"When the people are tired of using their constitutional rights to improve the government, they are able to use the revolutionary right to break up and overthrow the government." —Lincoln's inaugural address, 1961
In Chicago in 1968, when the old and new presidents were transitioning, two big things were about to happen.
The first, the 35th Democratic Congress of the United States.
The second is the peaceful protests against the Vietnam War.
Together, the two events sparked the Great Chicago Riots of that year.
Five months after the incident, the seven civil rights representatives at the center of the unrest, the Seven Gentlemen, were taken to court by the U.S. government on charges of conspiracy to incite violence across state lines.
Its infamous trial process, many years later, has finally been brought to the screen from history, and it has also achieved this "Chicago Seven Gentlemen's Trial".
Since its release before the US presidential election, the film has aroused widespread concern from all walks of life. At present, the overall evaluation of the film is very good, and the Douban score remains at 8.6 points, which is hotly discussed as a favorable contender for next year's Oscars.
In addition, the director of this film, Alan Sorkin, is also a major attraction. He co-wrote "The White House", which set off a US ratings frenzy, and his work "Social Network" also won the 83rd Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Back to the United States in 1968.
Externally, in the Vietnam War, the number of US casualties continued, but the belligerent President Johnson still increased the total number of monthly conscripts from 17,000 to 35,000, 43,000 and 51,000.
Internally, the black civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr., the man who gave "I Have a Dream," was assassinated;
Robert F. Kennedy, the Democratic presidential candidate and the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in U.S. history, was also assassinated.
And this series of events has made the anti-war sentiment within the United States more and more high, resulting in an unpredictable chain reaction.
Representatives of several parties of non-governmental organizations called on tens of thousands of peace-loving people from all walks of life and decided to go to Chicago to protest.
Among them, the student group represented by Tom Hayden and Rennie Davis, they passionately said, "We went to Chicago to end the war, not to mess around";
The Xenophons, led by Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, also moved on the tide and attracted media attention;
The pacifists, led by Dave Delinger, shouted to "rush into the hearts and minds of the American people";
And under the leadership of local organizers from John Ferns and Lee Weiner, several lines gathered in the city.
At this point, all seven gentlemen appeared.
On the other hand, in order to monitor and suppress the demonstrators at any time, the US government also sent a large number of guards and plainclothes undercover agents, including 5,000 armored soldiers of the National Guard and 10,000 local police.
But applications to the parade site were repeatedly denied, and the mixed protesters were forced to squeeze into a nearby park surrounded by police.
Between the two, the swords are fierce, forming a confrontational situation.
Suddenly, there was a sudden "Rush!" from the crowd. As soon as the conflict broke out, a scuffle broke out.
The police fought with the demonstrators, tear gas was everywhere, batons were also on the scene, the police beat the masses, the masses also beat the police, the blood stained on the police uniforms, and even more on the heads, shoulders, chests of the people...
The scene is out of control, and everything goes crazy.
The pace of history is moving forward, and five months later, the new PRESIDENT of the United States, Nixon, came to power, and the members of the system have also been renewed.
At the behest of the new government and appointed by the current Attorney General of the Department of Justice, Richard Schultz took the Seven Gentlemen to court in a single complaint in his capacity as a government prosecutor.
In court, Justice Juliet Hoffman was in the center, and authority could not be offended.
On the right side of the court, Schultz spoke a lot of spoken language, and took the lead in convicting the Seven Gentlemen of conspiring to riot.
The seven gentlemen sat in a row to the left of the courtroom, and in addition to the defense lawyer, there was an eighth black defendant, Bobby Sear.
Who is he? It was also just a four-hour stay in Chicago on the day of the incident, gave a speech, and did not participate in the demonstration of unrelated people. The reason why he became one of the defendants was only because of his black identity, which could set off the terror and viciousness of the Seven Gentlemen, and then dampen the righteous image of the demonstrators.
Focus on the key to the court, that is, who caused the riot, the police or the demonstrators?
When the former attorney general appeared in court to testify that it was caused by the Chicago Police Department, the parties to the dispute, except for the Seven Gentlemen, no one cared.
The prosecution did not care and tried to use cunning arguments to conceal the sky; the justices did not care, and even arbitrarily ruled that the jury did not need to know this witness, this testimony; and others had no chance to care, nor could they know the truth.
Throughout the entire trial process, there is not a dramatic twist of suppression and counter-repression as the audience expects, but a trial from beginning to end, thoroughly and thoroughly, with the prosecution absolutely suppressive.
As Abby said, "This is a political trial, and our sins have long been convicted."
All this is just a conspiracy by the current government to retaliate against the Democratic Party, disgust the Seven Gentlemen, and blur the anti-war rhetoric.
I believe that for any legal charge, the defendant can have room to defend himself, but in the face of this film and this political trial, the individual can only be overridden by the government's authoritarianism, and the end can be imagined.
When Tom Hayden was appointed to make a closing statement, the justices were tempted by words to make him repent and admit his mistake and sit on the evidence of the crime. But Tom was unmoved, and read out the names of the 4,752 soldiers who died in the Vietnam War during the trial on the spot, in order to declare the original intention and significance of the anti-war movement.
The court was boiling and noisy, and the majestic justice could no longer use the big hammer in his hand to make everything silent. But it is still a pity that the voice of justice, although it can awaken the conscience of a small number of people, cannot shake a violent power machine that pretends to be sleeping.
Tom, Rennie, Abby, Rubin, and Dave, among the Seven Gentlemen, were still convicted and sentenced to 5 years in prison.
The quality of a movie is not only based on the hard indicators of the data, but also on whether it leaves a mark in the hearts of the audience, and whether there will still be people talking about it after a long time in the future.
And this film, obviously, has both hard power, long aftertaste, and full of staying power.
At the beginning, Dave Delinger, who has always advocated peaceful protest in a nonviolent manner, prepares to leave for Chicago when his son asks, "What if the police beat you and arrest you?"
Although he felt that this would not happen, he patiently replied after repeated questioning, "To respond very calmly and very politely."
But what about the facts? In the courtroom, when the justice was rude and cunning and arbitrarily convicted, when the security guards repeatedly used force to prepare to clamp him down, the demeanor that had always been on the verge of being limited finally reached the limit, and he beat the police.
After a moment of anger, he immediately regained his senses and even politely apologized to the police officer who was beaten. But just when he raised his head and saw his young son who was watching all this happening, the freeze frame of this picture was quite meaningful.
Obviously, this is an irony set by the director, and there are many similar scenes in the whole film.
Abby and Rubin, dressed in police uniforms and judges' robes, mercilessly teased the government's law enforcement and judicial departments; in the hotel next to the Democratic Congress, high-ranking people in dress are preparing to welcome the announcement of the new president, and everything is singing and dancing, while outside the hotel, the police have taken off their badges and police numbers, and are staged a violent and bloody incident against civilians...
Bobby Sear, a black man who was pulled to smear the Seven Gentlemen, was dismissed for repeated pleas and his partner was assassinated, and finally couldn't bear it and revolted, but what was given back to him was the judge's ruthless confinement order. When he came out of the detention room after being repaired and repaired, in addition to being shackled and locked, he was also stuffed with cloth strips in his mouth and tied to the defendant's seat.
This is not only a moment of unfair treatment of black people for a long time, but also a moment of shame in the history of racial discrimination in the United States. This is also reflected from the side, this trial, from the beginning, is full of a combination of absurdity and tyranny.
Of course, the film not only attacks the system, but also makes a profound discussion of the Seven Gentlemen who launched the civil rights movement.
Patriotic young people like Tom Hayden, although they have political ideals and enthusiasm, their impulsive and irritable nature is extremely easy to make the peace movement they lead lose control and fail under the condition of losing their minds;
Abby Hoffman, too much of an exaggeration to attract media attention, lost some of the seriousness of the political movement. Encouraging promiscuity, drug abuse and other crazy behaviors, although it will attract a large number of followers for the time being, will inevitably be questioned and criticized by the same camp, other groups, and opponents in the long run.
Of course, in addition, it has a lot of things worth pondering and reflecting on, not only for what has happened in history, but also for the present, thinking about the present and the future.
From the perspective of the United States, the violent death of black Floyd has not gone far, and from the perspective of globalization, the sanctions imposed by the United States on Huawei, ZTE, etc. have not subsided. Is the path of a nation that preaches freedom more and more paranoid?
When the state is such a violent machine, the leader holds the supreme power, the law enforcers are ruthless in enforcing the law, and the ears and eyes of the state ignore the voices and rights of the people, it will surely usher in a change, if it cannot be in a peaceful way, it will be exchanged for blood.
In the parade, people chant in unison "All world is watching!" ", by no means just a slogan and a reminder.
This is a good movie, not only to bring people ideological excitement, but also to offer both auditory and visual enjoyment.
Alan Sorkin's wave after wave of high-density tongue-fighting dialogue repeatedly bombards the audience's information acceptance; the court scene and the event context are interspersed and cut back and forth, and the historical image and the film picture are perfectly transformed and intersected, presenting the audience with a sense of time and space travel;
The superb interpretation of many big coffee such as Little Freckles, Uncle Cohen, Mark Relais and so on is another spike collision.
So good-looking, how can you miss it?
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