http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118007012.html?categoryid=13&cs=1
Ang Lee's 'Woodstock' taps new aud for '60s
By DAVE MCNARY
Aug. 7, 2009
Focus Features has a challenge in Ang Lee's "Taking Woodstock": How
to market a film that is centered around the 40-year-old landmark
event, but isn't really about that event.
Conventional wisdom would dictate targeting baby boomers. But, in
fact, Focus believes there is a much wider audience for the pic,
which bows Aug. 28 in about 1,000 theaters.
Certainly the company is tapping into the sensibility of that era,
capitalizing on this month's multiple celebrations of the 40th
anniversary of the event. Focus is promoting the pic using
psychedelic lettering, hippie garb and music, of course. There are
tie-ins with a VH1 special, the History Channel, a partnership with a
Sirius pop-up channel, a Rolling Stone guitar sweepstakes; and
interactive features on the official website in which veterans can
share Woodstock stories and users can transform their photo into a
psychedelic poster.
In addition, the cast and filmmakers have been crossing the country
for a schedule of screenings and junkets in New York, Los Angeles,
San Francisco and in and around Woodstock itself.
"We are very closely tied in with the history and the spirit of
Woodstock," notes Focus CEO James Schamus, who also scripted the pic.
"From day one, we've tried to stay in that zone."
Though there's plenty of the era's music in the movie, there is no
concert footage. The focus is on the "story behind the story" and the
human interplay that led to half a million people showing up in
Bethel, N.Y. And Schamus and his team -- including Focus president
Andrew Karpen and prexy of theatrical distribution Jack Foley -- have
found big enthusiasm from audiences who were born decades after the
Aug. 15-17, 1969, event.
Partly that's because star Demetri Martin has a big following from
his standup work on Comedy Central and on college campuses. But more
important, audiences are responding to the universal story about one
man finding himself and defining himself in relation to his upbringing.
The film also hits a nerve with contempo audiences, since it's about
an end of one era and the beginning of another, when the nation was
demoralized from an unpopular war overseas and depersonalized
society, while simultaneously finding new reasons for hope and signs of change.
The marketing is aimed at reminding people that Woodstock was a
monument to the '60ish notion that anything is possible. Despite the
seeming chaos from overcrowding, bad weather and a lack of food,
attendees got along, supported each other and made the best of the
difficulties -- and not a single incident of violence took place.
The film was the result of chance meeting in October 2007. Elliot
Tiber was promoting his memoir about his role in bringing the
almost-cancelled music event to Woodstock, N.Y., as an effort to save
his parents' motel from being taken over by the bank. During a stop
in San Francisco, he was booked on a talkshow just before Lee, who
was promoting "Lust, Caution," and gave the director a copy of the book.
A film school friend urged Lee to read the book and by the following
summer, the director was shooting footage in New York, taking
advantage of the state's production incentives.
Lee is a key selling point in the pic, but his reputation brings the
tricky factor of managing expectations. "Taking Woodstock" is the
11th collaboration between Lee and scripter Schamus. After such films
as "Lust, Caution," "Brokeback Mountain" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon," some critics at the film's world preem in Cannes in May
(including Variety's) were surprised that the film was so small-scale
and gentle, and disappointed that it featured no concert footage.
Schamus blames himself. "I believe that some of the critics were
puzzled in that I think they wanted to see Janis Joplin," he notes.
"We had finished the week before and we didn't have time to guide
expectations."
But the pic got a rare five-minute standing ovation at the official
screening, with enthusiasm from young audiences and overseas folks
for yet another change-of-pace from Lee, told with subtle humor and
an undercurrent of melancholy.
Woodstock was elevated into iconic status thanks to another movie:
Michael Wadleigh's Oscar-winning 1970 documentary, which grossed an
astounding (for that time) $50 million for Warner Bros. after being
acquired for a mere $100,000. Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker
helped edit the pic. But those hoping for another version of Jimi
Hendrix performing "The Star Spangled Banner" or Ten Years After
doing "I'm Going Home" again will be sorely disappointed.
"We didn't need to remake the genius documentary, which we watched
religiously in prep," Schamus notes. "Concert movies don't get a lot
of respect but that's a work of genius."
But the film is not about the music. "The lovely joke in the film is
that here's this very funny dysfunctional family that's three miles
from the concert and Elliot never makes it to the concert," Schamus says.
Focus isn't giving out the budget but it's believed to be in the
mid-20s. The cast isn't exactly high-priced, with Martin in the lead
along with the key roles filled by Henry Goodman and Imelda Staunton
as his overbearing parents, Eugene Levy as Max Yasgur, Jonathan Groff
as concert promoter Michael Lang, Emile Hirsch as a Vietnam vet and
Liev Schreiber as a cross-dressing ex-Marine.
Aside from managing expectations about the film's non-concert focus
and about Lee's work, Focus is dealing with the question of timing.
Late August is usually a burial ground for films so the Aug. 28 bow
might surprise some domestic B.O. watchers. (The pic's international
rollout begins day and date in Australia and Sweden, followed by a
Sept. 3 bow in Germany.)
Focus originally planned to open "Taking Woodstock" on Aug. 14 to
match the anniversary but moved it back two weeks after seven other
films landed on the date. But execs are hoping the two-week delay
allows them to take advantage of the wave of nostalgia this month.
"We think it's wise to wait longer so that the public gets a taste of
it," Schamus says.
The writer-exec remains relentlessly upbeat and notes that it took
him a long time to articulate his goal in making "Taking Woodstock."
"We're trying to make people happy and that's an elusive state," he
says. "We tried to make this as joyful an experience as we could
during the filming to get that sense on the screen. We're trying to
radiate the same kind of vibes."
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