Festival (1967)

[Scottie]

Before Woodstock and Monterey Pop, there was Festival. From 1963 to 1966, Murray Lerner visited the annual Newport Folk Festival to document a thriving, idealistic musical movement as it reached its peak as a popular phenomenon. Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Howlin’ Wolf, Johnny Cash, the Staples Singers, Pete Seeger, Son House, and Peter, Paul and Mary were just a few of the legends who shared the stage at Newport, treating audiences to a range of folk music that encompassed the genre’s roots in blues, country, and gospel as well as its newer flirtations with rock ’n’ roll. Shooting in gorgeous black and white, Lerner juxtaposes performances with snapshot interviews with artists and their fans, weaving footage from four years of the festival into an intimate record of a pivotal time in music—and in American culture at large.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION:

New, restored 2K digital transfer, along with a new reconstruction and remastering of the monaural soundtrack using the original concert and field recordings, both approved by director Murray Lerner, with the soundtrack presented uncompressed on the Blu-ray
When We Played Newport, a new program featuring archival interviews with Lerner, music festival producer George Wein, and musicians Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Buffy Saint-Marie, Pete Seeger, and Peter Yarrow
Editing “Festival,” a new program featuring Lerner, associate editor Alan Heim, and assistant editor Gordon Quinn
Selection of complete outtake performances, including Clarence Ashley, Horton Barker, Johnny Cash, John Lee Hooker, and Odetta
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Amanda Petrusich and artist bios by folk music expert Mary Katherine Aldin

https://www.criterion.com/films/28889-festival

[LRSIII]

Now, if we could only get "Jazz on a Summer's Day" on Blu-ray...

[Jobla]

Now, if we could only get THE WEAVERS: WASN'T THAT A TIME on Blu-ray!

[Scottie]

REVIEW

[tenia]

Can't say I found the documentary's review to be any good nor interesting, since it has to be one of the most cliché-ridden personal rambling I've read lately.

I especially loved "So in the digital era the industry and, sadly, the artists became focused on quick short-term profits that massively degraded the quality of the content that was created."

Not only commercial-minded artists have always existed, but artists putting quality over profits still massively exist. I guess the writer just don't listen to them.

But the issue with such a review is that out of 616 words, only 200 of them actually enlighten the reader about the movie itself.


As a whole, I don't mind a more contextualised a-posteriori take on a movie, but it still needs to offer something substantial, not a cliché passeist biased personal take that probably gives more intels on the writer itself than the artwork being discussed.