The Trial of the Chicago Seven: Unbelievable, but true

The Trial of the Chicago Seven (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, violence and drug use

By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.23.20 

Well, this one couldn’t be more timely.

 

Defense attorney William Kuntsler (Mark Rylance, center) and co-counsel Leonard
Weinglass (center left) do their best to protect the defendants — from left, Bobby Seale
(Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne) and Rennie Davis
(Alex Sharp) — from the blatantly biased behavior of their courtroom judge.

Writer/director Aaron Sorkin’s Netflix original, a depiction of events during the notorious “Chicago Seven” trial — which lasted five months after beginning Sept. 24, 1969, following the August 1968 riots outside Chicago’s Democratic National Convention — is by turns mesmerizing, astonishing, scandalous and horrifying.

 

While Sorkin makes no claim to rigid, documentary-style authenticity, it’s important to understand that pretty much everything depicted here — even the most outrageous behavior — did indeed take place. The timeline has been manipulated a bit, and Sorkin clearly punches up some of the behind-the-scenes dialogue for dramatic impact.

 

But be advised: Every time you’re inclined to think, Oh, that couldn’t possibly have happened … you’ll be wrong.

 

The often crackling verbal exchanges are volleyed by a powerhouse ensemble cast dominated by four actors: Eddie Redmayne, as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) member Tom Hayden; Sacha Baron Cohen, as Youth International Party (Yippie) co-founder Abbie Hoffman; Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, as Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale; and Mark Rylance, as defense attorney and civil rights activist William Kunstler.

 

The latter represented the Seven during their kangaroo-court trial before the incompetent, blatantly racist and deplorably biased Judge Julius Hoffman (a chilling Frank Langella).

 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is just as compelling — albeit in a more calmly determined manner — as lead prosecutor Richard Schultz, hand-picked for this assignment by newly elected President Richard Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell (John Doman, smugly condescending).

 

Jeremy Strong supplies mild comic relief as Yippie co-founder Jerry Rubin, who seems stoned during the lengthy proceeding. The remaining Seven are SDS member Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp); and National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (The MOBE) members David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch), John Froines (Danny Flaherty) and Lee Weiner (Noah Robbins).

 

The Seven actually begin as Eight; Seale is dragged into court alongside the others, despite having been present in Chicago for only four hours at the time, in order to deliver a speech. All are indicted under the newly installed Rap Brown Law, passed by Congress in April 1968, as an anti-riot act aimed at persecuting “outside agitators” for crossing state lines and “instigating confrontations.”

 

Which is to say, peaceful protests. (Sound familiar?)

 

(There’s every reason to believe that the roughly 15,000 anti-Vietnam War protestors, who gathered in Chicago’s Grant and Lincoln Parks in late August 1968, would have remained peaceful. History seems to bear that out, although one cannot be certain, given the presence of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin.)

 

When these protestors are met by Mayor Richard Daley’s army of 11,000 Chicago cops and 6,000 members of the Illinois National Guard, the resulting riots — and grievous bodily harm, on both sides — are inevitable. It’s a terrifying tableau.

 

But we don’t witness such carnage until well into this saga’s third act. Sorkin eschews a linear treatment, skipping directly to the start of trial, following a brief prologue. Details of what led to the Grant Park riot unfold sparingly, via testimony. Indeed, what brought the defendants into court seems almost forgotten during an escalating series of (at times mind-boggling) antics on both sides of the judge’s bench.

 

As is his custom, Sorkin allows the story to unfold via a series of character clashes and interpersonal dynamics. The most subtly intriguing occurs between Redmayne’s idealistic Hayden, who believes that “the system” is best changed from within; and Cohen’s mocking Abbie Hoffman, who prefers the role of gleeful court jester. Although outwardly mutually contemptuous, it soon becomes clear that both recognize some value in the other’s approach.

 

Redmayne is every inch an impassioned, clean-cut liberal; one senses the sharp political savvy for which Hayden eventually will be known, later in life.

 

The most explosive clashes take place between Judge Hoffman and Seale, the latter forced to endure the ongoing process without benefit of counsel … his attorney not present due to a medical emergency. This horrifies Kunstler — Rylance at times apoplectic with disbelief — but he can do nothing about it, as he does not represent Seale. 

 

Abdul-Mateen channels equal parts affronted dignity and barely restrained rage over Seale’s blatantly illegal mistreatment. This eventually climaxes in one of the most shameful acts ever to take place in a modern American courtroom. Sorkin knows it packs a wallop … and he gets it.

 

Rylance, forever rumpled and disheveled — the actual Judge Hoffman made it clear that he disapproved of the attorney’s long hair — plays Kunstler as if the man is forever on the verge of collapsing from total exhaustion … or, more likely, utter despair. Rylance’s expression and posture become ever more anguished, his disbelief over the judge’s unfairness ever more livid, as this circus proceeds.

 

(The actual Kunstler was sentenced to four years in prison for addressing the judge as “Mr. Hoffman,” rather than “Your Honor.”)

 

At the other end of the emotional spectrum, Gordon-Levitt’s nuanced portrayal of Schultz is quite fascinating. During the initial conversation with Mitchell, Schultz obviously believes pursuing the charges is both a bad idea and a likely loser, but — having been tagged — he subsequently handles the prosecution with crisp professionalism and solid legal tactics. 

 

And yet Gordon-Levitt makes it clear, particularly when it comes to the judge’s treatment of Seale, that Schultz is increasingly troubled by his conscience, and his sense of fair play (which may be wishful thinking on Sorkin’s part, but it augments the drama).

 

Sharp’s bookish take on Davis holds our attention to the real reason for these events, as he carefully tabulates all the young Americans killed in Vietnam, each day of the trial.

 

The remaining defendants aren’t sketched as thoroughly. Although Lynch is a strong presence, we don’t learn enough about Dellinger’s motivations; his sole character attribute is “family man.” Flaherty’s Froines and Robbins’ Weiner are little more than afterthoughts.

 

Michael Keaton pops up, late in the game, as Ramsey Clark, President Johnson’s former attorney general. Keaton makes excellent use of his sly, fox-in-the-henhouse grin, when Clark’s role in these events becomes clear.

 

Cinematographer Phedon Papamichael cleverly distinguishes the two primary settings. He used vintage lenses and digital texturing to achieve a slightly dreamy, almost surreal atmosphere for the “outer world” activities and Grant Park flashbacks; this contrasts with the classic, cinematic crispness of all courtroom sequences. Editor Alan Baumgarten intercuts the climactic police clash with some authentically grim 1968 riot footage.

 

Far more than most such films, you’ll be enthralled by the concluding text crawls that explain what happened next. And I’m sure folks also will hasten to their favorite history texts.

 

The lesson here is unmistakable: We haven’t learned from history, and we’re repeating it.

 

Or, as Sorkin comments, in the press notes, when describing this project’s evolution, “The script didn’t change to mirror the times … the times changed to mirror the script.”

More’s the pity.