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
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