The Last Movie I Saw

All summer long (and much of the spring too) , every movie I went to seemed to be preceded by the trailer for Ang Lee's new movie, Taking Woodstock. And every time I saw it, I thought, "that looks really good." The more I saw the preview, the more my expectations rose, so that I really had high hopes for the film. So much so, that as I finally made my way into the theater on Saturday to see the movie, I was struck with the realization that it couldn't possibly live up to those expectations and I was bound to be disappointed. Well, lucky me, the film turned out to be even better than I anticipated, largely because it was something different than I had been led to believe. For one thing, while my first-hand experience with the Age of Aquarius (let alone Woodstock itself) is limited, I feel like I know something about living in a small town, and Lee seems much more interested in exploring the nature of life in the depressed hamlet of White Lake, NY than delving too deeply into the half million visitors who descended on that small town for three days of peace and music. He evokes a particular sense of something close to ennui in the fading past-its-prime town, where even life-long relationships seem fairly tenuous as far as shaping anything approaching real community spirit, even as they appear to be the only bond holding the town together. When the swarm of newcomers arrive for the big show, they serve more as a catalyst than the object of Lee's themes of personal identity and community commitment which are manifested in the central character Elliot, played by Demitri Martin. The festival, and more to the point, the array of people drawn to or swept up in that momentary cultural vortex, provide shifting expressions of the endless possibilities that tend to be invisible (or forgotten) in a provincial backwater like White Lake. Lee treats virtually all of his characters with a level of compassion that only some of them earn based on their behavior in the film, but that all of them deserve if one embraces the heady ideology so often attached to the myth of Woodstock. It's easy to be cynical and dismiss that ideal as so much hippy-dippy nonsense, but the fact that we endlessly commemorate the original event (the film itself no doubt calculated to open on its fortieth anniversary) suggests that we still want to believe in its utopian sentiment. Lee's film speaks to that enduring legacy in terms that transcend the frankly trivial connection to the music or fashion or drugs of a particular era, and suggests that a more universal application of those values may still be possible. Whether the experience had a positive effect on White Lake is unanswered by the film; but given its impact on certain individuals, like Elliot and Max Yasgur (Eugene Levy), it suggests at least a foundation for rebuilding a true sense of community there and elsewhere. I think that's a message that bears remembrance, and not just for those still wearing tie-dye and listening to Jimi Hendrix, forty years on.