This sentence also applies to Ang Lee's "Making Woodstock."
Process is the theme of this movie. It is not focused on describing what happened at the music festival, so many people who think this is a movie about that famous music festival are very disappointed after watching it. The evaluation of the film is therefore uneven.
And Li Ang captured the various psychology of the people who held this music festival and showed a perfect process very delicately. Sometimes the ending is not so important, but it is the process that we should seriously enjoy. Just like life, in the end, no matter what, you have to die the same. Looking back, what makes oneself regretful and happy is the things that happen on the road, no matter whether it is good or bad.
The youth of that generation loved freedom and yearned for beautiful dreams. They are anti-war, they are anti-authority, they love peace, they yearn for love, they are feminists. All of this seems so simple now, so unreplicated, because the alliance between thought and youth is powerful. They put aside all constraints and came to Woodstock to enjoy love, freedom and music.
We are on the road, which is a kind of freedom in itself.
As written in Kerouac’s "On the Road", life will not be copied continuously. The protagonists are always on the road, meeting new friends, driving around the country in a car, and living without purpose. The content is difficult to read, but it is this post-modern style that embodies the spirit that many people worship at that time and even now-love freedom, on the road.
Perhaps what Ang Lee wants to express in the movie is this kind of thinking about the enjoyment process. There is no train to freedom. Freedom is won by oneself. Elliott and his family and friends overcame all kinds of difficulties and created the music festival. In the end, it was such a success. No wonder he stood there at the end of the film and kept saying: "It's beautiful, it's beautiful." Shouldn't it?
What is life? Is it just a dry end? No, it's not. Life is a process, and it has been on the road since the day we were born. We met all kinds of people on the road, and weird things happened. Why remember, why there are stories to tell, that’s because most people’s lives are not designed. We don’t give up on the road ahead because we know that the road ahead is full of thorns. Instead, we face it with an attitude of not knowing. It's an ordinary life.
So Ang Lee’s work is very much like a road movie, a road movie that contains so many really beautiful things. It reflects the lives of people in the 1960s. In fact, this is the key. People always emphasize how great the Woodstock Music Festival is, but without the background of the entire era, that unique way of life and thinking, Its greatness cannot be embodied.
The process of making Woodstock is not only peace, music, feminism, anti-war, and most importantly, love. One morning after the festival ended, Elliott bid farewell to his father. He asked his father, "How did you endure your mother for so many years?" The old father paused for a while and replied simply, "I love her."
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