Chicago 10 Review

In the Brett Morgen documentary, Chicago 10, a fresh view of the Chicago 1968 fiasco is given. The film also portrays the infamous court case that took place after the convention, in which eight activists and organizers were charged with "conspiracy to incite a riot". The movie takes a close look at the pivotal characters of the Yippie movement (people like Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin) as well as the city officials and police officers. It uses news media footage as well as private recordings to immerse the viewer in the atmosphere of Chicago. There are moments of contagious positive energy, but also dark scenes that can best be described as one movement leader put it, "Chicago has become a concentration camp"(Chicago 10). Another big part of the movie was animation. All of the courtroom scenes were animated, but the dialogue and events came straight from the trial's manuscripts. This documentary mixed modern editing with historical footage to create an innovative portrayal of the events of 1968 Chicago.

I absolutely loved this documentary. It brings all the events onto a whole new level of realness. It's one thing to read about a feeling or to look at a picture of a crazy mob; you can only get so much out of that. But, to see footage of dancing hippies at the Festival of Life and hear the vivid rhetoric from Yippie's loudspeakers is something different. To watch the reactions of peace marchers when cops and national guardsmen start spraying them with tear gas and charging after them with barbed wire covered trucks is a totally different experience than just reading some article about it. I also enjoyed the focus on the personalities of the people who organized it all. Abbie Hoffman and the other Yippies have a sarcastic, unedited yet lovable quality that was very entertaining. The movie doesn't edit or bleep out any words, which I was glad of since it made it more genuine. I found the trial in the aftermath to be very interesting as well. The movie does a great job of showing how exceptionally biased that Chicago courtroom was. I also learned something new thanks to this movie. Although all eight defendants were found "not guilty" of "conspiracy to incite a riot", they were sentenced to a couple of years of jail time for various contempt of court charges. Their lawyers were also sent to jail for such charges as well. Overall, I thought the movie was pretty great. It took a while to get used to the animation at parts, but I got over it. I definitely recommend this movie. It'll have you saying "power to the people"(Chicago 10) by the end.

Chicago 10. Dir. Brett Morgen. Independent Lens, 2007.