The Trial of the Chicago 7

Aaron Sorkin wrote and directed The Trial of the Chicago Seven (2020) for Netflix.  It's an estimable, well-made movie and retains the viewer's interest for two hours and ten minutes.  For some reason, the picture left me cold -- I didn't feel any real enthusiasm for the movie and its emotional climaxes were a bit tepid and tendentiously contrived, I thought.  The picture doesn't really evoke for me the era in which it is set.  Rather, it seems a bit like an exercise in debate, scoring valid and interesting points, but a rather abstract exercise.

The Trial of the Chicago Seven has an all-star cast.  Mark Rylance, the great British actor, impersonates William Kunstler, the lead lawyer for the defendants, and imparts to the role a gravitas that the actual Kunstler lacked.  Sacha Baron Cohen (who is also a producer) plays the part of Abbie Hoffman who is conceptually paired with Jerry Rubin, as the most radical (and obstreperous) of the Defendants.  Frank Langella is memorable as the hapless Federal Judge Julius Hoffman who is viciously excoriated in the film, deservedly as far as I can tell.  David Dellinger is played by the character actor who had the role of the pregnant cop's husband in Fargo -- he's very good as the "adult in the room."  Tom Hayden is acted by    .  The other performers all seemed familiar to me, many of them worthy co-starring actors familiar from TV and the movies.  Michael Keaton plays the part of Ramsey Clark, the previous Attorney General of the United States who was called as a surprise witness (although his testimony was suppressed) in the lengthy proceedings in Chicago.

There is nothing remarkable about the film's mise-en-scene.  Although the film's subject matter cries out for a flashy Brechtian approach to the trial, Sorkin plays it safe -- the movie adopts a cautious "you are there" fly-on-the-wall style of presentation.  The movie is resolutely focused on its debating points and demonstrates a kind of left-liberal prudence and sweet reason that I found somewhat irritating.  At no point, does Sorkin ever allow the film to develop into anything ecstatic or radical.  Rather, the movie espouses the sort of limousine-liberalism of the Hollywood elites, not a bad thing, but not inspiring either.  Sorkin wants to make points about authoritarianism and the limits of reasonable debate; he also wants to show that even people committed to non-violence and justice can slip into unpalatable extremes under the pressure of circumstances.  The movie is ingeniously constructed with flashbacks seamlessly illustrating points that Sorkin or his characters want to make -- everything radiates out (or back) from trial scenes that comprise the majority of the film. (Abbie Hoffman was apparently, like Sacha Baron Cohen, something of a stand-up comedian and some of the narrative is provided by him reciting his story to a crowd of people in what seems to be an open-air comedy venue.)  Everything is presented in a way that is tasteful and serious -- the violence when the cops riot is well-staged but it doesn't go over the top.  Even the scene when the police force Rubin and Hoffman (with their fellow protesters) through the plate-glass window at the Haymarket bar and lounge isn't so dramatically shown as to cause the viewer to feel any outrage or, even, real discomfort.  Sorkin wants his viewers to attend to the forensic points that his characters make in the dialogue and not be distracted over-much by flashy pictorials.  I respect this approach and believe it valid but it seems just a tiny bit dull and too cautious for my taste.

The Trial proceeds chronologically.  We see the prosecuting attorney bullied into taking the case by Nixon's Attorney General. (John Mitchell is angry that his predecessor, Ramsey Clark, didn't implement the transition of power in a cordial way -- many aspects of the film are obviously pertinent to the dilemmas of today including the trial charges of inciting a riot.) The defendants seem to be holed-up in a mansion in Hyde Park where they work with Kunstler and his associate to develop their approach to the case.  There are familiar debates played out between Dellinger, an old Leftist committed to non-violence, and the more radical Hoffman and Rubin.  Tom Hayden is poised in between the extremes, an institutionalist.  In the trial scenes, the Judge behaves with savage injustice.  A subplot involves the presence of Black Panther, Bobbie Seale, as a co-defendant.  Seale really didn't belong in the trial.  He was imported into the indictment to provide a "scary Black radical" to influence the jury -- at least, this is what the movie supposes.  For some incomprehensible reason, Seale has no lawyer.  His lawyer is in Oakland recovering from gall bladder surgery -- although this seems to be some sort of pretext for Seale representing himself pro se.  (Counsel never recovers from the alleged surgery and makes no appearance, although the trial goes on for something like 80 days before finally Seale is dismissed out on a "mistrial."  This is after the infamous episode in which Seale was brought into the courtroom bound, fettered, and gagged for disrupting the proceedings -- this is one of the few things that I recall from news accounts of the original trial -- I was about 16 when the case was tried.)   Judge Hoffman keeps trying to coerce Kunstler into representing the Black Panther -- Kunstler refuses on grounds that Seale doesn't really want a lawyer.  Seale is advised by the local leader of the Black Panther's Fred Hampton who is murdered during the course of the trial.  The film shows all sorts of chicanery practiced by the prosecution and its corrupt witnesses.  The movie climaxes in a physical altercation between Hoffman and Tom Hayden back at the Hyde Park refuge..  Hayden sees Hoffman and Rubin's antics as delegitimizing his opposition to the Vietnam war and, further, damaging the Left; Hoffman and Rubin view Hayden's institutional inclinations as a betrayal of the "cultural" revolution that the two men are trying to foment.  Although Hayden eschews violence, he has made an incendiary speech in Grant Park after seeing  a friend brutalized by the cops -- this speech prevents him from taking the stand.  Ordinarily, trial films climax in a confrontation in open court that dramatizes the larger issues at stake.  But, apparently, no such confrontation (on the order of Darrow versus William Jennings O'Brien) occurred in the Chicago 7 trial.  And, so, the film stages the confrontation in the hypothetical -- Hayden pretends to testify and Kunstler pretends to cross-examine him:  in this way, the film's thematic concerns can be aired even though there was no climactic showdown in the Courtroom.  (Hayden's institutional conservatism is shown when he rises for the Judge after Seale has been treated barbarically -- so badly that the prosecuting attorney demands a mistrial; Hayden's reflex to rise for the Judge is the subject of much hostile criticism later back at the Hyde Park digs where the defendants seem to be living in a sort of frat house environment.).  At the end of movie, Hayden rises to recite a list 5000 names long of soldiers killed in Vietnam -- this creates tumult in the Court.  The Judge has said that Hayden, alone among the defendants, seems to be a person "who can make a contribution to the Nation" -- and, of course, we know he was later elected for six terms as a legislator in California and married to Jane Fonda.  Hayden takes the opportunity to disrupt the proceedings with the lengthy recitation of the dead.  The Judge slams down his gavel violently and repeatedly.  Everyone stands up to honor the dead, including the prosecuting attorney who has finally, the show implies, come around to see the error of his ways.  I doubt that things actually turned out this way, but the show's ending is satisfying in its own demure fashion -- something like justice is served.