"The American Experience" Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst (2004)

Director:

Robert Stone

TV Series:

"The American Experience" (1988)

Original Air Date:

January 2004 (Season 17, Episode 11)

Genre:

Documentary | Biography | Crime | History | War

Plot:

A documentary on the curious American domestic terrorist group, infamous for the 1974 kidnapping of Patty Hearst.

Plot Keywords:

Kidnapping | Symbionese Liberation Army | Hostage | Terrorist Group | What Happened To Epilogue

Awards:

Nominated for Primetime Emmy. Another 1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Russ Little	...	Himself (also archive footage)
Michael Bortin	...	Himself
Timothy Findley	...	Himself
Dan Grove	...	Himself
Ludlow Kramer	...	Himself
John Lester	...	Himself
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Marcus Foster	...	Himself (archive footage)
Catherine Hearst	...	Herself (archive footage)
Patricia Hearst	...	Herself (archive footage)
Randolph Hearst	...	Himself (archive footage)
Richard Neill	...	Interviewer
Ronald Reagan	...	Himself (archive footage)
Howard Shack	...	Interviewer
Evelle Younger	...	Himself (archive footage)

Runtime:

89 min | Australia:86 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

UK:12 (video rating) (2005) | UK:12A (original rating) | Australia:M | USA:Unrated

Company:

Robert Stone Productions

Movie Connections:

Features Zorro's Black Whip (1944)

Many, many missed opportunities here...

Sorry to say, this film suffers in comparison with the extraordinary WEATHER UNDERGROUND, which managed to become an unexpected commercial success, largely on the strength of meticulous film-making which not only recounted the history, but also captured context and diverse commentary on the events, times and people central to its' story. It was a film that - in many ways - raised the bar on recent-historical documentary film-making.

Alas, GUERRILLA is a far more pedestrian affair, mostly a compendium of archival footage (much of which is fascinating), with precious little digging into context - the fragmentation of the American left during the early 70s, the rise of underground radicalism (Weathermen, PLO, IRA, Red Brigade, et. al.), the post-60s decline of many major American cities (and the rising despair that ultimately fueled the crack wars of the 80s/90s and the riots that hit Miami and Los Angeles). Each of these elements are of some relevance to what's being presented in this documentary - the SLA were weirder and wiggier than most, mixing their Mao and inner-city blues with a big dose of dadaist strangeness, but they didn't just materialize out of the ether, and - in keeping the focus too tightly on the events and the group, this doc plays the history out as some ultra-violent theatre-of-the-absurd, in real life; a sort-of weird-sploitative pigs-vs-the-people melodrama.

This does a great disservice to history - through this film, Patti Hearst remains an enigma, with a great many class issues, psychological issues (post-traumatic stress, or the Stockholm syndrome) barely touched upon. The other surviving members of the SLA get plenty of screen time (unlike Hearst, who I assume didn't want to be involved), but the many interviews presented don't really seem to dig into anything deeper than who-did-what.

GUERRILLA isn't a total failure by a long shot; anyone with any memory of the 70s knows how weird the story seemed to be, and the recounting of it seen here is definitely captivating; the strangeness, chaos and confusion of the era doesn't feel very distant at all. But I also recall something else: back in the late 80s, the rock band Camper Van Beethoven recorded a snappy, satirical homage to Patty Hearst, entitled "Tania." In three-and-a-half minutes, I think they might have outdone this 90-minute documentary. Oh well.