The Weather Underground (2003)
If film is all about context and
storytelling is all about context, then history is
most assuredly all about context. And the context
here is putrid and harrowing. "The Weather Underground"
(a name that will unfortunately not help sell tickets
to this movie) is about revolutionaries in the 60's,
revolutionaries that often resorted to physical confrontations
with police officers and the pipe bombing of government
institutions.
It would be hard to gather any sympathy
for the perpetrators of such heinous actions if it
weren't for the context that the filmmakers establish
here. The first 10 minutes of the film contains some
of the most brutal, bloody and inhumane images of
American soldiers killing Vietnamese civilians ever
to be seen. Over 30 years later, these images are
still enough to make you angry, bitter and hostile
towards our government. Imagine seeing them in the
time they happened!
This documentary is a very organized
and comprehensible. We learn of the revolutionaries
in the SDS, a organization made up of mainly college
students, who protest the war in Vietnam as well as
other social and political injustices in the 60's.
After a convention in 1969, with hell breaking loose
via the deaths of Black Panthers and other black leaders
including Martin Luther King and the discovery of
the Manson Family's activities, not to mention bloody
footage of the war in Vietnam being broadcast on the
TV news nightly, America seem poised for a complete
breakdown. Revolution was in the air and the political
and cultural upheavals taking place across the country
pointed to imminent changes. The student leaders of
SDS split into fractions and one becomes known as
"The Weathermen," a name taken from the Bob Dylan
lyric which says, "Don't need a weatherman to know
which way the wind blows." Eventually these rebels
had to move "underground," adopting a new name that
also became the title of this film.
What is most amazing about this
film is the amount of archive footage, mainly new
footage, that is shown. There are vast amounts of
"time capsule" sounds and images that easily transport
us back into this tumultuous time in American history.
Most of this is moving and dynamic. Anything static
in nature usually overwhelms us regardless of its
immobility because it features personalities we recognize,
like Walter Cronkite or a young Tom Brokaw. Some of
the more engrossing visuals remind us of just how
violent the nation was in the early 70's and how precarious
the situations of our nation's youth became. Campus
riots, the Kent State incident, bombings, police raids
and police murders become harrowing counterparts to
the images of the war in Vietnam and the peaceful
student protests. When we think of 60's radicals and
anti-war protestors, we often think of hippies flipping
peace signs and smoking pot. There are few of those
images here. Our childhood memories of the 60's, of
Woodstock and "Laugh- In," are often shattered by
what we see here. This is a history lesson all teenagers
should witness. This film "tells it like it is" in
bold archive footage that is sometimes nearly unbearable
to view.
There are many recent interviews
of some of the Weather Underground members in this
documentary and their fate after the 60's is also
revealed to us. Hearing them speak and witnessing
their feelings now, some years after the fact, are
also quite interesting. This new footage gives the
film much of its powerful historical context as well.
The film has no specific modern
correlation to the current war America is now undertaking
against "terrorism" in the Middle East, but watching
it one cannot help but "feel" the connection. With
flashback images of 9/11 on TV screens recently during
the second anniversary of the horror, images from
the war abroad consistently playing on CNN, college
students questioning the actions of their government
and a president that seems incapable of relating to
America's youth, one sees the connection to the 60's
all too clearly after seeing this film.
Don't need a weatherman to see which
way the wind blows, indeed.
Note:
Narrated by Lili Taylor. Also with
archive footage of Timothy Leary.
The film has an awesome score and
features music by many "trance" and electronica bands
including The Aphex Twins.
Viewed on a VHS screener provided
by the Dobie in September 2003.
