The War at Home (1979)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Directors:

Glenn Silber
Barry Alexander Brown (co-director)

Release Date:

December 1979 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary | History | Music | War

Plot:

Interviews with people involved with and leading the Madison, Wisconsin area resistance to the Vietnam war. |

Plot Keywords:

Resistance | Wisconsin | Interview | Vietnam War | Vietnam

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar.

Cast

Karleton Armstrong	...	Himself (anti-war activist, convicted bomber)
Betty Boardman	...	Herself (Quaker peace activist) (also archive footage)
Allen Ginsberg	...	Himself (activist)
Henry Haslach	...	Himself (student activist) (also archive footage)
Gaylord Nelson	...	Himself (US Senator) (also archive footage)
Wahid Rashad	...	Himself (student activist) (also archive footage)
Jim Rowen	...	Himself (student activist, assistant to Mayor Soglin) (also archive footage)
Paul Soglin	...	Himself (student activist, mayor of Madison) (also archive footage)
Evan Stark	...	Himself (student activist) (also archive footage)
Jack von Mettenheim	...	Himself (businessman, anti-Hitler student activist)
H. Edwin Young	...	Himself (president, Univ. of Wisconsin) (also archive footage)
Maurice Zeitlin	...	Himself (professor, Univ. of Wisconsin) (also archive footage)

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White | Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Not Rated

Company:

Catalyst Media

Movie Connections:

Featured in American Pop (1981)

Soundtrack:

The Ballad of the Green Berets

Best historical doc on the anti-war movement

There are a number of films out on the anti-war movement. Some, like the recent 'Weather Underground' never really explain the historical context or the protester's politics, but just stay at the surface of personality and sensational subject matter. Others, like Berkeley in the Sixties, take a completely nostalgic view, embalming leftist politics as something cool boomers did in a now inaccessible past when they were crazy kids. The War at Home, though fills in the background, takes the politics seriously, and imagines that it might be actually worth something to the viewer. While the film is focused on events in Madison, WI, it's interest is by no means limited to folks with experience of that time or place. It's very effective microcosm of the larger movement. While the film has a fairly conventional talking-head-and-archival-clip form, it's well made and engaging. It also has no pretense to 'objectivity,' which is a good thing. A number of observers trace the decline of the anti-war movement to a turn towards violence that alienated more moderate folks who were beginning to question the war after Tet. the first signal event in this supposed turn toward the dark side was a bombing on the University of Wisconsin campus, which becomes the central event in this film. A grad student in science was killed in the blast, and there was great hue and cry that anyone would set off a bomb amidst the seat of higher learning. However, rather than simply casting the bombers as villains, the film seeks to understand their actions, and ultimately sympathizes with them. Rarely do we ever see this -- political radicalism treated as human and comprehensible -- and for presenting the side of the argument we never hear otherwise, The War at Home is a valuable and all too rare document.