Product Details

• Directors: Joe Winston
• Format: AC-3, Color, Full Screen, Special Edition, NTSC
• Region: All Regions
• Number of discs: 1
• Studio: Ow Myeye Productions, Inc.
• DVD Release Date: May 20, 2004
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00029YLWC
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #266,923 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Chicago Tribune, August 9, 1996

In style and substance, a terrific piece of work! A combination of "Apocalypse Now," "Woodstock" and "The Road Warrior."

Product Description

This Special Edition includes two movies, previously released on VHS as "The Burning Man Festival" and "Burning Man: Just Add Couches." Together, these documentaries provide a vivid tour of America’s largest countercultural event, held each summer in the barren Nevada desert.

First, we tour the temporary city revelers build for a weeklong celebration, which culminates in the burning of a forty-foot tall human effigy. Celebrants dress in costumes, strut naked, dance in the nude, create religions, race in rocket-powered cars, shoot automatic weapons, or do whatever it is they don't get enough of at home.

In the second installment, the filmmakers return to Burning Man. "What this party really needs is a comfortable living room setting, where people can watch TV and drink beer," they proudly declare.

The group’s hilarious misadventures building "the Couch Potato Camp" shed light on the experience of participating in this unique festival.

Exclusive DVD extras include 30 of the 1,000 recordings made in the Minute of Fame Booth at Burning Man.

Festival screenings include:

1996 Coffee Achievers Festival, San Francisco, CA. "Best of Festival" award. 1997 NY International Independent Film Festival, New York, NY. "Best Documentary" award. 1998 Burning Man Film Festival, San Francisco, CA. 1998 Around the Coyote Festival, Chicago, IL.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-see for the curious, February 7, 2005

By 

Carolyn G. (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Burning Man Festival (Special Edition) (DVD)

If you've heard about the Burning Man Festival, but have never been there, this is the movie for you! Friends of mine go to Burning Man every year, and they talk about it with incredible, wide-eyed enthusiasm. But I never appreciated what they were really so excited about until I saw this movie.

Burning Man is a truly one-of-a-kind event, kind of a Woodstock, Rainbow Gathering, and circus freak show, all rolled into one. You'll never believe what amaing art projects people haul out to the desert in the middle of nowhere. What's more, the people who go to Burning Man become part of a special community, and many find their lives are changed for the better.

Winston's documentary does a great job of showing Burning Man in all it's glory. We get interviews with the organizers and participants from many walks of life. Also, we follow the adventures of the four filmmakers as they try to join in the fun..

If you want to learn more about what truly creative people are up to in this country, you definitely need to see this movie!

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating counterculture history, December 17, 2004

By 

Bruce438 (Tucson, AZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Burning Man Festival (Special Edition) (DVD)

The Burning Man Festival has long set the gold standard for countercultural revelry in a desert setting. Combining aspects of raves, rainbow gatherings, pagan celebrations, the festival transcends all these categories to have become an American cultural institution.

Thousands of people drive out to the Nevada desert every summer for a seven-day arts festival which culminates in the burning of an enormous human effigy - the Man. As if the beauty of the desert and the spectacle weren't enough, participants each create their own mini-spectacles, from huge peeing sculptures to rabbit motorcycles to entire night clubs. The result is an entire village, right out of Mad Max, full of improvised technology and nonstop entertainment.

Possibly the most impressive thing about Burning Man is how it has gone on for year after year, and never become commercialized. Aside from the admitedly steep $200 admission fee, nobody ever buys or sells anything, which keeps it from becoming a concert or swap meet, or worse, an MTV-sponsored party.

Joe Winston's documentary movies do a great job of capturing this madness, and shedding some light on the people who put this show on year after year, from the festival organizers on down.

The DVD is broken into two parts. The first movie is essentially a National Geographic travelogue, following a car full of newcomers to Burning Man. Together with them, we marvel at the parade of strange sights and colorful, often naked people.

The second movie finds the same group returning to the festival to set up their own attraction. I'm not sure whether watching these four guys struggle to set up their tent, couches and videotaping booth would encourage viewers to go to Burning Man, but anyone who's ever gone camping or put on a play can sympathize with their - often hilarious - travails.

In short, if you've ever been curious about Burning Man, or want to share the experience with others who've never been, this DVD is for you.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly captures the spirit of a great event, November 21, 2004

By 

B. C. McCarty (Bridgeport, CT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Burning Man Festival (Special Edition) (DVD)

As someone who participates in the Burning Man Festival, I've become somewhat numb to the many different accounts of the event in the media. For the most part, none of them get it right. The news media is only interested in sensationalizing the event, noting the nudity, hinting at debauchery and drug use. Meanwhile, the "fan movies" made about it are nothing if not reverential in their attitude towards Burning Man, but they tend not to be very interesting otherwise.

The two documentaries on this DVD, by first-time filmmaker Joe Winston, are a huge improvement. The first of these two films captures perfectly the wonderment of arriving at Burning Man for the first time, not knowing what you are in for. The filmmakers are greeted by a fearsome-looking man with a machine gun (they don't do this anymore) who forces them to sing "This Land is Your Land."

The camera then sort of wanders through the event - which has grown much bigger since this movie was made, but retains the same spirit. We meet all sorts of strange and wonderful characters, some of whom do seem pretty wasted, but many of them have fascinating things to say about what it means to be at Burning Man.

That is the key to the festival. Burning Man is something different for everybody. There's no official line on what it is exactly, and no one ever tries to sell you anything. If only the rest of the world could be like that, we'd be in a much better place (a sentiment echoed by several festivalgoers in the documentary.)

The second movie, called "Burning Man: Just Add Couches," gets into more depth as to why the festival is so special to so many people. The filmmakers come back the following year, and set up their own Theme Camp. They participate in the event. A slogan you'll hear a lot if you go to Burning Man is "no spectactors."

Winston and his friends are clearly underprepared for putting together their Theme Camp project, a tent with couches and satellite TV they call "Couch Potato Camp." But their struggles are presented with such wonderful, self-effacing humor that it's impossible not to sympathize with them. Everyone who's been to Burning Man more than once knows what it's like to be out in the middle of nowhere and forgetten your #14 socket wrench.

In the end, this DVD should appeal to veteran Burners and people who've never heard of the event. The movies do not assume that viewers are familiar with Burning Man, but they don't condescend to longtime fans of the event. That's a difficult line to walk, and this movie does it well.