Still No Room for Grateful Dead Even in Relaxed-Fit ‘Woodstock’

“It’s been a long time coming . . .”

--Crosby, Stills & Nash

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Twenty-five years, to be exact. The opening number in “Woodstock,” the documentary of the 1969 music festival that forever marked a generation, is unfurling on the big screen once again. And this time, there is even more peace and love to go around. Forty minutes of footage, including some of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, has been added to the already three-hours-plus length of the film.

The film, which also features remixed sound, opens Wednesday at just four theaters (Mann’s Chinese in Hollywood, South Coast Plaza in Orange County and two theaters in New York), seven weeks before a much-ballyhooed anniversary concert will be held near the original concert site.

The added footage will include Joplin singing “Work Me, Lord”; more of Hendrix, including “Voodoo Chile”; two Jefferson Airplane songs, “Try” and “Uncle Sam’s Blues” and Canned Heat performing “Change Is Gonna Come.”

The highlight of the new footage, says original director Michael Wadleigh, who is overseeing the expanded version, is Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile.” “It’s about death--what happened to him, the Vietnam War. It was a telling moment.”

Viewers will hear sound supervisor L.A. (Larry) Johnson’s restored sound, where the original eight-track recording was put in a sonic solution. “The digital domain regenerates the tapes to a higher level that removes all of the hisses and distortion that pops up after 25 years,” Johnson says.

And that’s not the only addition. In 1994, Wadleigh, instead of protesting the Vietnam War or the Establishment, is tweaking distributor Warner Bros. and the MPAA, which rated both versions of the film R, which Wadleigh thinks is too harsh. (The film got the label for language, nudity and drug references.)

In the new version, when the theater goes dark, the Warner Bros. logo appears on the screen. Jimi Hendrix’s electric guitar is heard tuning up. The logo fades and a rating card appears: “Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music Has Been Rated R--Restricted; Under 17 Requires Accompanying Parent or Guardian.” There is a pause in the guitar licks. Then Hendrix’s famed rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner”--the film’s closing number--blares forth. The “R” in the rating card catches fire, the word “Restricted” bursts into flames, and a fireball burns the warning off the screen. As the smoke clears, only “Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music” remains.

That footage, which Wadleigh wanted to add to protest what he saw as meddling by Warners and the MPAA, originally made some at the studio nervous, Warner sources said, because they knew it would have to get past the rating board.

“In the end,” Wadleigh says, “they stood behind this 100% and that’s what counts. My hope is that this could trigger a new open dialogue about ratings.”

Back in 1970, before the film’s original release, Wadleigh also tussled with Warners, over artistic control: The studio wanted the film kept to under two hours; Wadleigh and his two assistant directors and supervising editors, Thelma Schoonmaker and a very young Martin Scorsese, wanted four. They settled at three hours and four minutes, but only after Wadleigh threatened to destroy the film if the acts Warners wanted to trim weren’t left in. Warners ultimately conceded, and the film went on to gross $40 million at the box office and win the Oscar that year for best feature documentary (it was also nominated for best sound and editing).

Still, “Woodstock” remains a shining example of history repeating itself. As in 1970, Warners is opening the film in just two cities. There are no trailers or TV ads promoting the film. There isn’t a Woodstock film memento, T-shirt, cap or button to be had, although Warners is saying there will be a new soundtrack album out later this summer that will chronologically mirror the performances on the film, and possibly an interactive CD-ROM tie-in.

Since the original event was three days long, there is still unculled footage that Wadleigh has considered adding.

“The two bands people always ask me why I didn’t include are the Band and the Grateful Dead. I love these bands but, quite frankly, their performances just weren’t there. If I made a five-hour director’s cut, I would include them.”

Wadleigh, now 51, says that while he’s excited about the chance to retool and add to his film, he is nonetheless disheartened by the hype and corporate sponsorship of “Woodstock II,” the Aug. 13-14 commemorative concert to be held in Saugerties, N.Y.

“To me, Woodstock was rock ‘n’ roll,” he says. “Today, it’s Woodstock Rock ‘n’ Roll Inc . Woodstock was about free expression; Woodstock II is about free enterprise.

“The message of Woodstock was to take stock in who you are, to get back to the garden of life, to the cathedral of communal spirit where you can get your batteries charged. And that is why it became the event that named a generation.”