Sundance 2007

Chicago 10

 (Documentary-Animated)

Morgen's previous docu was the entertaining "The Kid Stays in the Picture," and the director's enchantment with Robert Evans is matched here by his obvious infatuation with Yippie leaders Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, who dominate the new film far too much for it to be considered any kind of balanced take on the socio-cultural eruption the incidents in question represented.

Morgen, who was born in 1968, is reticent to encumber his film with too much historical context. In the rushed leadup to the August convention, he quickly mentions the killing of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and LBJ's decision to step down, but can't be bothered to note the assassination of Robert Kennedy or even inform which three men were vying for the Democratic nomination when the surrounding events took place.

In fact, there are but two moments drawn from within the conventional hall itself, one of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley addressing the throng, the other of Walter Cronkite frankly describing the conditions in the city as those of "a police state." And so it does appear in shot after shot of violent suppression of protester activity that, at least for those four days, resembled what the world was accustomed to seeing in Prague or a banana republic but not in the U.S. of A.

In the very skilled hands of editor Stuart Levy, pic adroitly moves the action along on the parallel tracks of the convention protest and the trial, which hinged on the "intent to incite" by the accused. Hoffman often called what he was doing theater on a grand scale, and Morgen has taken this cue to present his principal players on a variety of stages, including, literally, that of a standup comic.

For his part, Rubin once called the Chicago 7 trial a "cartoon," and Morgen has taken him literally, rendering teeny snippets of the proceedings in stylized form that, thanks to the vocal readings, all too predictably weights matters entirely in favor of the defense while ridiculing the prosecution and, especially, the notorious Judge Julius Hoffman.

Even to those who were around at the time and remember the depicted events first-hand or from television coverage, there is plenty of juice to the footage here, which has been culled from a vast array of sources. Day by day and, especially, night by night, the tension of August 25-28 is evoked along with the sporadic breakouts of violence, bloody beatings and arrests.

As the most colorful and irreverent of the defendants, Hoffman and Rubin get the lion's share of the spotlight, and those who found them either admirable or obnoxious at the time will find what they need to reinforce their feelings herein. Still, the portrayal of their views is superficial, a problem far more pronounced in the cases of David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Tom Hayden, John Froines, Lee Weiner and early-on eighth defendant Bobby Seale, whose demand to act as his own attorney takes up an inordinate amount of the time devoted to the trial. (Title's mysterious addition of two more figures to the accused list stems from Morgen's contention that defense lawyers William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass belong there because they were found in contempt.)

Although the film's lack of attention to the doings of the convention itself is obviously intentional and enables it to hold focus on the protests, for it to avoid any mention of the more mainstream anti-war movement represented by Eugene McCarthy and, before his death, Robert Kennedy, seems grossly unfair; as usual, the more extreme manifestations of political positions receive the most attention.

Underlying it all, however, would seem to be an impatience and irritation on Morgen's part with his own generation, and the one yet younger than himself, for not engaging the establishment today the way the Yippies did four decades ago. Pic's acceptance will depend in large measure on whether or not young viewers take the implicit critique personally.

Musical contributions lean heavily on modern, rather than vintage, pop music, and tech aspects are strong across the board.

(color/B&W; HD); editor, Stuart Levy; additional editing, Kristina Boden; music, Jeff Danna; animation, Curious Pictures; additional animation, Asterisk, Yowza Animation; animation production designer-digital camera, Todd Winter; sound designer (Dolby Digital), Paul Urmson; re-recording mixers, Bob Chefalas, Paul Urmson; line producer, Paul Leonardo; associate producers, Alison Beckett, Christopher J. Keene; casting, Billy Hopkins, Suzanne Crowley, Kerry Barden, Paul Schnee. Reviewed at Sundance Film Festival (opener), Jan. 18, 2007. Running time: 103 MIN.