Festival

If you're a rabid fan of early to mid 1960's Folk Music, this is the documentary you have been waiting to see. Director Murry Lerner (who also directed an inspired documentary about the Isle Of Wight Festival of 1970) has crafted a well filmed document of four years of the Newport Folk Festival, between 1963 to 1966,including footage of Bob Dylan the first time he plugged in his brand new Stratocaster and played Maggie's Farm for an unsuspecting (and disturbed)audience. The film also makes good use of other Folk icons of the era (Joan Baez,Paul Butterfield,Son House,etc.). This black & white documentary was screened as an "art film", back in the day, and pretty much was forgotten by the end of the 60's, due to the popularity of psychedelic rock (which itself lead to progressive rock,etc.). Worth a watch if you're a fan of Dylan & the rest of the folk scene.

Fortunately, "Festival" is now available on DVD which I recently purchased. The performances (though incomplete), the interviews, and crowd shots make it a worthwhile 95 minutes of viewing. For me, it wasn't enough. I was yearning for more, more, and more. Here's why: There simply isn't much history available about the Newport Folk Festival and the folk music revival of the 60s except for excerpts here and there but never in complete document form. Many of the artists who appear in this film are long deceased, and with their departure, so is their body of work which in large part, is out of print and rare. The best known performers in the film (Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul, and Mary) are still active to this day yet it's fascinating and at times, amusing, to see them frolicking in some (until now) rare footage. I recommend it as a companion to the recent Bob Dylan "No Direction Home" DVD set just released this past summer.

I spoke with Mr. Lerner in 74 and he said that as a Black & White movie, people wouldn't want to see it. At that time vcr's were not very popular and kcet was the only venue. He offered to let me see it at a showing but we hung up with out my giving him my number. I saw segments of festival on the peter, paul and mary documentary the other night. It reminded me how much I would love to see Festival at Newport 1967. I wonder if it is for sale, these days. This was a very valuble documentary with extrodinary montage effects. It was truly neat to see and I hope it makes a return one way or another.

Paul H. Borisoff

Festival is sadly among the missing documents of an era in popular music that continues to fascinate. After a brief theatrical run in 1967, the film continued to show up at repertory theaters through the next decade. But with the advent of home video, problems with wider distribution arose, due to clearing music performance rights. Thus, any opportunity to see this film should be taken. Director Murray Lerner hung out at four Newport Folk Festivals (1963-1966), recording performances, interviews, and crowd shots. Editing all of this footage into less than 100 minutes of film inevitably meant compromises; there are no complete performances, the interviews are brief. But the feeling for an era remains, and the most electric moment (literally) involves that famous (or infamous) 1965 performance by Bob Dylan, when he plugged in his guitar and played with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Among the highlights are several involving veteran bluesmen like Son House breaking through to a mostly white, college-age crowd.

I saw this excellent film on television recently and was knocked out by a dance performance about halfway through. Four male-female pairs of dancers (The Blue Ridge Mountain Dancers) go through what I assume is traditional 19th-century (?) clog-dance figures to the music of a small acoustic band including Pete Seeger. The dancing is wonderfully rhythmic with lots of on-the-beat clog-stamping. It's wonderful to watch and listen to, and it looks great fun - the dancers and the musicians are consciously acting out some folk heritage, and pointing out the riches and the enjoyment to be found there ("Folks made their own entertainment then and I purely doubt that you and MTV can show me anything better!"). That's the Newport message, and these few minutes deliver it splendidly.