Asia Society presents Water and Oil: The Movies of Ang Lee; a complete retrospective from February 14-23 with select appearances by the filmmaker and collaborators.
Taking Woodstock
Ang Lee, US, 2009, 35mm, 120 min.
Presented on 35mm.
Lee has always seemed fascinated by the self-conscious process through which children become adults. All of his films have elements of the coming-of-age tale— perhaps least of all Brokeback Mountain, which substitutes as a coming out tale—but Taking Woodstock tackles the formula most explicitly, while, like Brokeback and The Wedding Banquet, also falling into that latter category of film.
Comedian Demetri Martin plays an affable young New Yorker named Elliot Tiber— a real-life figure whose memoir the film is based on. He’s devoted to his eccentric parents who run a failing motel in the Catskills and rent a barn on their property to a theater troupe run by woo-woo flowerchild Vassar grads. When a music festival planned for a nearby town suddenly has their license revoked, Elliot comes up with a plan to save the festival and his parents’ business. Taking Woodstock is notable for being set entirely on the periphery of the historic three-day festival. Far from hippiedom, Elliot is a somewhat demure figure whose main conflicts are his relationship to his own queerness and the tension between a sense of duty to his parents and the desire to strike out on his own.
Water and Oil: Taking Woodstock
Host/s
Sun, Feb 23, 03:00 PM - 05:00 PM (EST)
To be shared on approval
40 attendees
Asia Society presents Water and Oil: The Movies of Ang Lee; a complete retrospective from February 14-23 with select appearances by the filmmaker and collaborators.
Taking Woodstock
Ang Lee, US, 2009, 35mm, 120 min.
Presented on 35mm.
Lee has always seemed fascinated by the self-conscious process through which children become adults. All of his films have elements of the coming-of-age tale— perhaps least of all Brokeback Mountain, which substitutes as a coming out tale—but Taking Woodstock tackles the formula most explicitly, while, like Brokeback and The Wedding Banquet, also falling into that latter category of film.
Comedian Demetri Martin plays an affable young New Yorker named Elliot Tiber— a real-life figure whose memoir the film is based on. He’s devoted to his eccentric parents who run a failing motel in the Catskills and rent a barn on their property to a theater troupe run by woo-woo flowerchild Vassar grads. When a music festival planned for a nearby town suddenly has their license revoked, Elliot comes up with a plan to save the festival and his parents’ business. Taking Woodstock is notable for being set entirely on the periphery of the historic three-day festival. Far from hippiedom, Elliot is a somewhat demure figure whose main conflicts are his relationship to his own queerness and the tension between a sense of duty to his parents and the desire to strike out on his own.