There are few marriages of artist and repertoire that make more sense than Aaron Sorkin and the Chicago 7. With mouthpieces like the impishly radical Abbie Hoffman and the stately elder liberal Dave Dellinger primed to bite into Sorkin’s dialogue, The Trial of the Chicago 7 and its high water mark of late 1960s counter-culture political theater feels like something the writer-director has been working towards his entire career.
The trial, which initially included eight defendants until Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale (who was actually bound and gagged in the courtroom during the proceedings) had his trial separated from the rest of the group, set out to determine if a collection of anti-war activists conspired to incite a riot during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. It quickly became a symbolic conflict between the longhairs (some metaphorical) and the straights.
On Sunday Netflix released the first teaser trailer of this Oscar-primed drama, with a focus on rhythmic editing and Sacha Baron Cohen looking scruffy.
Cohen seems perfect as Hoffman, and elsewhere in the cast is John Carroll Lynch as Dellinger, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Bobby Seale, Eddie Redmayne as Tom Hayden, Jeremy Strong as Jerry Rubin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as prosecutor Richard Schultz, Frank Langella as Judge Julius (no relation to Abbie) Hoffman, Mark Rylance as William Kunstler, Michael Keaton as Ramsey Clark, and on and on. Maybe someone will play Phil Ochs. Maybe we’ll catch a glimpse of Pigasus.
It’s obvious why Sorkin and producer Steven Spielberg would want to release this now, during this election year and especially during this time of social upheaval, but if you are wondering if the topic has graced your screen before, you aren’t imagining things.
In 2007, documentary filmmaker Brett Morgen mixed archival footage and audio clips with animated reenactments in Chicago 10. (Hank Azaria voiced Hoffman in this one.)
In 2010, The Chicago 8 starred Phillip Baker Hall as Judge Julius Hoffman and Gary Cole as lawyer William Kunstler in a live action film using court transcripts.
Way back in 1987 there was Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8, one of the early HBO original films, shot on early video. It also used direct transcript quotes for dialogue and starred Peter Boyle as Dellinger, Robert Loggia as Kunstler, Elliot Gould as attorney Leonard Weinglass, and a slew of others like Ron Rifkin as Allen Ginsberg. Many of the actual defendants or lawyers from the trial made an appearance, as well. This film is somewhat lost to time but not hard to find.
Lastly, in 2000, there was Robert Greenwald’s Abbie Hoffman biopic Steal This Movie with Vincent D’Onofrio in the lead opposite Janeane Garofalo.
There’s also no shortage of Abbie Hoffman clips out there, including this one about gefilte fish.
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