The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020): The Whole World Was Watching

When I finished watching Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 on Netflix a few days ago, my first reaction, the very first thing I wrote down was “This is a fucking great picture.” My second impression, also noted down immediately after my viewing was this: “Any member of the boomer generation who was paying attention in 1968 and 1969 will be viscerally moved by the end of this timely movie; if they are not, he/she may need a medical checkup.”    So yeah, I liked it a lot.

Those who did not experience the events depicted in the film at the time should still find a lot to like and may learn something from it. It is both wise, witty and at the same time sad. There is also an undeniable connection to the events of the present day. It was a time of great polarization, massive street protests. and nearly (thank goodness only that) political collapse.  It was also a missed opportunity for significant change. 

One of the things that surprised me about The Trial of the Chicago 7 is how truthful it is.  I say surprising because Sorkin has managed to distill two incredible stories:  the anti-war protests and police riot that took place over four days in late August 1968 on the streets of Chicago during the Democratic convention and  the subsequent trial of the protest organizers – a trial that ran for nearly five months from September 24 1969 to February 18, 1970, approximately 150 days – into one compelling, meaningful movie of just over two hours. I don’t mean truthful as in “one hundred percent factually accurate”, because it is not. No good narrative film - or documentary, for that matter – about real people and events can make that claim. What I do mean is that the film brings this material to us in a way that captures the essence of what happened on the streets and in the courthouse – politically, morally and even legally. This is what cinema does really well in the hands of a smart, committed and daring writer and director.

 Sorkin has written some pretty darn good TV series [The West Wing, The Network] and movies [The American President (1995), Moneyball (2011), Steve Jobs (2015)]. He wrote and directed Molly’s Game (2017) and The Social Network (2010). Several of these concerned real life events of consequence. Let’s look at that last one, The Social Network, about Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of Facebook. Was everything in that picture 100% factually accurate? In proper sequence? Was nothing important left out? Of course not! Were there points of view about what happened that differed in important respects from how the narrative played out in the film? Obviously yes. Yet, I believe most people – including folks who were there with Zuckerberg at Harvard and/or in Silicon Valley as Facebook came roaring out of the gate - would agree that Sorkin’s movie captured the essential truth about what happened and maybe even what it felt like to be there. The same can be said of The Trial of the Chicago 7. (After you’ve watched the movie, and if you’re interested in what is and isn’t factually accurate, there are any number of articles out there that attempt to answer those questions.)

The background of the movie of course is the tumultuous 1960s. Culturally, there was the post war  boom and the phenomenal growth of the middle class, which neatly tied into the post-war baby boom and the subsequent coming of age of a generation of young people in the Sixties. This was a cohort with views often decidedly different from those of their parents - a group whose social and political consciousness was formed in equal parts by the civil rights movement and black music; by fears of nuclear war and the protest songs of the folk movement;  by the dull conservatism of cold war politics and the rebelliousness of rock’n’roll; by the conformity of men in grey flannel suits and women presumptively as homemakers versus the promised freedoms of a liberal arts education, a revitalized women’s movement and  the sexual revolution. 

Politically, there came, in short order, the assassination of President John F Kennedy (November 1963), the massive escalation of US military presence in Vietnam by his successor, Lyndon Johnson, from about 16,000 troops in 1963 to over a half million by 1968, polarizing the nation between an increasingly angry anti-war movement (largely young people) and a quieter but no less entrenched so-called “silent majority” of war supporters (their elders, generally); multiple urban so-called “race riots” (most triggered by police violence against Blacks) and the rise of the Black Power movement.  Then, just four and a half years after the death of JFK, the assassinations of Martin Luther King (April 1968) and anti-war presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy (June 1968). This was the context for the August 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago (coronating Johnson’s vice president Hubert Humphrey as the Democratic nominee).

Tens of thousands of people came to Chicago to protest The War and the nomination of Humphrey, seen as a repudiation of the anti-war movement.  Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, a staunch democrat and powerful old school party boss, vowed to keep the protestors off the streets and away from the convention. Applications by the sponsoring groups for public gatherings, marches, use of parks and so forth were denied. The national guard was called out as Daley mobilized his notoriously thuggish police department insisting that “Law and Order will be maintained!”  An estimated 10,000 demonstrators showed up. They were met by approximately 25,000 police and national guard troops. The subsequent explosion was characterized by the official report of the National Violence Commission as a “police riot”: 

“Unrestrained and indiscriminate police violence on many occasions … made all the more shocking by the fact that it was often inflicted upon persons who had broken no law, disobeyed no order, made no threat. These included peaceful demonstrators, onlookers, and large numbers of residents … Newsmen and photographers were singled out for assault … Fundamental police training was ignored ….”

Those four days of conflict and mayhem, broadcast on live TV across the country, and the subsequent trial
of the protest leaders for conspiracy form the basis for The Trial of the Chicago 7. The trial itself was both a political act by the newly elected regime of President Richard Nixon and his right-wing attorney general John Mitchell and a classic confrontation between the forces of repression and the voices of dissidence and free expression. Originally, there were eight defendants, the last being Bobby Seale the Chairman of the Black Panther Party, who had been in Chicago briefly to make a speech and was not otherwise connected with the protest leaders. Seale’s lawyer, Charles Garry of San Francisco, could not attend the trial due to an emergency surgery, and Seale repeatedly interrupted the proceedings claiming (correctly) that he was being denied his right to counsel. All his requests for postponement and severance of his case from the trial of the others were summarily denied by the clearly biased judge, who chose instead to have Seale gagged and shackled with chains in the courtroom!  Eventually, a mistrial as to Seale was declared, and the Chicago 8 became the Chicago 7. 

The movie starts in late August 1968, shortly before the convention, with glimpses of each of the defendants getting prepared for their trip to Chicago. In this way, we begin to get to know them. It then jumps to January 1969, shortly after the inauguration of the new president, Richard Nixon, where we first meet the young federal prosecutor, Richard Schultz (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) as he is instructed in no uncertain terms by John Mitchell  (John Doman) to indict all of those SOBs for conspiracy – despite the fact that his predecessor, Ramsey Clark (Michael Keaton) had found no conspiracy and declined to prosecute. Schultz is a professional, and despite some misgivings does as he is ordered. Even during the trial, he shows occasional flashes of humanity. (The real Schultz seems not to have expressed any such misgivings or compassion.)

Although there were seven men on trial in addition to Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), the movie focusses primarily on just three of them: Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen, as you have never seen him before), the manic, theatrical co-leader of the Yippies, blending a counterculture orientation with serious politics; Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne), the head of the SDS and a very serious-minded anti-war radical; and David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch), the head of Mobe – The National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam -  a strong believer in non-violence and a man about twenty years older than his fellow defendants.  Jerry Rubin (Jeremy strong), co-founder of the Yippies, comes in a distant fourth, and is treated (probably unfairly) as a sort-of stoner sidekick to Hoffman, the brains of the outfit.  The other three defendants get rather short, if sympathetic, shrift: Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp), a friend of Hayden in SDS, working with Mobe in Chicago; John Froines (Danny Flaherty) a distinguished chemist and activist; and Lee Weiner (Noah Robbins), a social worker and activist. Froines and Weiner were charged with allegedly teaching demonstrators how to make “incendiary devices” (stink bombs). 

Also featured in The Trial of the Chicago 7 are the defense attorneys for all but Seale, William Kunstler (Mark Rylance) and his second, Leonard Weinglass (Ben Shenkman).  In the movie as in the actual event, Kunstler predominates and Rylance gives a standout performance as an advocate not just for his clients but for justice. He’s helped by Sorkin, who gives Kunstler some of the best lines. The same can be said for Baron Cohen, who holds our interest in every scene he’s in and raises the stature of Abbie Hoffman, again with considerable help from Sorkin’s screenplay, from clownish agitator to a real political wise man and mensch. 

The role of the judge, Julius Hoffman, is handled beautifully by the wonderful Frank Langella. This character is one of the key villains of the piece, and he is so malevolent – and so out of touch – that he’s funny in an odd sort of way.  Some of his actions and statements are so outlandish that one is tempted to think they are an embellishment added to spice up the picture, but in fact almost all of his dialogue is taken directly from the actual trial transcript. It’s been said that some of his most outlandish stuff actually was left out of the film.

The movie ends with a flourish, a scene designed to get us all a bit moist. It worked for me. (It’s also one of those things that is not entirely accurate – reportedly this happened at an event by/for the Chicago 7 but not at the trial itself.)

My only complaint is not about the quality of the film but about the casting. Half of the six principal roles in this movie (Americans all) were filled by British actors: Rylance, Redmayne and Baron Cohen. I don’t have a problem with their work - all of them were terrific.  But surely there are American actors who could have done just as well. Hiring Brits to play Americans in American productions is a common practice, but it doesn’t seem to be reciprocal. I can’t recall seeing any British movies or TV with US actors playing Brits. Can you?

Bottom line: The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a terrific, essential, entertaining film about American history and American patriotism. Not the flag waving, rah-rah, America can do no wrong sort of patriotism. The real kind. 

2 hours 9 minutes.

Grade: A

Streaming on Netflix.