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Festival



Before Woodstock and Monterey Pop, there was Festival. From 1963 to 1966, Murray Lerner visited the annual Newport Folk Festival to document a thriving, idealistic musical movement as it reached its peak as a popular phenomenon. Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Howlin' Wolf, Johnny Cash, the Staples Singers, Pete Seeger, Son House, and Peter, Paul and Mary were just a few of the legends who shared the stage at Newport, treating audiences to a range of folk music that encompassed the genre's roots in blues, country, and gospel as well as its newer flirtations with rock 'n' roll. Shooting in gorgeous black and white, Lerner juxtaposes performances with snapshot interviews with artists and their fans, weaving footage from four years of the festival into an intimate record of a pivotal time in music—and in American culture at large.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION:

• New, restored 2K digital transfer, along with a new reconstruction and remastering of the monaural soundtrack using the original concert and field recordings, both approved by director Murray Lerner, with the soundtrack presented uncompressed on the Blu-ray
• When We Played Newport, a new program featuring archival interviews with Lerner, music festival producer George Wein, and musicians Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Buffy Saint-Marie, Pete Seeger, and Peter Yarrow
• Editing "Festival," a new program featuring Lerner, associate editor Alan Heim, and assistant editor Gordon Quinn
• Selection of complete outtake performances, including Clarence Ashley, Horton Barker, Johnny Cash, John Lee Hooker, and Odetta
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Amanda Petrusich and artist bios by folk music expert Mary Katherine Aldin

This looks fascinating. Could be a sleeper for this year. Anyone familiar with this?

FrauBlucher wrote:This looks fascinating. Could be a sleeper for this year. Anyone familiar with this?

I know it includes the infamous incident with Bob Dylan going electric and an individual calling him Judas because of it. For Dylan fans it's certainly a historical document. But other than that it has favorites like Johnny Cash and Joan Baez.

Big Ben wrote:
I know it includes the infamous incident with Bob Dylan going electric and an individual calling him Judas because of it.

"The Judas Incident" is from the 1966 England tour but other than that it's a seminal performance as you say. The Dylan footage alone is worth the price of admission alone. Perhaps it even has Pete Seeger's notorious excuse for cutting the sound of Bobs band because "he couldn't hear the words".

I have seen this quite a few times. It's fascinating as a document of the folk revival peak, culminating in its death of what crossover appeal it had with Bob Dylan's electric set in 1965, featuring Mike Bloomfield at his most manic. There's a lot in this that I love like Mimi and Richard Farina (a great artist who died too soon), Pete Seeger, Odetta, Mississippi John Hurt, and Johnny Cash, and some stuff in it I'm not as crazy about like Theodore Bikel or Peter, Paul and Mary (who are harmless, but don't get my blood pumping). If you like that music and collect Folkways records like I do, there's a lot to like here.

Big Ben wrote:

FrauBlucher wrote:This looks fascinating. Could be a sleeper for this year. Anyone familiar with this?

I know it includes the infamous incident with Bob Dylan going electric and an individual calling him Judas because of it. For Dylan fans it's certainly a historical document. But other than that it has favorites like Johnny Cash and Joan Baez.

What does Dylan's 66 English tour have to do with this?

I quite obviously made a mistake and for that I apologize.

Hmm, I think we still need a few more posters to chime in and affirm that they knew this

I see Son House on the cover and I'm ready to preorder.

And it was shot on 35mm.

Love to see booklets on a release like this. It's not quite being rescued from obscurity (nor were last year's Kennedy films) but putting this out in such a nice and well-thought edition should do this film a good service to being noticed, which is kind of the whole point of Criterion doing these kinds of releases.

Big Ben wrote:

FrauBlucher wrote:This looks fascinating. Could be a sleeper for this year. Anyone familiar with this?

I know it includes the infamous incident with Bob Dylan going electric and an individual calling him Judas because of it. For Dylan fans it's certainly a historical document. But other than that it has favorites like Johnny Cash and Joan Baez.

There's no doubt that this is a great release for Dylan fans. However, it should be known that "The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965" is available on DVD, which is a film that consists purely of Bob Dylan's performances at the Newport Folk Festival -- the same performances that will be shown in Festival (1967). I'm sure many Dylan fans will look forward to picking up Festival (1967), even though many may find The Other Side of the Mirror the better choice, since it's essentially a compilation of all of his performances at Newport, and Festival (1967) is just a compilation of cherry picked performances.

The selling point here is that Criterion's release is obviously restored, will be available on Blu-ray, and will be great all around because it's jampacked with other performers besides Bob Dylan, and I'm sold on it.

verifiedaccount wrote:...However, it should be known that "The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965" is available on DVD...

The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965 is also available on Blu-ray. The re-contextualizing of the footage in Mirror is fascinating as you watch Dylan transform from the eager-to-please entertainer to a wary artist focused on breaking the shackles of his audience's expectations in just two year's time.

I'm not a Bob Dylan expert, but there's folk and electric there whereas Don't Look Back was pure acoustic (and harmonica, and piano)

Bob Dylan is booed (and applause) on stage - I think it's 50-50 of boo and applause...
this the only electric performance of this "Festival" documentary (along with a short excerpt from another (blues) band)
We can see Bob rehearsing during the day, with a kind of hawaiian shirt and black glasses what sounds to me like "Like A Rolling Stones" (it's just a very short instrumental, so I can be wrong)
The number - "Maggie's Farm" is filmed during the night and Dylan is playing a telecaster, riffing a little bit, while M.Bloomfield playing some tasty lead solo (really some mean guitar) all along the song.
There's a steady nasty electric guitar riff which I really enjoyed. To be honest, the riff and lead guitar (almost hendrixian) is essentially Mike Bloomfield. The song is almost complete. I really enjoyed this number.


you have a very nice (long but not complete song unfortunately) rendition of "All I Really Want To Do" acoustic with harmonica.
At the end of the documentary we found back Bob Dylan with (incomplete again) performance of "Mr Tambourine Man" (perhaps the set was impromptu because he had to ask to the audience for an harmonica and someone brought one to him- but he didn't got the right one - a "A" tuned one; but he probably played the song with a capo)


I really hope that the outtakes will contain more Johnny Cash footage (there's such a very short segment of one song in the movie) as well as more Joan Baez and Bob Dylan...
There's a bit interview about Joan Baez who is absolutely lovely with her silk long hair and her indian look... (sorry ) but don't except something as huge as Dont Look Back- (It's odd because you have the feeling that it was before Don't Look Back whereas it's one year later)- most of the songs are not complete (just snippets), and although Joan Baez and Bob Dylan are the one in this documentary with more than 1 song, you have some (let's say) difficult musical moments...
This is folk, folk blues; almost pure acoustic except for Bob Dylan and another blues-rock band.
but sometimes it could remind (sorry) Pierre Etaix infamous documentary (la France camping-barbecue avec Guy Lux) because you really have to be strong to face some particular acoustic and voice performance... But I guess that's "le goût des autres"...
une pensée for an old friend from dvdclassik who really enjoyed Joan Baez. Fortunately, we found back Joan Baez and Bob Dylan several times during this documentary...

There's at least 2 complete songs of Joan Baez (2 filmed at night, a third at the beginning filming during the day) with a great performance of "Farewell Angelina"

Depending on the outtakes footage it's certainly something I will look forward (but it really needs more Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez footage). While not as strong as the Pennebaker documentaries, I liked the way it's filmed (especially the night footage); the camera gives to it a kind of particular touch, so I'm very interesting to see how good the Criterion transfer will be...

And I really hope that Ballad Of A Thin Man complete live will be one day released (there's a part of this footage in the bonus of Don't Look Back)

Rupert Pupkin wrote:...It's odd because you have the feeling that it was before Don't Look Back whereas it's one year later...

I'm not sure what you're referring to here. Dylan's last appearance at the Newport Folk Festival (until 2002 anyway) was in July, 1965, two months after the footage for Don't Look Back was shot. His previous appearances at Newport where shot in '63 and '64.

I saw this recently, and quite liked it. Reminder of a time and a place. Nostalgia for those who were around then, and a window into a unique time for those who were not.
I wish they had issued it along with "Jazz on a Summer's Day". I wonder who owns rights to that.

An analyze which would probably suits his dedicated thread here.