Guerrilla - The Taking of Patty Hearst
by Robert Stone (IV)
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Dan Grove, Ludlow Kramer, Michael Bortin, Russ Little (III), Timothy Findley (II)Director: Robert Stone (IV)
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 89 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-09-27
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: New Video Group
Movie Reviews of Guerrilla - The Taking of Patty Hearst
Movie Review: Exciting And Compelling.
Summary: 4 Stars
"Guerrilla: The Taking Of Patty Hearst" is an exciting, fascinating documentary film about one of the most freakish, bizarre news items of the 1970s and one of the strangest kidnappings ever recorded. With priceless footage, audio recordings and eyewitness accounts, director Robert Stone chornicles the formation of the SLA, its birth as a bastard child of the radical calls for change in the 1960s, and their decent into a media circus item following the kidnapping of Patty Hearst.
Stone's film is pieced together as a great suspense story, capturing the tension and drama of the events. With sharp editing, pounding music and some interesting political insight, he captures a unique time and place in American history. This is the first film that successfully frames the story of the Symbionese Liberation Army in the context of the 60s, 70s youth culture. Former members discuss their anger at a government gone mad with the Vietnam War, the popularity of figures like Che Guevara and Malcolm X, and how guerrilla warfare was seen as a plausible tool to bring about radical change even in the United States. Stone allows the SLA members to express themselves with their own words, the living and dead describe their indoctrination and motivations in interviews and preserved recordings. This is the best document on this small bit of radical 70s history.
The film's key moments come near the middle, when the SLA kidnaps Patty Hearst, granddaughter of media tycoon William Randolph Hearst (himself the basis for Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane"), after weeks of socialist demands from the guerrillas, including a plan to distribute food to poor communities, Hearst stuns the world by emerging herself as a combatant, robbing banks and taking part in shoot-outs. This is all well-documented in the film with interesting footage of Patty's father conceding the SLA's demands, her bewildered fiance not really knowing how to react to what's happening and Patty's own, strange recordings, first expressing the guerrillas' demands and then promoting their ideaology. Interesting facts are shared, including how California authorities used schools for the deaf and blind to examine the recordings and then bank security camera footage of an SLA robbery where Patty famously participates.
"Guerrilla" tells this story with crackling energy and style, Stone manages to keep us watching and creates atmosphere. But the film never reaches its full potential because it also decides, curiously, to skip over key material audiences would really like to know about. The film does a superb job chronicling the kidnapping and police manhunt, but we never get a full view into exactly why Patty turned into an SLA member, or at least various points of view on the question. We get a few flashes of what she went through as a hostage but no complete account. Stone also decides to completely skip over Patty's trial after capture, a moment of the story that would serve the narrative well. What do her former comrades, now serving time in prison, have to say about her getting a full pardon from President Clinton? What has Patty herself have to say about her ordeal? I was left wondering why Stone decided to close his film with a recent interview Hearst gave on British TV and cuts to the end credits right when she's about to actually begin the interview. "Guerrilla" feels short at an hour and thirty minutes, too short for such a fascinating tale.
Those observations aside, this is still a thrilling, fascinating tale. Like "One Day In September," "Guerrilla" is a documentary that can compete with the best high-tech action films have to offer. It will surely remain for quite some time the best available film resource on the SLA's 15 minutes of fame during radical times, and on one of the most bizarre, puzzling hostage cases in American history.
Summary of Guerrilla - The Taking of Patty Hearst
The award-winning and internationally acclaimed film, GUERRILLA: THE TAKING OF PATTY HEARST is a gripping, unparalleled account of the most sensational kidnapping in American history."Death to the fascist insect that preys on the life of the people!" declared the Symbionese Liberation Army, the domestic terrorist group that kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst and demanded a massive food program for the poor in exchange for her release. Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst examines this sensational case with a measured, sardonic view of every side; the SLA was born in the crucible of the Vietnam War and Kent State, but the documentary neither forgives nor condemns their actions (which include bank robbery, bombings, and murder). Instead, the SLA and the media bonanza that surrounded them become an astonishing petri dish of social and political trends that resonate with even more force today. Using interviews with reporters and surviving members of the SLA, footage from news reports and Hollywood movies, director Robert Stone (Radio Bikini) has crafted a smart, suspenseful thriller that mesmerizes even if you know the whole history. A superb documentary; the dvd is even better as it includes uncut footage from the security cameras of one of the bank robberies; the sentencing of the 2003 trial of four SLA members; complete audio recordings of Patty Hearst's media statements; and a balanced, thoughtful commentary from Stone. --Bret Fetzer
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