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• j. Hauben said...

  Posted on Mar 10 2008 23:00 The year 1968 was one of the most amazing years in human history. Democratic struggles broke out that year on almost every continent.(1) A global sense of hope and the dawning of a new future motivated people in many countries to vent their pent up anger at systems West and East which were failing. The best known struggles were in Saigon and Paris and Prague and Mexico City and Tokyo but also many cities in the US.
  In Chicago, for instance, in August 1968, the Democratic Party was to have its presidential candidate nominating convention. Antiwar and youth culture groups called for protests of the pro-war Democratic Party and for festivals of life to rival what they called the "Convention of Death." Thousands of mostly young people attended the alternative events. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley was determined to demonstrate his control. The result was later officially labeled as a "police riot."(2)
  
  The following year, eight antiwar and cultural activists were put on trial for conspiracy to incite a riot at the time of the convention. The eight charged were Abbie Hoffman, Tom Hayden, David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, John Froines, Jerry Rubin, Lee Weiner, and Bobby Seale. The attorneys were William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass. Bobby Seale's attorney was ill so Seale fought to defend himself. The 1969-1970 trial was a continuation of the contest between the establishment and the new sense of hope.
  One analysis of the Chicago Conspiracy Trial begins: "What did it all mean? Was the Chicago Seven Trial merely . . . 'a monumental non-event'? Was it . . . an important battle for the hearts and minds of the American people? Or is it best seen as a symbol of the conflicts of values that characterized the late sixties?"(3)
  A new film, "Chicago 10" written and directed by Brett Morgan answers to some extent these questions but also is a comment on 2008 in the US and the world.
  The film is basically a sweet documentary letting the images and characters speak for themselves. There is no voice-over or narration. Using a major collection of documentary film and video footage of the 1968 street events in Chicago and using animation to recreate the trial, the audience gets a better view of both than was available at the time. I say sweet because the heroes of the film are the people who were on the streets and in the parks of Chicago to save America from a horrible, senseless war in Vietnam and from a staid and useless political process which was incapable of ending the war.
  
  Morgan says he made the film from the point of view of the Yippies, the Youth International Party exemplified by Abbe Hoffman and Jerry Rubin because the Yippies expressed the timeless hopefulness and spirit of every young generation.
  The documentary footage captures the spirit of constructive rebellion and a general lack of fear. The Chicago police, backed by the Illinois National Guard and a contingent from the US Army were armed to the teeth with new weapons, mace, tank like vehicles and tear gas.
  Some people stayed home but many came out prepared to demonstrate against the Vietnam War and for life and love and a better future, not frightened or dispirited by the certainty that the police would make trouble. The police were on 12 hour shifts and were edgy. The film shows some of the resulting "police riot". But the main image is the spirit and joy of those protesting and partying.
  The animation is charming. It succeeds in letting the eight accused conspirators and their two lawyers (hence "Chicago 10") speak for themselves. But also the prosecutor, police infiltrators and Judge Julius Hoffman also speak for themselves. Their words are taken from the trial transcript and the tones of voice from an audio transcript apparently made by the court recorder.
  The animation portrays the defendants with sympathy, their antics, as creative. It portrays the judge, like the establishment he represented, as nearly senile. The judge is forever finding the defendants and their lawyers in contempt of court. But it is the judge who has contempt for the spirit of protest and nonconformity to a system that was failing.
  Judge Hoffman perpetually mispronounces the names of the defense attorneys. When he is corrected he gets flustered and at least once tries to justify his mispronunciation. He denies Bobby Seale his right to defend himself in the absence of his attorney. When Seale protests, the judge admonishes him saying in a condescending way, "Young man!" Seale responds by calling the 72 year old judge, "Old man!" The judge instructs the court bailiffs to take Seale out and "deal with him." The bailiffs return with Seale bound and gagged. The parallel with the police action against the protesters at the time of the convention is obvious.
  Some of the defendants wanted to present a serious defense by appealing to the jury via their "proper" conduct. Other defendants, especially Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin thought the trial could be a form of theater helping anyone watching to understand better the rot of much of the system. The animation helps the defendants, 40 years later, to reach a wider audience and demonstrate to what illegal and absurd lengths the US government was and is willing to go to prosecute and harass those of its citizens who oppose policies like the war policy against Vietnam.
  The film was a big project taking more than three years to make. Why did Morgan make it? He said in an interview in the Boston Globe newspaper(4), "'Chicago 10' is not a film about 1968; it's a film about today, using the images and iconography of the 1960s to tell a story that is ultimately about the war in Iraq."
  On the surface it seems to be an appeal to young people to adopt more of a spirit of rebellion and a stronger anti-war movement. But Morgan is quoted in the same interview as saying, "I think young people today are as engaged and active as any generation that's come before them. Look at the amount of people who are showing up to vote in the primaries."
  He sees his film as "putting up a mirror to the audience and asking them to consider: how far are you willing to go?"
  In the end, time will tell if "Chicago 10" aimed at a young audience will help this generation better define how to express its constructive spirit in its own way.

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