Just the opening scene, when Mitchell forced the prosecution on Schultz, who argues quite reasonably that a criminal conspiracy can’t be made when the conspirators haven’t even met each other. Mitchell’s response is: “Telephones.”
True? Close enough for highway work, as a friend taught me. And I’m struggling again to find the legitimate difference between Mitchell and Barr, and how fragile the Union is now, but not in 1969. Once again, not knowing history, we seem to imagine it only happens now, and all that came before pales in comparison, or wasn't really important. Well, wars, maybe; but we know how those turned out, so in the end they aren't that important, either. We really do need to learn from history.
The best scene in the opening montage (setting the time and place for the trial as efficiently as possible) is watching Walter Cronkite describe Chicago in ‘68 as a “police state.” “There isn’t any other way to say it,” he says. He should be better remembered for that. We should also be more aware of what was done to Bobby Seale in this trial.
The funny thing is, I remember thinking of William Kunstler as a wildly radical lawyer. I thought that about him for decades. I guess it was this trial that radicalized him, or gave him that reputation. What’s that saying, that which you oppose, you come to resemble? I think that’s because you see yourself in what you oppose, otherwise why oppose it? Of course, it was years later that I learned to respect Ramsey Clark. Michael Keaton as Mr. Clark makes me respect Ramsey Clark all over again.
There is a scene where Abbie Hoffmann is describing their capture in the riot at the Haymarket Tavern. He describes the Tavern as a place where the 60’s never happened, the '50's inside while outside the 60’s is being enacted. I lived in a Chicago suburb for a year. The sixties still hadn’t happened there in the late ‘90’s. It was still the’50’s there. Literally. It was very strange.
One thing bugs me about the Chi7 movie. The first draft lottery was in December of 1969, in the middle of the trial,and it was for people born 1944 and after. Therefore, Tom Hayden — Born 1939 — wouldn’t have had a “number” right? And why is the lottery shown in the opening?
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) October 18, 2020
How many in the audience remember Vietnam, or the draft? Narratively, that mention of the draft (the only one in the film) is to emphasize the divide between those who went to war and those like most of the defendants who didn’t (college was the way out). There was a very real class divide that frankly, no one at the time openly acknowledged (with the exception possibly of Mr. Seale, all the defendants were either too old for the draft (Hayden and Dellinger) or had college deferments. Rich kids went to college, working class sons went to war.) You really want Sorkin to stop everything and explain that to an historical certainty? As for the lottery, that’s almost as ancient as impressment (look it up), and as foreign. Yeah, I practically remember my draft number (187, IIRC, in the last year of the draft), but I’d have to explain all of that in great detail to my daughter so it carried the emotional impact it had for me. Just the idea of it is all the movie needs.
Watch the movie, if you can. It’s not history, but it’s entertaining and pretty damned enlightening. 52 years later and we’re still fighting the same fights. Hell, 244 years later and we’re still fighting the same fights.
It’s a helluva show. Too bad it’s not fiction.
No comments:
Post a Comment