In 1968, a mass protest took place in Chicago outside the Democratic National Convention, organized by various leftist political groups demonstrating against the current government and the Vietnam War. Another target of their ire was the police force who opposed them at these protests, eventually escalating them into a riot on the night of August 28th. The next year, Richard Nixon’s new administration brought forward a case against a random select eight of these prominent protesters for conspiring to incite the riot. Eventually, Black Panthers co-founder Bobby Seale was removed from the case given the flimsiness of the evidence against him, and the remaining defendants became known as the Chicago Seven -the case itself something of a referendum on anti-war protests, the counterculture movement, and left-wing politics itself.
This I learned from wikipedia. I’m not very familiar with the Chicago Seven, it wasn’t a part of our history curriculum here in Canada, but from what I gather it is an extraordinary story, one that has of course vindicated the various defendants in the eyes of history. And I can see why it appealed so much to Aaron Sorkin and his particular fascination with and ideals regarding American politics. He first developed the script back in the late 2000s with Steven Spielberg attached to direct. Spielberg worked closely with Sorkin on the project over the next decade and a half, but ultimately gave up on making it personally. Other directors were approached (including Ben Stiller and Paul Greengrass), before Sorkin decided to direct the movie himself. And honestly, I still wish Spielberg had done it.
The Trial of the Chicago 7 is one hundred per cent Sorkin, with all the good and bad that entails. It’s only his second time in the directors’ chair after Molly’s Game; and though I can’t speak to that one, on this it’s pretty clear he’s much more comfortable with his script and characters than with the visual storytelling components of film. He’s good at creating montages, cutting between timelines and places for exposition or character development, the opening sequence is especially good. But elsewhere the editing can be messy. The cinematography is also fairly dull and muted, Phedon Papamichael struggles to find new angles to shoot in the courtroom, there’s not a lot of visual diversity in the flashback sequences either and almost none of the long takes (“walk and talks”) that Sorkins’ scripted work is known for.
Now let’s address that script, which is one of the better elements of the movie, as full of cliché “Sorkinisms” as it is. But honestly there is a reason why Sorkins’ writing, particularly his dialogue, has become so iconic as to warrant its own adjective. It’s sharp and blunt and witty all at once, the kind of language you wish you could pull out of thin air in a conversation or debate –and it is powerful, as anyone who has shared that Jeff Daniels’ speech from The Newsroom knows. The dialogue in The Trial of the Chicago 7 isn’t as strong as this or the best bits of The West Wing, but it is occasionally a real joy, even when coming from characters and spouting opinions that are demonstrably biased. Around the dialogue, the structure and storytelling is fairly clean as well, if not executed as effectively as it might have been in the hands of someone like Spielberg. Honestly the most contentious part of the script is how liberal it is with history.
By that I refer to both the revisions (and omissions) Sorkin makes, and his larger political viewpoint being expressed. He doesn’t change history at all with the film but he does re-frame it, and once again this comes through in how he depicts the central characters. For instance, fans of Abbie Hoffman are already taking issue with Sorkins’ toning down of his radical politics, bridging them closer to Tom Haydens’ more diplomatic progressivism. But the issue is less in these possible slights towards real people than in the manner in which Sorkin is using them. The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a very pertinent story, blisteringly so. The conversations being had in this 1970-set piece are still being had right now, particularly with regards to protest movements, police hostility, government obtrusion in matters of justice, and especially the ideological disparities within the political left. Sorkin is drawing a direct line between then and now, and is (consciously or not) picking his analogues. Hoffman, with his more socialist leanings, disavowal of the system, and dramatic outspokenness is Bernie Sanders, while the more clean-cut, “pragmatic” activist Hayden, willing to work within the system for change is an avatar of Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, or any other centrist Democrat. It’s easy to see in Bobby Seale the Black Lives Matter movement personified, loudly refuting the injustice of his situation and calling out racism until he is literally silenced, and then disturbingly never seen again once this purpose is fulfilled.
With these coarse parallels, Sorkin is offering up his solutions to the current political strife, and it is very disappointingly toothless and out of touch with the reality he is so vividly alluding to. Yet it is not at all surprising given his previous work. The film falls down on Haydens’ side more often than Hoffman or anyone else, and ultimately advocates a civil unity between the various leftist camps under a centre-left ideal through heavy-handed moralizing about coming together and some very condescending commentary directed at that more socialist side of the political spectrum. As allegory, it is impotent to the point of uselessness; an ideal Sorkin clings to that has no relevance in an age where all political rulebooks must be rewritten. And he suitably caps off this statement on his paragon of liberalism with a particularly weak act of protest as schmaltzy as a Capra movie but eight decades too late.
And the sad thing about this is he’s assembled a really good cast of mouthpieces: a brazen Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Seale, the always wonderful John Carroll Lynch as David Dellinger, and an affable Mark Rylance as their lawyer. Frank Langella earns a lot of derision as the temperamental judge, Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a reluctant prosecution lawyer (reluctant because Gordon-Levitt is too big a star to be on the wrong side of history), and there’s even a fun cameo from Michael Keaton. Also, Eddie Redmayne and Jeremy Strong are there, as Hayden and Jerry Rubin respectively –both pitching to the fences, neither quite succeeding. There are no significant women characters, barring a briefly appearing Caitlin FitzGerald as an FBI plant. Outshining them all though is Sacha Baron Cohen’s charismatic and forceful presence as Hoffman. This is the performance of the movie, the most exciting thing in it, and most cathartic to these frustrating times. I’ll be shocked if, especially given the landscape this year, Cohen doesn’t get an Oscar nomination for it, probably a win if we’re being honest.
The Trial of the Chicago 7 wasn’t designed to be controversial, and that’s exactly why it is. It is stylishly written and generally well-performed, though ultimately banal in its direction and hollow in its aims. I wouldn’t discredit it its’ attributes, and it may well be worth seeing as a perfectly decent legal drama divorced from context. But that is nearly impossible at this mirror point in history. So for now it stands as merely Sorkins’ personal diatribe on left-wing political decorum.
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JordanBosch
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jordan_D_Bosch
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/jbosch/
Comments
Post a Comment