Rebel Rebel: Why “Taking Woodstock” Gave me Goosebumps

Actor Demetri Martin who plays Elliot in Lee’s “Taking Woodstock.” Photo by Brian Brooks/indieWIRE

Well, I can thank God I eventually saw the light, and though I never followed my Mom’s footsteps into hippiedom (I opted for the more glam styles of goth/punk), though I did grow an affection for the period. I even started to like some of the music (Joe Cocker’s version of “A Little Help from My Friends” is purely transcendental), and I’d always get sucked into watching documentaries of the era if I ever came across them, especially Michael Wadleigh’s 1970 Oscar-winning doc, “Woodstock,” which gets some decent cinematic shout-outs in Lee’s film. And, I think I’ve watched Milos Forman’s 1979 screen version of “Hair” about six or seven times.

While the U.S. was (and is) flawed, I feel “proud” that it could produce and sustain a generation of rebels willing to question authority. I mean, what’s so great about a people who just follow the party line, make money, produce babies, drink two cocktails at 6 p.m. and go to bed after the 11:00 news - or Letterman on a big night? Blending in as a card carrying member of society may have its benefits, but it certainly isn’t the stuff that’s going to inspire a film, unless it’s a reaction against it, of course.

“America was great and had the most popular culture in the world,” Ang Lee told me at the premiere party for “Taking Woodstock” last month in New York. “Young people then worked against the establishment and for the environment, and against cultural norms and the power structure. It was brilliant.”

Back in Cannes, as I watched “Taking Woodstock” I couldn’t help but feel the polarization taking place in the screening,  much like the era itself. Clearly some people, including myself, were having a good time with the film. I didn’t care much that people seated immediately around me were only giving tepid reaction at best when the crazy performance troupe living in Elliot Teichberg’s (Demetri Martin) parents’ barn took off all their clothes and started screaming at their own audience. It was damn funny! And I sure as hell was going to belt out my laughter, as did some others in the theater. Like the era itself, “Taking Woodstock” seemed to cut people along sharp edges. Even indieWIRE’s review of the film called it a “messy historical fiction.” The New York Times somewhat concurred, saying the film lacked “the passion of Mr. Lee’s finest films.” Though it did give the movie some kudos and it certainly wasn’t a breakdown bummer of a review. Maybe the film isn’t perfect but neither were the ‘60s or the hippies. The Summer of Love in Haight-Ashbury unfortunately begat heroin and drug overdoses not even one year later.

“Taking Woodstock”‘s writer/producer James Schamus gave me a different perspective when we chatted about the film in Cannes. “It’s a movie about happiness,” he said. “It’s a story about someone going from a state of unhappiness to happiness. How often do you see a film like that?”

In the film, Elliot goes from being a repressed closeted interior decorator to become an unknowing agent of history when he attempts to bring commerce to his parents rundown motel and their neighbors depressed Upstate New York community by bringing the Woodstock festival to their grossly ill-fitted community. As many of the reviews, including Roger Ebert’s point out, the film has very few scenes of the actual show. It’s a story about a group of people who are swept up by an era and find liberation. And for the record nay-sayers, Ebert seemed to like the movie too. One television reviewer here in NYC had the gaul to say that “people familiar with the era may be put off by the Liev Schreiber character” (he plays a transvestite). I mean, really? Don’t you get anything? What a bore you must be… Just go off and sip your wine spritzer after work…

Party decorations at the “Taking Woodstock” premiere party in New York last month. Photo by Brian Brooks/indieWIRE

Still reviews aside, I’m going to “rebel” against my cineaste friends and just say flat out that took great joy in watching the film. I smirked with a devilish glee (at least it felt like I did) when the camera focused on the angry townspeople in the film protesting the hordes of hippies gathering. Somehow, it reminded me of when I stuck my body half way out of my friend’s car in 1990 giving two middle fingers to these stupid people on a street corner in Whittier who were waving flags and carrying signs celebrating the first George Bush and the Gulf War.

Somehow, the film awakened my inner rebel if only for a moment and it taps the inner youth that never completely dies. At least I hope it doesn’t. And what the hell, who says anyone should like the film? If everyone liked it, then I probably would’ve hated it. But, I do like it. It’s not Godard, it’s not “Citizen Kane” - hell it may not even be Ang Lee’s finest (I’ll just go ahead and out myself here, I love “Brokeback Mountain” and I saw “Lust, Caution” twice in a theater), but it’s two hours that taps into that crazy whacked-out moment in history when the ‘50s were merely a bad flashback, and it was finally en vogue to go tell the man to go fuck himself. And having a blast while doing so.

Maybe I can’t completely articulate why the era as seen in the story of this film has a special place in my soul. OK, maybe rebellion is just fun, damnit. Maybe it’s worth it to have a focus on fighting against something, if only for the joi d’vivre. I went against the ‘60s when I was really young and became a fan as an adult (maybe I owe a thank you note to George H.W. Bush). The same rebel that made me an Alex Keaton knock-off at 13 is the same spirit that makes me a raging liberal at 40. But then again, as Jefferson Airplane’s Grace Slick once said back in the ‘60s, “Never trust anyone over 30.”

Don’t bogart that joint, Mom!