Taking Woodstock

Elliot Tiber is an aspiring Greenwich Village interior designer whose parents own a small motel in Upstate New York. Their lives are changed forever when Tiber offers both the Catskills motel and its permit to play live music to the Woodstock Festival's organizers.

In order to get to the reality behind the clichés that the '60s have been reduced to, Lee gave all the actors songs for their ipods and each one of the main actors received 30 DVDs from him. They also spent a lot time together, and even set up a hippie training camp, which came complete with a hippie handbook.

Lee's main interest in Tiber's Pitch was on Woodstock, because it means so much, and is still relevant today. "I think they started to plant a seed for many of the issues we are dealing with more seriously today" He explained. "It's very spiritual and everything. When I read it, I just found so many anecdotes that are so fascinating"

Ang Lee first met Elliot Tiber, the author of the novel upon which the film is based, at a TV station in San Francisco. Tiber handed Lee a copy of the book, which was followed by a two-minute pitch on why it could be the basis of great movie. After reading the novel, Lee agreed.

'the real star is Lee's direction. Goosing Godard with an epic track through traffic, loading the screen with whirling naked bodies, withholding the epic scale of the festival until Elliot (and the cinematography) are blitzed to the gills on LSD, this may be a minor movie, but it displays the hallmarks of a major talent.'

At Cannes: 'Undoubtedly one of Ang Lee's lighter films, Taking Woodstock is also one of his better ones, and a welcome return to form after the ambitious but deeply flawed Lust, Caution.'

Ang Lee talks Taking Woodstock as the film fest nears its end...

Screenrush Cannes Diaries 2009

Features

 - 13/05/2009

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