The Weather Underground (2002)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Directors:

Sam Green
Bill Siegel

Release Date:

13 November 2003 (Australia)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

The remarkable story of The Weather Underground, radical activists of the 1970s, and of radical politics at its best and most disastrous.

Plot Keywords:

Underground | Government | 1970s | Interview | Black Panthers

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 4 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Billy Ayers	...	Himself (also archive footage) (as Bill Ayers)
Kathleen Cleaver	...	Herself (also archive footage)
Bernadine Dohrn	...	Herself (also archive footage) (as Bernardine Dohrn)
Brian Flanagan	...	Himself (also archive footage)
David Gilbert	...	Himself (also archive footage)
Todd Gitlin	...	Himself
Fred Hampton	...	Himself (archive footage)
Abbie Hoffman	...	Himself (archive footage)
Naomi Jaffe	...	Herself (also archive footage)
Martin Luther King	...	Himself (archive footage)
Jim Lange	...	Additional voice-over (voice)
Timothy Leary	...	Himself (archive footage)
Charles Manson	...	Himself (archive footage)
Walter Mondale	...	Himself (archive footage)
James Robison	...	Himself (archive footage)
Mark Rudd	...	Himself (also archive footage)
Don Strickland	...	Himself
Lili Taylor	...	Narrator (voice)
Evan White	...	Additional voice-over (voice)
Laura Whitehorn	...	Herself (also archive footage)
Pamela Z	...	Narrator (voice)

Runtime:

92 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:M | New Zealand:R13 | Singapore:PG | USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Berkeley, California, USA

Company:

The Free History Project

Movie Connections:

Featured in The 76th Annual Academy Awards (2004) (TV)

Soundtrack:

For Carl Sagan

Stormy Yet Clear Documentary

This is one of the most amazing documentaries I've ever seen. Like a lot of people, I had a low opinion of the Weathermen at the beginning of the film. They seemed like selfish and unsophisticated amateur activists at first, and they were. It took a few of their own being killed by their own device -a homemade bomb- to wake them up. This was the turning point not only for them, but for the film.

Although one is a narrative and the other a documentary, this film makes for a great companion piece with Antonioni's ZABRISKE POINT. I feel like I understand that film so much better now having seen this one. In fact, a couple of WU people appeared in Antonioni's film.

The filmmakers have done an excellent job of capturing the emotional and political climate of the Vietnam War era. This is also the only documentary I have seen that shows Martin Luther King Jr. giving his personal opinion on that war. Also, it's a real ear and eye opener to hear a former Weatherman criticize modern day terrorists like Timothy McVey and those connected with the 9-11 attacks. What gives him the right to come across sounding so smug? Maybe the fact that The Weather Underground never killed anybody. If I could suggest a couple of things to the filmmakers it would be if they had only put the words "CASUALTIES: 0" with each bombing mentioned, it would have been more impressive. And secondly, I wish they'd gone into more detail about how the WU successfully broke Timothy Leary out of prison - but then as a magician never reveals, why should they?

By film's end, I had a totally opposite view of these people than I had at the beginning. So there is a real arc to the film that showed how these people had changed, thus keeping the subjects human rather that mere counter-culture stereotypes. That is a challenge for any documentary filmmaker doing a film on such controversial figures as these.