Leonard Cohen Video:

		List Price: $23.99		Label: Mawa Salesrank: 237152 Released: July 9, 2002
		MPAA Rating: Media: DVD

Editorial Review:
This documentary by Murray Lerner (From Mao to Mozart) was shot in 1970, but for many reasons was not shown to the public until 1995 in Great Britain. In an important way, it is the final chapter in an unofficial trilogy of concert films (along with Woodstock and Gimme Shelter) that together paint a picture of the highest and lowest points of Woodstock Nation politics: from mass goodwill to anarchy to outright stupidity. On the one hand, Message to Love is a rock & roll movie with several performances that are outright revelations (the Who's triumphant show, the Doors' "The End"), some that are awfully good (Jimi Hendrix's "Machine Gun"), and more than enough that are superfluous (Ten Days After, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, Jethro Tull). On the other hand, Lerner's cameras are trained on the increasingly testy relationship between nomadic hippies who travel a long way to see the show but refuse to pay, and concert producers who resort to using guard dogs, cops, and aluminum walls to keep crashers at a distance. Just how bad does the mood become after several days of this? Check out the scene in which Joni Mitchell breaks down in tears after singing her ode to peace and love, "Woodstock," before this lot. In an era when we've become used to extraordinary security and high ticket prices at rock concerts, it's perhaps hard to grasp what the fuss was about at the Isle of Wight. But Lerner's amazing film helps a viewer get a sense of what was really at stake in that period before rock & roll was a corporate matter, and when kids naively thought it was theirs for the taking. --Tom Keogh

Isle of Wight Festival [Region 2] Reviews:
WORST ROCK FESTIVAL FILM EVER!
2009-11-21 - I could go on and on, but briefly - if you are a filmmaker and you spend 100 times more time in your film showing gatecrashers throwing rocks at a tin wall than you do Miles Davis fronting one of the greatest jazz bands of all time, or Jim Morrison or Jimi Hendrix giving their last performances, than you are an idiot. This film is an agony to watch for any true music lover. Also, one last word folks (and this is true for Altamont too), don't judge the motives of the entire love and peace generation by the results of an incompetently organized rock event. As Seth and Amy would say, "Really!"

good film, has last Jim Morrison performance
2009-08-18 - It says on the DVD box this film is "highlights" of the Isle of Wight, so that eing said, its a good highlights film. It's 2 hours long but seeing how it was released straight to DVD, why not make it 4 hours long?
The orignal Woodstock film was 3 hours long (directors cut 40 more mins added) but the also used a double screen alot to get more in the movie, I wish this epic even was given the same treatment.
You had sych historical recordings....The Doors......Jim Morrison's last libe stage peformance and he sounded great! Jim didnt want the spot lights in the band, so they are shown playing in almost total darkness and when they do "The End" it just has that great feeling to the song, I wish they showed more of the Doors or release the complete performance of them.

One thing I like about this film was the realism, I get so sick of hearing about "wooodstock" that it was 3 days of Peace and LOve....BS! The hippies crashed the fences and didnt give a crap about the promoters and other men and and women who put the festival on. Feeling they can just storm in and not have to pay for an event and just stiff the promoters to have to dig in their own pockets to pay the artists and everything else, With Woodstock, the promoters already had a film and record deal signed and wasnt too concernd about tickets but they still took a huge financial hit, but Isle of Wight, same crap, young punks tearing down the fences to get in, too cheap tom pay 3 pounds, it wouldnt kill them, but them all crashing the fences cost the promoters their asses!

Great documentary about the so called "love child" generation that were just as selfish and spoiled as the ME generation, same crap, different title.
Wish the film were longer but it is what it is.



BEEN LOOKING FOR THIS DVD FOR A LONG TIME
2009-07-04 - I FOUND THE FULL VERSION OF "THE ISLE OF WIGHT" ON AMAZON. IT HAS MANY OF THE BANDS THAT PLAYED AND NOT JUST ONE. ALSO, IT SHOWS WHAT WENT ON BEHIND THE SCENES. I AM VERY PLEASED. I HAD ORDERED 2 LAST YEAR, 1 FOR ME AND ONE FOR MY SON AND COULD ONLY GET ONE. SO I WAS VERY EXCITED TO FIND THIS!

A Darker Woodstock
2009-03-17 - There was definitely tension in the air at this festival. The movie captures this wonderfully with some great footage between the acts. Lot's of spaced out hippies wondering what is happening with their revolution...
The performances are inspired though. It's a great thing to see Miles Davis, The Doors, The Moody Blues, Kris Kristofferson, Hendrix, The Who, Joni Mitchell, and Leonard Cohen all performing at the same event. One sympathizes with Kristofferson. He couldn't seem to engage the audience at all, who were so worked up at that point that all Kris could do was walk off stage. You can pick up on the different attitudes the people had over in Europe at that time as opposed to the Woodstock footage. This crowd was angrier, and less willing to put up with with anything it seems. I can imagine that some of these people would turn to punk in the coming years. The great outdoor music festivals had run their course, I think. Though arguably there have been a handful of very successful ones since then.

a milestone in history
2009-02-12 - i was a young lad in stokes bay, gosport on the other side of the solent when this happened and remember the long hairs camped on the beach with bonfires .. flashback time watching this