Glastonbury Fayre an Early Nic Roeg Film/Time Warp

Glastonbury Fayre  (1972/Re-released)

Directed by Nicolas Roeg

MVDvisual, 87 minutes, Not-rated (extensive nudity)

★★★

 

Film director Nicholas Roeg died on November 23. In addition to work in television and cinematography, Roeg directed such classics as the chilling Don't Look Now (1973); The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), a David Bowie sci-fi tale; the controversial Bad Timing (1980), which was originally rated X; and The Witches (1990), which helped send Anjelica Huston's career into overdrive.

Back in 1971, though, Nic Roeg was the young whelp whose second film, Walkabout, gained a lot of what we'd today call buzz. It is a tale of two young white children cast adrift in the Australian Outback, where they meet an Aboriginal boy and (sort of ) entrust their survival to him. The point of all this is that Roeg was not yet a household name when he directed Glastonbury Fayre, if indeed "directed" is the right word. Glastonbury Fayre is a cinéma vérité documentary, meaning that Roeg played the role of a dispassionate observer. His point of view is visually direct, but images are presented without commentary or any identifiable judgment or assessment. Much like rockumentaries such as The Last Waltz or Stop Making Sense, Roeg simply pointed the camera and allowed the images to speak for themselves.

The 1971 Glastonbury Fayre was the first in a series of rock festivals that continue to take place in Glastonbury, England. (They are the remnants of classical and avant-garde music festivals that began in 1914.) Fairport Convention helped organize the 1971 event and several others in their post-Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson guise. Glastonbury was chosen because of its proximity to Glastonbury Tor, a hill that some regard as one of the eight most powerful energy vortices on the planet. The initial feel of Roeg's film is that it is what the documentary Woodstock would have been like if Michael Wadleigh had been forced to work on a shoestring budget. In fact, some critics have dubbed it "Woodstock Lite." The vortex makes it more than that.

The (non) structure of Glastonbury Fayre has the same feel as the filler material between concert performances in Wadleigh's film. That is, we watch the stage—a giant makeshift pyramid in this case—being built, and then we witness various people from all walks of life drifting into the site. There is no external commentary other than the snippets of conversation and background noises incidentally captured by the film crew. There is, however, a considerable amount of full frontal nudity on display from a cast of characters whose lack of inhibition makes Woodstock seem like a nunnery. As in the case of the latter, though, quite a few are eccentric, mystical, weird, or a combination of all three. Roeg's film also invokes another Sixties' phenomenon, the happening. Much of Roeg's non-direction is in the improvisational spirit of spontaneous happenings.

 Performers such as Terry Reid, Linda Lewis, and Arthur Brown will be less familiar to North American viewers. Brown—nicknamed The God of Hellfire—was a particularly flamboyant and odd performer. He is seen on the film in a demonic guise and with a band that presaged prog rock, Alice Cooper, KISS, and heavy metal. (Brown did have a brief hit on the North American charts with the song "Fire.") If you followed folk rock, you will recognize Fairport's Dave Swarbrick, whose fiddling raised the bar for future string players. Unlike Woodstock, though, none of the filmed performances last very long. Blink and you'll miss young Steve Winwood in Traffic, or David Bowie. It may sound blasphemous to assert, but the film's best musical performance comes from Melanie, who was a major star in the 1970s (and still performs). I'd have to check, but I believe she's the only performer to play at both Woodstock and Glastonbury.

The film shuffles on and about the time one begins to buy into the whole Woodstock Lite crticism, it dawns on the viewer that Glastonbury isn't Woodstock. It's actually the progenitor of Burning Man. And so it was for 15 years before anyone thought of Burning Man. And so it remains, with music plus Burning Man's embrace of all forms of artistic expression, but without its unstated (and near cult-like) adherence to specific spiritual paths.

Glastonbury Fayre won't stun you the way future Roeg films did. You may, in fact, find it rather crudely made. View it instead through the eyes of a time-traveling anthropologist. Leave your hang-ups on the shelf, as those who attended the 1971 Fayre literally let it all hang out.

Rob Weir