Circus at the DNC. PBS shows Chicago 10
Chicago 10 - PBS - A Review
This week the PBS show Independent Lens showed the uniquely entertaining Chicago 10.
I always thought it was 7 but I was wrong. The film include 8th defendant Bobby Seale and the 2 defense lawyers William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass. The documentary included actual footage from the 1968 Democratic Convention along with an animated re-enactment of the courtroom scenes.
The voices in the animated sequences are played by Hank Azaria (Abby Hoffman), Mark Ruffalo (Jerry Rubin), Jeffery Wright (Bobby Seale), Liev Schreiber (William Kunstler), and Roy Scheider (Judge Julius Hoffman). The scenes that included Judge Hoffman being my favorite. His complete out of touch attitude setup the antics of Abby Hoffman and William Kunstler perfectly.
My only problem with the documentery was that there wasn't enough courtroom scenes and too much of the protests from the convention. Every moment of the court transcript is ripe drama and could have sustained the full movie.
After the documentary PBS played a short BBC news story from 1968. It had interviews with all of the involved parties.
The photo at the top of this page is by Richard Avedon. I saw an Avedon exhibit in the early 90s where this was shown on a wall opposite a photo of the Joint Cheifs of Staff. These photos were huge filling entire walls of the gallery rooms they were in. The exhibit was easily one of the best I've seen in my life.