“Woodstock. The word immediately conjures up more than the mere mega-event, it evokes the entire sixties free-spirit mystique. Woodstock, the movie, remains the most commercially successful documentary made to date. This success is based, on the one hand, on some of rock'n'roll's definitive performances: a new, nervous Crosby, Stills & Nash warbling sweetly off-key; a simultaneously inflammatory and hypnotic Who chanting ‘Magic Bus' and ‘My Generation'; an unabashedly psychedelicized John Sebastian; and Hendrix declaring himself president of the Woodstock Nation with a blistering, mind-bending rendition of THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER. The other part of success lies in director Michael Wadleigh's use of widescreen. More than ably assisted by editor Thelma Schoonmaker (Raging Bull, etc.) as well as then-editor Martin Scorsese, Wadleigh manipulates the frame itself, varying the size of the image, and utilizing other unusual cinematic techniques such as split-screen, double-framing, and overlapping. Woodstock is captured with stage-side intimacy without sacrificing the magnitude of the event. As the original press release summed it up, Woodstock, ‘The Sound of Music of the New Karma' was ‘as adventurous, dynamic, simple, and beautiful as Woodstock itself was.... What can we say?' Indeed.” Sally Syberg