Pays : Film américain
Durée : 1h 50min
Date de sortie : 09 Septembre 2009
Avec Emile Hirsch, Demetri Martin, Liev Schreiber
Réalisé par Ang Lee
Durant le turbulent été 69, un jeune homme travaille dans le motel de ses parents dans les Catskills, et va malgré lui mettre en branle ce qui deviendra Woodstock, le concert qui donna la définition de toute une génération...
(L'avis exprimé par les rédacteurs de cette rubrique est indépendant du travail et des choix du Jury oecuménique.)
16 mai 2009
Ang Lee always surprises : great Chinese films, Jane Austen adaptation, graphic novel and a survey of US society and culture from the Civil War (Ride with the Devil) to specialist films about the 1960s (The Ice Storm, Brokeback Mountain and now, Taking Woodstock).
2009 is the 40th anniversary of the momentous cultural (and counter-cultural) event which drew half a million Americans to a concert where the stars of the time played and hippiedom reached its peak. The first television interview this reviewer ever did was in 1970, talking with director Michael Wadleigh about his cinema covering of the event, Woodstock.
For those over 60, it is a memoir, a nostalgia trip (for or against), a reminder that there were causes in those days, that the 1960s saw some of the greatest changes in the way we behaved and thought. And the question always rises : what are the movements now, what are the causes, and do they generate the enthusiasm and energy these days that they should ?
This story takes in the concert, but at a distance. It is interested in the more personal story of the family that took on the project and the locals who let out the land – and all the consequences, the 500,000 who came, the attitudes and behaviours, the logistics for control and security, for food and drink, for hygiene facilities, the rain and the mud.
At the centre is a young man who is trying to help his parents run a run-down motel. The screenplay spends a lot of time on his story. He is well played by Demetri Martin and his parents by British Henry Goodman and Imelda Staunton (doing a caricature of a Jewish mother that demands attention). Also featured are Eugene Levy as the owner of the land, Emile Hirsch as a returned Vietnam veteran with problems and Liev Schreiber as a transvestite security guard.
Very American but brought to life by Ang Lee.
