Murray Lerner's film "Festival" is
a cinematic synthesis of four Newport
Folk Festivals in which the art of folk
music is pictured in transition during
its most crucial years. The range is
from Bob Dylan performing
"Tambourine Man" and Joan Baez
doing "Farewell Angelina," to country
artists like Johnny Cash playing
"I Walk the Line" to the Georgia Sea
Island Singers. The range is also from
the high-priced professionals like
Peter, Paul, and Mary to the authentic
folk dignity of living legends such as
Son House and Mississippi John Hurt.
Joan Baez, Donovan and Judy Collins
are all on view, as are Pete Seeger, the
Ed Young Fife and Drum Corps and
numerous others that give a feeling of
community with the whole American
present, and continuity with the American
past. Indeed, the long-haired Newport
audiences pictured sleeping on beaches
and on the grounds, in sports cars and
battered station wagons, plunking banjoes
and guitars, swapping tunes between
formal concerts, and talking about folk
music, seem not a rupture with the
American past, but an expression of
carrying forward an American idealism
and social concern. 1 DISC: 95min