenplays and science fiction films, but says he finally
gave up on Hollywood when no-one would greenlight the political
films that remained his passion.
Wadleigh wishes that today's musicians would bring the same
energy to climate change as they did in the sixties to songs
about social justice and anti-war issues.
"We would hope that there were more people writing songs, which
are so powerful, that articulate these issues. In terms of
getting at the real problems we face with sustainable
development and greenhouse gas emissions, they are just not
being made," he said.
The director's cut of "Woodstock" will return to selected U.S.
movie theaters for one night only on Thursday.
(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
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