Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3387 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-06-09
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish, Thai
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 184 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
The three-day Woodstock music festival in 1969 was the pivotal event of the 1960s peace movement, and this landmark concert film is the definitive record of that milestone of rock & roll history. It's more than a chronicle of the hippie movement, however; this is a film of genuine historical and social importance, capturing the spirit of America in transition, when the Vietnam War was at its peak and antiwar protest was fully expressed through the liberating music of the time. With a brilliant crew at his disposal (including a young editor named Martin Scorsese), director Michael Wadleigh worked with over 300 hours of footage to create his original 225-minute director's cut, which was cut by 40 minutes for the film's release in 1970. Eight previously edited segments were restored in 1994, and the original director's cut of Woodstock is now the version most commonly available on videotape and DVD.

The film deservedly won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, and it's still a stunning achievement. Abundant footage taken among the massive crowd ("half a million strong") expresses the human heart of the event, from skinny-dipping hippies to accidental overdoses, to unpredictable weather, midconcert childbirth, and the thoughtful (or just plain rambling) reflections of the festive participants. Then, of course, there is the music--a nonstop parade of rock & roll from the greatest performers of the period, including Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Canned Heat, The Who, Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Ten Years After, Sly & The Family Stone, Santana, and many more. Watching this ambitious film, as the saying goes, is the next best thing to being there--it's a time-travel journey to that once-in-a-lifetime event. --Jeff Shannon

Amazon.com
This director’s cut of Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music, released to coincide with the 40th anniversary of that legendary concert event, has to be one of the most impressive Blu-Ray releases of 2009 or any other year--and that’s even before you put the discs in your player. The box is designed to resemble a faux fringe jacket (with an iron-on patch attached), and inside are all manner of shiny bells and whistles, including a lucite paperweight with images from the event, a reprint of LIFE Magazine’s original festival feature, and reproductions of various Woodstock memorabilia, right down to notes left by concertgoers ("Please meet me in front of stage. I have your insulin pills") and a three-day ticket to the event. And hey, if you’re looking for subtitles in Finnish, Thai, or Polish, you’ve come to the right place.

The movie itself now weighs in at nearly four hours long, and is presumably the way director Michael Wadleigh wanted it in the first place. The Blu-Ray transfer is definitely an upgrade, as is the soundtrack, which was originally recorded on 8-track tape under less-than-ideal conditions. (Using modern digital technology, audio engineer Eddie Kramer, who was hunkered down in what passed for a recording booth at the Woodstock site, has painstakingly restored the soundtrack--even bringing in some of the musicians to re-play their original parts, as on Santana’s “Evil Ways,” one of the previously unreleased bonus performances. Considering that the event is something of a sacred cow by now, this trick may strike some as blasphemous. Then again, this is hardly the first time that a live concert recording has been sweetened, re-recorded, or otherwise enhanced. In fact, it'd be hard to find one that wasn't. And the additions would have gone largely unnoticed if we hadn't been told about them.) In the end, though, there’s only so much improvement possible, and Woodstock was never about technical brilliance anyway. Nor was it mostly about the music, either. Nor was it mostly about the music, either. There are some terrific performances, from acoustic numbers by Richie Havens and Crosby, Stills & Nash to powerful electric contributions from Santana, Sly & the Family Stone, and Joe Cocker. But the truth is that Monterey Pop, which happened two years earlier, was the more exciting concert, and of the several artists who appeared on both bills (including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Who, Jefferson Airplane, and others), all of them made better music at the California festival. But Woodstock was always less a concert than an overall cultural happening, and Wadleigh and his crew, often employing an effective split-screen technique, do a superb job of corralling and conveying the remarkable atmosphere and spirit of it; you didn’t have to be there to recognize that this was the zenith of the Age of Aquarius (it was also the twilight; with Altamont looming, things would never be this peaceful and idealistic again).

Of principal interest on the second disc will be two hours of additional musical performances, including both additional tunes by those who are in the main feature and appearances by five artists who for various reasons (ego, money, quality, time) never made it into the film at all; of the latter, Creedence Clearwater Revival is excellent, Paul Butterfield and Johnny Winter are good, Mountain is mediocre, and the Grateful Dead, with an interminable (38 minutes!) "Turn on Your Love Light," are awful (a special Blu-Ray-only feature lets users organize this material as they see fit). Meanwhile, "From Festival to Feature," a new, hour-long look at the making of the movie, is absorbing and minutely detailed. The Amazon-exclusive content (included on disc 2) is an additional 20 minutes of never-before-seen performance footage in high definition from Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Country Joe and the Fish plus three bonus featurettes. --Sam Graham

Product Description
1969 was a year unlike any other. Man first set foot on the moon. The New York Mets won the World Series against all odds. And for three days in the rural town of Bethel, New York, half a million people experienced the single most defining moment of their generation; a concert unprecedented in scope and influence, a coming together of people from all walks of life with a single common goal: Peace and music. They called it Woodstock. One year later, a landmark Oscar®-winning documentary captured the essence of the music, the electricity of the performances, and the experience of those who lived it. Newly remastered, the film features legendary performances by 17 best selling artists. Bonus content includes: • Customize your own Woodstock playlist!• BD Live Enabled Features Including Media Center, My Commentary, & Live

• Amazon-exclusive bonus content (included on disc 2) with never-before-seen performance footage in hi-def from Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Country Joe and the Fish plus three bonus featurettes
• 40th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition includes:
• -Lucite display with images from the festival
• -60-page commemorative LIFE Magazine reprint
• -Iron-on Woodstock patch
• -Woodstock fact sheet
• -Reproductions of festival memorabilia, including handwritten notes and a three-day ticket
• New retrospective: The Museum at Bethel Woods: The Story of the Sixties and Woodstock
• Woodstock: Untold Stories: Over two hours of never-before-seen musical performances by Joan Baez, Paul Butterfield, Canned Heat, Joe Cocker, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Mountain, Santana, Sha Na Na, the Who, and Johnny Winter (Exclusive to Blu-ray: customize your own Woodstock playlist)
• Woodstock: From Festival to Feature: comprehensive featurette gallery chronicling the festival and the filming from start to finish, interwoven with interviews from Martin Scorsese, Grace Slick, director Michael Wadleigh, Woodstock Festival executive producer Michael Lang, and more
• Enhanced BD-Live bonus features

Stills from Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music Director's Cut

Customer Reviews

The extra footage is Great!...but
Woodstock, the 40th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition is an wonderful box but far from perfect. If you have the 1994 Director's Cut you already have the meat of this box set. The extra songs are great (really!) but only worth paying for if you're itching for any new footage. Of course, if you don't already have a version of the Woodstock concert on DVD, then by all means get this box. The extra DVD contains three songs from the Creedence Clearwater Revival set which is fantastic to finally see (along with extra songs from another dozen groups). And PLEASE buy if from Amazon as they include their own exclusive DVD with a few very rare songs (limited time). The Life magazine reprint is fun but I would have preferred they replaced most of the "stuff" with another DVD. My personal peeve is the absence of Melanie. Even it you get this box set, it will still be worth the money to buy the 2 DVD set of +Jimi Hendrix: Live at Woodstock+ and (if you still have a VHS player that works) its also worth seeking out the VHS tape from 1991 titled, +Woodstock: The Lost Performances+ which contains a hour of songs that are not in the new box set. The extra songs in the new box set are not integrated into the Movie, so you will have to change DVD's to see all the songs of a particular group. Perhaps when the 50th Anniversary rolls around we will finally get a box that puts all the performance footage together as it ought to be. If not, maybe we can have our Cryogenically frozen heads defrosted in time for the 100th Anniversary (don't count on it). Oh, as to the complaints of others about the songs being "corrected", just ignore them, the sound is great.

A Great Film Meets Blu-Ray, Amazing Results
3 hours 44 minutes 19 seconds long (edit), probably the greatest music event ever, a remarkable documentary; finally meets the sound and visual treament it always deservered (Blu-Ray and Dolby TruHD).

For those familiar with the movie, you've never seen this film in such perfection. A pristine or incredibly well cleaned print of this film was lovingly transfered to 1080p resolution. The transfer is so good, you can actually see the grain of the film. There is no more that can be done to improve video at home. I'm pretty certain that the theater sound systems were nowhere near up to the level of home theater today. The addition of rear channels and subwoofers, and given the limitations of the original recording, just can't get better. Since this film is all about the music, what could possibly be better? There were times when the couch rattled with the power of the bass. The one nit, the surrounds tend to be a bit loud, so the soundstage gets a little confused. I'll take that any day of the week to hear this music the way it was recorded.

For those new to Woodstock - buy this version. The music: some of the best rock, folk, and blues music ever. Hendrix, The Who, Jefferson Airplane - the gods of rock and roll. Crosby, Stills and Nash, Joan Baez, John Sebastian, Janis Joplin, Arlo Guthrie - the crossover gods of folk music. Canned Heat, Joe Cocker, Ten Years After - crossover blues.

The Jimi Hendrix' three songs are almost worth the price alone - the greatest guitar player ever, playing to a very small crowd at the end of Woodstock (that will teach people that leave early to beat the traffic).

The movie is what documentary film making is all about, capture the moment, render the feeling, place the audience in the event. The opening, pristine fields, interviews with locals, traffic rolling in, and the gorgeous CS&N singing Long Time Gone; followed by Canned Heat Going Up The Country; ending in CS&N Wooden Ships. The feeling is almost surreal as the site gets more and more crowded. Richie Havens opens the concert with his great acoustic guitar playing and protest songs. It's not straight linear time filming, but uses shots from different times to support the story line. Arlo Guthrie sings 'Coming into Los Angeles', a song about flying on an ariplane with a couple of keys (drug running); the visuals are of people enjoying that drug. It's almost a McGyver for how to enjoy that drug. The film cuts back occasionally to Guthrie singing at night. The director Michael Wadleigh uses split screens (twos, threes and fours) at just the right moments. The Who play and what is more important, Roger Daltry singing or Pete Townshend playing guitar? We get both with a 3 screen split, because they are both incredibly important to the performance. Wadleigh knows what is important and gives it to the viewer.

The soundtrack to the main film was reworked in a few places. Santana's Soul Sacrafice is very obviously altered - the marachas emit sound when they are nowhere near a microphone, and the sound is specifically placed in surrounds or specific channels. It's pretty clear when this enhancement was done. Is that a crime? On the one hand, yes - it isn't what was really performed at Woodstock exactly that way. No its not a crime - you can think of these as sound effects that don't alter the feel of the performance. Purists already know what they think about this. Personally, I don't have a lot of problem with the changes.

Disc 2 - Bonus Features. Two parts, more music and a look at behind the scenes / snapshot of life in the late 60's early 70's.

The music - for one reason or another these performances were not included in the movie. Some, the sound wasn't recorded very well, some the film was underexposed, some acts just weren't popular enough, or some just didn't fit the story line. Frankly, pick your reason for the clip you happen to love. The description of this disc includes the play list, it's long. The great part of Blu-Ray, the music is presented as a table and you make your own playlist that you then play. It can be saved, skipped around, whatever. Great way to watch the clips. The three Amazon bonus tracks are excellent.

The Film bonuses. This is a bit less great. In some ways it's a view at television / life in the 60's / 70's. The Hugh Hefner bit was interesting, but there was too much talking head for my taste. Playboy After Dark was an icon of the era, and it would have been way better to just play the 20 minutes of that show - instead there's only about 3 or 4 minutes of super young Hugh Hefner (and glimpses of the gorgeous young Barbie Benton next to him). Mostly these featurettes are like what you see in most movies anymore, talking heads, some clip back to the film or examples. It runs long, it runs deep. If you are addicted to Woodstock - you will enjoy this more than you can imagine. For normal humans, probably pass on this whole featurette section.

The film is rated R for good reason. Strong language, drug use (almost a how to film), and nudity are all there. No, younger viewers should not see this. Up until the Arlo Guthrie song, would be acceptable (almost the first half of the film).

This edition with all the funky packaging. I've posted some pictures of a more or less unboxing. The pictures inside the acrylic frame is lame - the frame is actually kind of cool (use it for another picture - it's held together with magnets). The reprinted Life Magazine is sweet. The best, in my view, is the reprinted ticket on heavy ticket stock. Frankly, all the extras aren't really worth much extra money. I would have gladly bought this as a straight no extra stuff, blu-ray edition with the two discs alone.

Inexcusable DVD transfer
I have owned the director's cut of this on VHS for years and the VHS version is superb visually and the sound is excellent.

I bought the DVD so I could have chapter access to each performance. Indeed, the DVD does have that, but it is all for naught.

The picture on the DVD is vastly inferior to the VHS. Images that can be clearly seen on the VHS don't register many times at all on the DVD, i.e the outline and some features of a guy dancing are clearly visible on the VHS as they were on film in a theatre. On the DVD, you just see the outine of the figure with a hint of subtler visual attributes. The sound on the DVD is the worst I've heard on any release from a major company. I've seen and heard better on second-rate VHS's and DVD's from the likes of Laserdisc.

Boy, will I read those ratings on visual and sound quality from now on. The review on Amazon's "technical information" for this DVD is absoulutely correct.

I will never buy another DVD or VHS from Warner Bros without first renting and previewing it. So I still watch my 2-tape VHS of this landmark film of this one-time phenomenon.

The DVD is on one two-sided disc, which doesn't even break at the intermission, to rub salt in this inexcusable mangling from Warner Bros. First, they blew their initial Kubrick set and now this disgrace.

If you want this film on video, get in the well-done and tecnically superior VHS double tape. Incompent .... Jack Warner would have kicked who ever is responsible for this rip-off DVD most deservedly in the teeth...