NEW REVIEW BY: Michael Haberfelner
Woodstock: A Snapshot in Time
USA 2022
produced by
Charles Lane, Nancy Cohen for Lambstar Productions
directed by Nancy Cohen
starring Nancy Cohen, Andy Lee, Robert Downey sr, Andrew Tatarsky, Bonzo Band, Janusz Gilewicz, Danny Goldberg, Julie Lee (II), Gloria Steinem, Meir Fund, Randy Cherkas, Eddie Izzard, Paul Krassner, Mike Golden, Mike Leigh, Kova Dauser, Forrest Greenleaf Grass, Viola Jordanoff Bowman, Richie Havens, Ramsey Clark, Terrence McKenna, Archie Cheechoo, Julie Holland, narration by Peter Coyote
written by Nancy Cohen

The original Woodstock in 1969 was always more than just a music festival but an event that helped to give a generation its identity. Consequently, both the film it spawned and its soundtrack have become instant classics. So it was really only a matter of time until the entertainment industry would pick up on that success, and bearing that in mind, it’s almost surprising that it has actually taken all of 25 years for a revival festival to occur. Of course, the world has turned quite a bit since 1969, and the chances of the new, corporate-run Woodstock music festival to be as iconic for its generation as the earlier one was were slim from the get-go. And on the basis of all of this, filmmakers Nancy Cohen and Andy Lee have set out to capture the mindset of this new flock of concert-goers, also in relation to audiences of the original Woodstock, and get and transmit a feel of the new Woodstock-spirit …

… and that’s exactly what this film is so good at. Sure, it shows next to nothing of the festival itself – but then there’s plenty of high gloss concert footage out there anyways – but features a fine compilation of unfiltered interviews from back in the day that are fortunately left untouched by hindsight from almost 30 years later and that thus serve as a nice document of a time, and of a generation that might not have had its “own” Woodstock in terms of iconography, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have or deserve a voice – a voice this documentary grants them quite successfully.