In many ways, 1999 felt like the last time the general public truly had nothing to rage against. That’s false, of course; the problems that exist now were always there, just swept under the rug. As the millennium came to an end, there was a permeation of “what’s left?” in the air. Much of the popular “angry” music at the time reflected this. Bands like Limp Bizkit and Korn captured a sort of overproduced, manufactured, and directionless rage felt by a large section of the youth, this writer unfortunately included. Add an unhealthy mix of desperate Boomer nostalgia, and the makings were all there for an astonishingly foolhardy attempt to revive Woodstock.
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Five years after the very successful Woodstock ‘94, original founders Michael Lang and John Scher did just that. Taking the event to Griffiss Airforce Base in Rome, New York, the duo put together the largest iteration of the festival yet. Miles in-between stages, warehouses for after-hour raves and vendor malls, what was once a bastion for peace and love became a living, breathing manifestation of ’90s American excess. Over the course of the three-day event, the crowd converged into a violent, shockingly large mass of people committing horrific acts of sexual assault, destruction and debauchery.
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In HBO’s latest doc, “Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage,” filmmaker Garret Price attempts to dissect what happened and why. Putting together a litany of people from journalists who covered the event to musicians on the bill, “Woodstock 99” takes us on a dizzying journey through its inception, early success and ultimate downfall. In a turn fitting of a festival so devoid of identity or meaning, Price’s film leaves the viewer with more questions than answers and without any sense of real interrogation.
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Documentaries are at their most interesting when there’s a true authorial voice behind the camera. Not to be mistaken for “choosing” a side, but rather the filmmaker lending any of their own identity to what’s on-screen. Like most “pop” docs prevalent in a post-Netflix world, “Woodstock 99” doesn’t seek to illuminate or challenge. A lack of desire to really dig beneath its subject’s surface isn’t inherently a problem if it’s at least engaging. “Woodstock 99” doesn’t even manage that. As we barrel through mountains of information, Price is keen on not letting you linger too long on anything; moments of humanity slip away. What’s left is a barrage of sight and sound amounting to very little. Price dares to ask, “isn’t this all crazy??” twenty-plus years after an event that was well documented as being, in fact, “crazy.”
Price is far too outsized in what he wants to cover and when coupled with a clear disinterest in covering any of it well, what results is a hollow slog. In a breathless two hours, we tear through topics like racism (the overwhelmingly white crowd chanting slurs back at DMX), violence (Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst being blamed for inciting a riot a key moment), assault, dehydration, death, the Clinton administration and more. Each topic is broached, briefly discussed and off we go to the next. There’s never clarity, barely any context, and the summation is generally “look at how awful people are.” For the dramatic tone the film takes towards, especially the end with its darkly oppressive score haunting the images of destruction, the observations are remarkably facile.
In the wake of the Anthony Bourdain doc “Roadrunner” and how it used AI software to have him say things he never said aloud, social media erupted into a debate over ethics in documentary filmmaking. No matter where you fell in that conversation, there’s at least a sense of creative decision-making in deep-faking Bourdain’s voice in an attempt to let him “speak,” as it were. In “Woodstock 99,” another ethical quandary crosses the mind but one rooted in something much more insidious. A major topic of conversation is the rampant sexual abuse towards women at the event. To convey this, we see an endless number of women having their clothes torn off and being visibly assaulted in full view. It goes beyond disturbing you for the sake of getting across how rampant this was and into some level of exploitation. For as much work as the talking heads do to condemn this, the viewer is “treated” to dozens of shots of naked women. Nebulous is their ages or consent to being filmed, and after a while, the mind wanders to what the endgame is. Intentionally or not, its point is warped, losing its tenor of disgust and instead of becoming the very thing, it’s condemning.
Equally frustrating is the film’s attempt at a sentimental throughline in Dave DeRosia. DeRosia, a 24-year-old man who collapsed and died during Metallica’s set, is depicted through the journals he kept during the festival. Intermittently, an insight into the day’s activities in real-time are divulged. From loving Live’s set to hating Jamiroquai to becoming exhausted with the general vibe of the event, there’s a deeply personal narrative woven into an otherwise impersonal national moment. There’s a chance for the film to ground itself into the here and now, allowing for something more than the standard clip-show/talking head object it is. As is with the rest of his film, Price seemingly has very little interest in DeRosia beyond pulling heartstrings. Thrown in almost as a second thought, the mind erases his story any time it’s not the central focus. The attempts to layer in heartbreak over horror are limp at best with an almost “oh yeah, we need another diary entry here” mentality. It’s a disservice to DeRosia and the viewer.
A lot like many of the noisy artists on display, “Woodstock 99” has a lot to say, says it loudly but fails to connect in any meaningful way. In a perverse sense, it’s almost the perfect document to capture such a morally limp but frighteningly angry moment in time. As the flames went out on this disaster of an event, all that remained were broken bodies, traumatized minds and a sense of “what was the point?” That’s a question you’ll be asking yourself about this very film as the credits roll. [D+]