Festival

I saw this excellent film on television recently and was knocked out by a dance performance about halfway through. Four male-female pairs of dancers (The Blue Ridge Mountain Dancers) go through what I assume is traditional 19th-century (?) clog-dance figures to the music of a small acoustic band including Pete Seeger. The dancing is wonderfully rhythmic with lots of on-the-beat clog-stamping. It's wonderful to watch and listen to, and it looks great fun - the dancers and the musicians are consciously acting out some folk heritage, and pointing out the riches and the enjoyment to be found there ("Folks made their own entertainment then and I purely doubt that you and MTV can show me anything better!"). That's the Newport message, and these few minutes deliver it splendidly.

Festival is sadly among the missing documents of an era in popular music that continues to fascinate. After a brief theatrical run in 1967, the film continued to show up at repertory theaters through the next decade. But with the advent of home video, problems with wider distribution arose, due to clearing music performance rights. Thus, any opportunity to see this film should be taken. Director Murray Lerner hung out at four Newport Folk Festivals (1963-1966), recording performances, interviews, and crowd shots. Editing all of this footage into less than 100 minutes of film inevitably meant compromises; there are no complete performances, the interviews are brief. But the feeling for an era remains, and the most electric moment (literally) involves that famous (or infamous) 1965 performance by Bob Dylan, when he plugged in his guitar and played with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Among the highlights are several involving veteran bluesmen like Son House breaking through to a mostly white, college-age crowd.

The strength of this documentary is in its intimacy. We get really up close & personal with the musicians as well as the audience. The Newport Folk Festival was huge, as conveyed in the opening credit scene with a seemingly endless river of people flowing onto the grounds, but for the most part the camera stays tight with the subjects, whether it's Joan Baez signing autographs (and later hi-fiving fans through the window of her car as we ride in the back seat), or eavesdropping on fans camped out, or even on stage during performances where the camera seemed to be within a few feet. Rarely have I seen this approach to filming an event of this magnitude. That's the good.

The bad, or at least the frustrating part, is as I mentioned in my title. While the initial performance (Peter, Paul & Mary) gives us a full song uninterrupted, thus whetting our whistle for more like that, the other acts are cut short. With other big stars like Donovan and Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, we sometimes get only 1 verse and the ending of a song. Then we cut back to another performance by Peter, Paul & Mary. I can only guess that there simply wasn't enough footage taken of the other acts. But it's a noticeable flaw in this otherwise all-encompassing taste of what the Festival was like. So if you came here for the music, I'm afraid you won't get your fill. But if you approach it as a talky type documentary with a few clips of performances interspersed, that's what you'll get.

Fortunately, "Festival" is now available on DVD which I recently purchased. The performances (though incomplete), the interviews, and crowd shots make it a worthwhile 95 minutes of viewing. For me, it wasn't enough. I was yearning for more, more, and more. Here's why: There simply isn't much history available about the Newport Folk Festival and the folk music revival of the 60s except for excerpts here and there but never in complete document form. Many of the artists who appear in this film are long deceased, and with their departure, so is their body of work which in large part, is out of print and rare. The best known performers in the film (Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul, and Mary) are still active to this day yet it's fascinating and at times, amusing, to see them frolicking in some (until now) rare footage. I recommend it as a companion to the recent Bob Dylan "No Direction Home" DVD set just released this past summer.

Sometimes Stunning Encapsulation of the Newport Jazz Festivals of 1963-1966.

The Opening Scene is a Cultural Cornerstone.

It's a Fixed Camera with Hordes of Young and Old Folks Entering the Festival Grounds and is a "Snapshot" in Time that would be Imitated in the Pop-Culture Movements of "Monterey Pop" (1967) and then "Woodstock" (1969).

And Virtually Every Documentary Featuring a Music or Concert "Festival".

It is a Bona-Fide Classic.

Considering the Film and Audio Available at the Time, the Images and the Sound are Impressive.

Also Impressive is the way Murray Lerner Cross-Cuts between Performances and Patrons to Create a Unique and Unforgettable "You-Are-There" Experience.

You get to See a Young and Relatively "New" Bob Dylan and Joan Baez in a Fair Amount of Footage.

The Infamous Dylan "Plugging-In" to Electric sent Shock Waves through the Folk Movement as He Delivers a Searing Rendition of "Maggie's Farm".

If one was to Fault the Film...There is a Mysterious and Lengthy Amount of Peter, Paul, and Mary and Judy Collins Footage.

Some other Performers such as Johnny Cash, Barely Registers 3 minutes.

But Overall it is a Good Cross-Section of Acts that Stretch to Include Mike Bloomfield, Son House, Gospel Singers, Folk-Dancing and More.

A Must See Event that is Essential for Music Lovers and Pop-Culture Historians.

It's the One that Started it All and Did So in Fantastic Fashion.