Iconic festival: Woodstock in film

Less than a year after the famous counterculture music festival took place, people could relive the event in movie theaters. Director Michael Wadleigh's three-hour documentary "Woodstock" was released in the US in March 1970. The rest of the world had to wait a few weeks longer to see the film.

The film won the Oscar in the category Best Documentary Film in 1971. The rockumentary is still fascinating today because it doesn't only focus on the bands and musicians' performances; it also reveals the unexpected chaos and the mood in the crowd. With 20 cameramen on the project, Wadleigh had 100 hours of footage to work with.

Later revisiting his film, Wadleigh offered his director's cut 25 years after the first release. 40 minutes longer, the 1994 version contains additional gigs and features bands not included in the 1970 film, such as Jefferson Airplane. Pictured here: Roger Daltrey of The Who.

In 2009 director Ang Lee took the famous festival as the point of departure for "Taking Woodstock." The feature film tells the story of three young people who were involved in preparations for the festival. The story is based on a memoir by Elliot Tiber, who participated in securing a location for the event.

Ang Lee's film gave the legendary festival a personal face. An audience too young to know the festival from their own experience learned about Woodstock and about how the event was connected to the gay liberation movement and the Stonewall riots, which had taken place two months earlier in 1969.

"Taking Woodstock" tells the story of Elliot Teichberg (Demetri Martin, r.), whose parents ran a small motel near Woodstock and who established contact with festival organizer Michael Lang. Mamie Gummer (l.) plays Lang's assistant Tisha. The film portrays young people from completely different walks of life.

For the 50th anniversary of the legendary festival, Barak Goodman and John Kleszny have released another documentary, produced for PBS television, titled "Woodstock: Three Days That Defined A Generation." While the film doesn't offer sensational new revelations, it accurately revisits the social context that made the event so powerful — and drew such a massive crowd.

The documentary also shows how the festival embodied the social change of the time. Woodstock organizers and participants, who provide the off-screen narration of the film, recall with astonishment how they suddenly felt free to reveal their bodies. Those were truly three days that defined a generation.

The new Woodstock film, which premiered at the Tribeca New York Film Festival in April, is now airing on television in many countries. The 90-minute documentary is much shorter than Michael Wadleigh's legendary work but features footage never seen before.

For the anniversary of the festival, TV stations around the world have dug into their archives and are presenting films that have always been in the shadow of Michael Wadleigh's legendary three-hour film. Among them is the 1994 TV movie "Woodstock Diary" (featuring among others Janis Joplin, photo) by Chris Heedus, Erez Laufer and Oscar-winning director D.A. Pennebaker, who recently died.

Another documentary to celebrate Woodstock's 50th anniversary was directed by German TV director Stefan Morawietz. In "Woodstock: How the Myth Was Created," he interviews organizers who revisit the event from their perspective. Like Jimi Hendrix's sound-distorted performance of the US national anthem, the films documenting the three-day music festival contribute to the legend.