On November 3, 2020, voting officially began on Election Day in the United States. Democratic candidate Joe Biden and Republican candidate Donald Trump alternately led the way, and the process was scorching.
On the eve of the 1968 election, the Democratic National Convention was held in Chicago, and anti-war activists from all over the United States gathered, and a peaceful protest unfortunately turned into a violent bloodshed with fierce clashes with the police and the National Guard.
In 2020, the United States has been shrouded in the shadow of new crown pneumonia, and the number of infected people has exceeded 9 million so far. The unexpected death of African-American George Floyd has allowed the slogan "Black lives matter" to sweep across continents and demonstrate in an endless stream.
In the 1860s, the air was not filled with viruses, but with "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll." Radical black civil rights movements, youth anti-war movements, and women's resistance movements took turns to stage feverishly, and "the whole world has entered adolescence."
Spanning half a century, history and reality have formed a wonderful and magical intertext.
This expression of intent to "borrow the past and satire of the present" is mostly the original intention of Alan Sorkin to abandon the theater line and rush to launch "Seven Gentlemen of Chicago" on the streaming platform Netflix before the presidential election.
Based on true events, The Seven Gentlemen of Chicago recreates a notorious injustice in American history. As early as 2007, Alan Sorkin was invited by Spielberg to write the screenplay for the film. At the beginning of the project, the producer DreamWorks intended to have Spielberg directed, starring Will Smith, Adam Arkin, Kevin Spacey and others. Due to multiple factors, the project was delayed several times, until one day Spielberg said to Sorkin, "Or you can come by yourself." ”
After 13 years, the film finally met with the audience, and the replacement of the main creator did not affect its gold content in the slightest. During this period, Alan Sorkin's screenplay masterpieces include "Penalty Shootout", "Newsroom", "White House Storm", etc., won the 83rd Academy Awards For Best Adapted Screenplay for "Social Network", and directed the first directing tube in 2017, bringing the movie "Jasmine Card Game".
The cast is still star-studded, bringing together Eddie Redmayne, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Sasha Byron Cohen, John Carlo Lynch, Michael Keaton and many other powerful factions. Netflix even said that it will work hard to get all the actors of the "Seven Gentlemen" in the film to be nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor next year.
After its launch, the reputation of "Seven Gentlemen of Chicago" lived up to expectations, with a Rotten Tomatoes freshness of 91% and a Douban of 8.6, exceeding 92% of historical films and 91% of drama films.
In the first 7 minutes of the film, a quick clip intertwined with real historical images tells the background of the story, the stormy 60s, the assassination of President Kennedy, the shooting of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., 380,000 young adults sent to the Battlefield in Vietnam, the monthly recruitment demand continues to increase, from 17,000 to 35,000 to 43,000 to 51,000...
In the chaotic atmosphere of the times, the main characters also appeared one by one. SDS (Student Democracy Society) representatives Tom Hayden and Lenny Davis spoke in the auditorium, declaring that they had gone to Chicago to "end the war"; hippie members of the Youth International Party, Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, were inciting their followers, "We go with peace, but if there is violence, you know how we respond..."; The leader of the Anti-Vietnam War Coalition, David Delinger, is saying goodbye to his wife and children; Bobby Searle, the leader of the Black Panther Party, decides to go to Chicago for a 4-hour speech...
The "Seven Gentlemen of Chicago" in History
The above 6 people, together with Lee Wiener and John Ferns, make up the "Chicago Eight" – yes, there are actually 8 so-called "Seven Gentlemen", and the only black Bobby Sear has never had any contact with the other seven, staying in Chicago for only 4 hours. His inclusion in the indicted group was simply that in the racially discriminatory 1960s, adding a minority person could have made the jury less visible. The film's reasons for the prosecution of Lee and John, who do not emphasize partisan affiliation, are more ridiculous, they are just foils, and setting up such two innocents will make it easier for the jury to convict others.
From the composition of the membership alone, it can be seen that since the verdict is already predetermined, the trial process is bound to be absurd.
To address all the downsides, prosecutors forged threatening letters to get jurors in favor of the "Seven Gentlemen" to withdraw; the president of the Black Panther chapter was murdered, Bobby Sear was tied up and gagged in court; and defense lawyer William Kunstler was charged with a total of 24 counts of contempt of court.
Even when the protagonists finally found powerful witnesses, persuaded the former attorney general to testify, and revealed on the spot that he had refused the president's request for prosecution, and after the intelligence department investigated, the bloody riot was actually provoked by the Chicago police, when the audience finally saw a glimmer of light and expected a reversal, the judge's choice was to not let the jury know about it.
In essence, the trial has nothing to do with justice, nothing to do with fairness, nothing to do with the truth, and there are only political motives. This scripted shady play, led by the Nixon administration, was a move to kill chickens and monkeys during regime change, but the participants were still struggling in it.
The prosecution finally presented evidence of the decision. In the live recording, Tom Hayden abandons his rationality and calmness when he witnesses his best friend being injured by the police. He inspired the people: "If you are destined to bleed, let the blood flow all over the city!" ”
This recording let the 7 gentlemen know that "exoneration" is completely hopeless, Abby Hoffman sat on the trial bench for Tom Hayden, and the director did not disappoint the audience, constantly saying Saukin-style golden sentences through the mouth of the character, such as:
"Do you despise your government?"
"My contempt is not worth mentioning compared to the government's contempt for me."
"Did you come to Chicago expecting to clash with the police?" The amount of time I think about this question makes me worry about you. ”
"Give me some time friends – I've never been judged for my thoughts."
The epilogue draws an even better ending to the film, when the judge suggests that Tom Hayden can use the closing statement to express remorse, Tom reads a list of as many as 4,752 people, the names of American soldiers who died on the battlefields of Vietnam during the long five-month trial.
The judge wielding a mallet and shouting "silence" and the scene of everyone present standing in silence and raising their fists to express their chest constitute a contrasting scene full of drama and irony.
The story of "The Seven Gentlemen of Chicago" is based on a 151-day trial with many characters and a variety of clues, and Sorkin's approach is to put three time and space together — the trial, history, and the parties' memories of events. As a result, the easy-to-boring court scene was filmed in a twist and turn, and the whole situation of the incident was explained in an orderly manner.
Whether it's the barrage of lines, sharp editing or excellent group portrait design, it almost locks in the important awards of next year's Oscars.
More importantly, it hardly needs to fill the gap of time and smear the mark of the times, because history is highly similar to the present, the civil rights movement 50 years ago was full of twists and turns, and today American society is facing a huge tear. As the slogan in the film is repeatedly shouted by protesters:
"The whole world is watching".
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