Festival (Criterion Collection) (DVD)

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 it's 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 it's 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.

Starring: Joan Baez, Bob Dylan And The Grateful Dead, Dylan & The Dead, Horton Barker, Fiddler Beers, Howlin Wolf, Howlin' Wolf, Paul Butterfield, Theodore Bikel, Mike Bloomfield, Donovan, The Blue Ridge Mountain Dancers, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Johnny Cash, Judy Collins, Cousin Emmy, Bob Dylan, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Ronnie Gilbert, Brownie McGhee, Sonny Terry, Mary Travers, Odetta, Peter Yarrow, Pete Seeger, The Osborne Brothers, The Staple Singers

Director: Avi Lerner, Gary Howsam, Jack Gilardi Jr., Lewin Webb