The Weather Underground
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Movie Reviews of The Weather Underground
Movie Review: Wonderful
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a gem of a film. For a time period and group I knew little about, this film was a concise exploration of the whole movement. What is really interesting is seeing what has happened to these people over the years. Interestingly, most of them are teachers and are still active in political movements - just not dangerous ones. Well worth the time to see this.Movie Review: Weather Underground
Summary: 5 Stars
The Weather Underground Organization is an extremely interesting domestic backlash from the Vietnam War. Maybe misguided individuals fighting for a just cause. A quite unorthodox method of spreading their ideology. The important thing is that everybody should know not only what the Weather Underground has done, but what they did it for.Movie Review: "We didn't do it but we dug it"
Summary: 4 Stars
I've had a lifelong fascination with radical groups. Religious heretics of the 11th century or the Jacobins in revolutionary France or the Symbionese Army, they all fascinate me. What drives them, what makes them fight against incredible odds, what makes them give up, it all fascinates me. Only recently has there been a serious body of work on the radicals of the 1960s that attempts to address these questions.
Green and Siegel's contribution to this is the documentary The Weather Underground, the story of how the ultra-militant Weatherman organization grew out of the non-violent SDS. Packed with interviews of many of the main characters - including Mark Rudd (of the Columbia U takeover fame), Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers, Brian Flanagan and David Gilbert - and interspersed with period news footage the film provides a sense of the rage that fueled the Weathermen and the regret with which they now regard the past.
Which is not to say that the film is a mea culpa. Most of the interviewees are at pains to explain what they did and why it seemed the only thing to do at the time; not to ask for forgiveness. The interviewees seem so calm and reasonable you could forget what they're talking about which is essentially acts of terrorism and revolution.
There are moments of dark, unintentional humor along the way. Like the footage of the blonde, gum-chewing preppie who tells the reporter they're going to take on the police with "more physical confrontation, whatever's necessary", all the while snapping her Juicy Fruit. Or when Bernardine Dohrn's sister proclaims her actions "Right on and she's far out." I found myself sympathizing with the Black Panther spokesman who dismisses the Weathermen as "muddle-headed." For all their fierce beliefs, they seem to be playing at revolution, casting themselves in the role of revolutionaries based on what they've read rather than what they've experienced. Their efforts to turn themselves into a communist cadre never seem to rise much above leaving in communes, group sex and eating "oatmeal with nothing on it" and "psychological tricks" that one describes as "so cultish."
Yet their beliefs are not simply whims. Rudd and Jaffe speak convincingly of their conviction that doing nothing was a form of participating in the oppression they perceived. Each member made sacrifices to "go underground", a phenomenon one describes as a "state of information control." They saw themselves at war with an oppressive, murderous state and told themselves they were willing to do whatever it took to overthrow it.
And therein lies the rub. As ex-Weatherman Brian Flanagan puts it: "If you think you have the moral high-ground ... you can do some really terrible things." Those terrible things including bombings. It's quite something to see Ayers' and Dohrn's contortions to pat themselves on the back for making a big effort to make sure no one ever got hurt as a result of their bombings. There are several problems with that. First and foremost, once you set a bomb, all bets are off. No matter how many warnings you send out or precautions you take, one mistake or unanticipated action is likely to end in the death or dismemberment of another. All their efforts could have been undone by one act of bad luck. Second, this requires them to go to further contortions to distance themselves from the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion. Describing it as "an autonomous group in New York City" starts off the fun, as if the "group" in NYC had little connection to the rest of the Weatherman. The film includes quotes of regret from most of the interviewees but no exploration for the greater toll the bomb may have taken had it not exploded prematurely.
Green does a good job of trying to present both sides of the story, however, with Todd Gitlin presenting a dissenting New Left view of the Weathermen. The former radicals, in interviews and quotes from letters and memoirs, convey the sheer boredom of life underground. No jobs, no prospects: in a weird way they finally did live the lives of the oppressed they claimed to fight for.
Whether you watch this for entertainment or for enlightenment or both, The Weather Underground delivers. Green and Siegel have begun the effort to "Tease out what was right from what was wrong."
Movie Review: Violent Approach to Social Change by Radical Political Youth
Summary: 4 Stars
In the 1960s the Vietnam War began for the Americans to which Daniel Ellsworth once quote in the documentary Hearts and Minds (1974), "We weren't on the wrong side -- we were the wrong side." Simultaneously with the Vietnam War civil injustice was common in the United States where people were struggling for equal rights for African-Americans in the United States. This in the backdrop nuclear war threat instigated by a government that was dealing with real threats such as the Cuba Crisis. The assassinations of Martin Luther King, the Kennedy's, Malcom X, Fred Hampton, and others seemed to have left a deep psychological scar in many young Americans as they decided to stand up and voice their opinion against the violence and exploitation in the world. One of these organizations were Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which organized rallies against the war in Vietnam and social injustice in the society, as they promoted peace and democracy.
SDS was run by college students that wanted to make a change in the society for the better, and within the the organization a number of members had more radical ideas of how this would be accomplished. These members where a part of the internal group, Weather Underground, a name they acquired from Bob Dylan's song Subterranean Homesick Blues where on line goes as this -- "You don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows." The Weather Underground seized the power of the SDS in 1969 at the national convention in Chicago. The founder of SDS, Todd Gitlin, described it as, "Institutional piracy."
The radical notions that were brought to the table by the Weather Underground was based on the little progress they have observed. Thus, the Weather Underground decided to take actions into their own hands as they began to organize for a revolution, which they believed was needed to bring about a change. Much of the Weather Underground's activities were considered terrorism, as they promoted active violence against the government. However, after an incident where an innocent person was killed the group sat down and discussed the philosophy of the Weather Underground. The conclusion was that no more lives was to be taken, and that extra precautions was to be taken in order the death of people.
Throughout the 1970s the Weather Underground committed several bombings in regards to acts they considered criminal and unjust. They had to cut their ties with their families in order to avoid arrest by the FBI. The FBI did everything possible in order to seek and destroy this organization, but without any luck. When the Vietnam War ended in 1975 the Weather Underground fell into the shadows of history, and as the members grew older and began to build families a life on the run became difficult. This led to most of the members turning themselves into the authorities, and what is interesting is that most members of the Weather Underground were released as the FBI had broken several laws in their attempts to arrest them.
Through the many interviews in the film the audience can learn that the former members of the Weather Underground are still passionate about their political views. They believed what they did was for a just cause in a time of great difficulty and they do not regret their accomplishments. However, in retrospect they wish they could have made some things a differently as wisdom have caught up with them.
Movie Review: Pretty good first step
Summary: 4 Stars
A good reason to buy this DVD is that the two commentaries - the director's and that of two of the principals - taken together with the film itself makes a far more provocative body of work than is offered by the film alone. The latter is the work of a Gen-Xer who exhibits the best and the worst of his cohorts. His curiousity is there - I am grateful that he had the patience and perserverence to get these people in front of the camera - and his heart is there, too - there is some kind of great fondness for his subject. But instead of committing that heart to the subject, he backs off and decides that he only loves "the images," the sights and sounds, the graininess of the old footage or the lilt of the narrator's voice. In the end I felt that he did not give the (former?) members of the Weather Underground their full say or due. Perhaps it is simply not possible to do so in these times or via that medium. Perhaps the central thesis of these activists - that to do nothing is worse than to do something, almost anything, when faced with multilayered deceit and brutality - is somehow no longer meaningful to the citizens of this country. I used to hear such arguments regularly through the 80s (remember "silence = death" and "no compromise in defense of mother earth"?) - what happened? (I too am a Gen-Xer - and appreciated the director's inclusion of an image of Reagan and all that that implied about the future of the Weathermens' battle!)
A few striking points:
This particular movement was simply incredibly successful. I wonder why they would even be considered controversial, particularly. They limited themselves to property destruction. They communicated clearly. They didn't get caught. There is actually a long and widespread tradition of this. Perhaps that tradition has gone into such abeyance at this point, in this country, that people could watch this film (and the director could direct this film) with the idea that these actions are controversial. Of course they are illegal. But at an ethical level, controversial? While we blithely accept the casualties of so many state-sponsored actions as uncontroversial - as "neccessary"? At the same time, it was important to hear the activists reflect on their work with a good sense of self-criticism.
Back to the director:(...) there was a lot of footage that was just all about the director enjoying his own aesthetic. This could have been a slightly more serious documentary. And as for winning awards, that could only be because of the content; there was nothing really outstanding or original in his formal choices. I do hope he continues in this vein, however.
Last, a question. I was left wondering how much of the Weather Underground's activity was motivated particularly by the Vietnam War and by Black activism, as the film strongly contextualizes the movement, and how much by a devotion to something even larger - I have in mind Communist longings and theory - which I caught whiffs of throughout the film but which was never really fleshed out.
Another reason to buy this DVD: To begin educating yourself, your neighbors, family, and so on. A pretty good first step.