Lee’s Woodstock Gets You High
Ang Lee’s (The Wedding Banquet, Lust, Caution) latest feature Taking Woodstock, based on the memoirs of Elliot Tiber and with a screenplay by the director’s frequent collaborator James Schamus, was the subject of much discussion at last May’s Cannes Film Festival. Unfortunately, much of that talk wasn’t exactly positive, the general consensus by the critical mass in attendance that the film was a pleasant if inconsequential effort from the Oscar-winning filmmaker not worthy of his talents.
Demetri Martin and Liev Schreiber in Focus Features' Taking Woodstock
I’m not sure what they saw, but the Taking Woodstock I had the pleasure to view a couple of weeks ago was an outright delight. While decidedly fluffy and nowhere near as weighty as say The Ice Storm or Brokeback Mountain, this delicious slice of 1960’s Americana held me captivated right from the very start. It took me to a time and a place in history I’d really only known thanks to my mother’s stories, Lee and Schamus capturing that very same whimsical devil-may-care vibe inherent in all of them.
Elliot Teichberg (Demetri Martin) would rather be living back in New York’s Greenwich Village making a living as an interior designer, but thanks to a compulsion to make sure his parents don’t suffer he’s instead sunk everything he has in the family’s failing El Monaco hotel deep in the Catskills. With the bank threatening to foreclose, Elliot decides to spend the summer with ma Sonia (Imelda Staunton) and pa Jake (Henry Goodman) trying to get them back to the positive side of the balance sheet.
When he hears that a major music and arts festival is struggling to get a permit for their event the young man is struck with inspiration. As head of the city council, he already has a permit for his family’s music festival resting in his pocket, and if this thing being planned by something called ‘Woodstock Ventures’ is as big as co-producer Michael Lang (Jonathan Groff) claims it is going to be than all his prayers are going to be answered and then some.
Of course, this little festival turned into arguably the most important cultural concert event of the 1960’s, the three-day Woodstock Music and Arts Festival. But this movie isn’t so much about the event itself as it is the behind-the-scenes shenanigans allowing it to take place. This is Elliot and his family’s story, the political unrest, free love, community distrust and Hippie commuting all window dressing to the internal personal drama taking place within the Teichberg clan.
It is that central dynamic between the three of them that captivated and moved me. At first, this is a pretty difficult trio to warm up to. Elliot is a bit of a nebbish, whiny and needy and not at all sure of himself and what he wants to do with his life. Jake is quiet, doing all he can to fade into the woodwork, almost as if his former manly stoicism has been replaced by a resigned malaise foretelling the end of his life. As for Sonia, she’s a gruff, belligerent and almost completely unlikable, the kind of selfish spendthrift of a mother you hear about in stories but never think actually exists.
Yet at Woodstock approaches, the crowds start to build, the chaos mounts and the money rolls in all of them are revitalized in distinctly individual ways. Elliot finds a freedom to express himself and his sexuality like he’s never felt comfortable doing before, while Jake is so revitalized by curious mixture of people and personalities he begins to remember what it was like to look at each dawn with fresh eyes ready to take on any and all challenges. As for Sonia, to say she changes wouldn’t be true, but to say those around her finally see her changed personality for the ugly defense mechanism that it is wouldn’t be.
Lee and Schamus find the pain and pathos here, yes, but they never dwell on it. Instead, every surreal tragedy is inspiration for comedic upheaval leading to a moment of clarity that’s absolutely sublime. I felt like I not only got to know Teichbergs but that I also got an opportunity to experience the whimsically schizophrenic vibes of the 1960’s like I hadn’t before. In a way, I started to understand why the stories my mom would tell me as a kid were still so strong for her, what it was about them that made her the amazing woman I consider her to be today.
I should say that the film doesn’t start out particularly strong. The early scenes are haphazard and bumpy, almost as if the filmmakers aren’t quite sure which direction their comfortable taking things in. Additionally, it took me quite a while to ultimately warm up to Martin. The star of the semi-popular cable series “Important Things with Demetri Martin,” he has an oddly affected style to his mannerisms and phrasings that drove me a little nuts during the first third in particular.
Things start to come alive when Elliot and Michael meet to discuss the concert, they get even more so when Max Yasgur (Eugene Levy) starts negotiating the use of his farm with the promoters over a few boxes of his freshly made chocolate milk But they go to a completely different level altogether when transsexual former Marine Vilma (Liev Schreiber) arrives offering to provide security for the Teichbergs, the film suddenly clicking on all of its cylinders with a gleefully exuberant ferocity it up to then has lacked.
I’ve thought that Schreiber has been one of the most consistently underrated actors working today for quite some time now. I may not have been a fan of last year’s WWII thriller Defiance but that didn’t make his performance any less unforgettable and it probably should have gotten him an Academy Award nomination. As good as he was there, though, he’s even better in this, his multifaceted, perceptive, emotional and ultimately charming work here as good as anything he’s ever done. He is absolutely amazing, and once he starts stumbling around and offering advice Taking Woodstock transforms from a relatively pleasing diversion into a splendid comedic drama I can’t wait to watch again.
I’m tempted to say that Ang Lee might be this generation’s answer to Billy Wilder. His human comedies like Sense and Sensibility and Eat Drink Man Woman sparkle with intelligent vim and vinegar, the artist showcasing a lightly magical touch that is almost always 100-percent captivating. But he also has a darker side, and like the Hollywood master was able to delve deep into the heart of darkness with Sunset Boulevard and Ace in the Hole so has Lee with some of his own layered, sometimes tragic, highly emotional melodramas.
Taking Woodstock finds the filmmaker returning to his lighter side, the laughs and the smiles building throughout to the point the joy he probably had making it was felt by me while sitting in the theater. He captures the spirit and the energy of the time with ease, the trip Lee sent those of us watching it on leaving me so high I almost didn’t ever want to come back down when it was over.
Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)
Additional Links
