History has a sly way of happening when you least expect it. For example: A one-time dealer and savvy concert promoter teams up with a hip record-company exec to hold a music and arts festival in a rural setting, showcasing a few of the year's better bands. The promoters expect attendance of around 200,000, but the gates come down and they wind up with over 400,000 souls assembled on Max Yasgur's farm in August 1969. Despite the logistical chaos and rain, a spirit of community prevails, Jimi Hendrix plays the guitar solo of a lifetime, minds are blown, and the Woodstock festival enters the history books.
History also has a tendency to ossify into a few sharply etched moments, and in Woodstock's case, most of them were cemented by Michael Wadleigh's three-hour 1970 documentary film of the same name. ("Gimme an "F"!, Hendrix's dive-bombing version of the national anthem, naked hippies in the mud, and that endless sea of furry freaks.) Woodstock became the Defining Event of a Generation (TM), so much so that even people who weren't there are quick to say they were. Everyone wants to be a part of history: Nobody wants to be the guy who stayed home with the kids that weekend.
That's a concern that gnaws away at Ang Lee's "Taking Woodstock," a film based on the memoir of Elliot Tiber. In '69, Tiber, a nice Jewish boy, was an aspiring interior decorator in Manhattan during the week, and on the weekends helped his parents run their rather decrepit motel in the Catskills. Tiber had obtained a permit to hold a small backyard-size arts fair in his hometown when he read that the upcoming Woodstock festival had been kicked out of nearby Walkill. He immediately contacted festival organizer Michael Lang, offered him the permit, and introduced him to Yasgur, on whose farm the festival would indeed be held. Lang and the entire Woodstock staff moved into Tiber's motel, which became the base of operations for the festival and the scene of all sorts of funky chaos and good vibes over the course of the summer.