Yippies, hippies and cops butt heads in 'Chicago 10'

By MICHAEL FOX

article created on: 2008-10-15T00:00:00

1968 marked a turning point in Brett Morgen’s life, along with hundreds of thousands of other Americans. But he wasn’t fighting in Vietnam, or protesting the war at home.
 
He was busy being born.
 
Much later, of course, Morgen heard about the tumult that cleaved America in ’68, and he discovered the central roles of a couple of Jewish antiwar activists. Early on, the future documentary filmmaker felt a connection with Abbie Hoffman.

“Abbie put his body on the line numerous times and that was something totally heroic, courageous and inspirational,” Morgen says on the phone from New York.

“[He] married that level of commitment with [an] ability to find humor in the darkest places—which is something I was always raised around. ”
Hoffman is the star of Morgen’s “Chicago 10,” which examines the protests and police riot outside the ’68 Democratic National Convention and the subsequent trial of eight defendants (including Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden and Bobby Seale) on conspiracy charges.

The documentary, which blends archival footage with animation depicting the courtroom proceedings, airs Oct. 22 on PBS’ “Independent Lens” series.
Morgen grew up in Los Angeles, where his parents gave him a culturally Jewish upbringing.
 
“We celebrated all the holidays,” he recalls, “but it wasn’t until I got to college and started taking classes in Judaic studies at Amherst that I got in touch with my roots.”
Morgen eventually got his undergrad degree from Hampshire College and his MFA in film from NYU.
His early documentaries, the Oscar-nominated “On the Ropes” and “The Kid Stays in the Picture,” didn’t draw on his Jewish identity or his political awareness—which was dramatically heightened by the invasion of Iraq. “We conceived the film at a point in 2002 when most of the country was complacent about the war,”

Morgen elaborated. “I think as Jews we are raised with a mentality to give back to the community, to invest in our community. Abbie set up a free store in the East Village. It was very much ingrained in him. I think those threads of being aware of your community, and the country as a whole, and giving back, and being able to evoke comedy and laughter in dark places, is sort of essential, and is missing.”
The best parts of “Chicago 10,” which received a national theatrical release earlier this year, are the snippets of Hoffman speaking to the media or to fellow activists.

Abbie was brilliant, strategic, self-deprecating and hilarious, which no doubt explains why Steven Spielberg is gearing up one of these days to direct “The Trial of the Chicago 7” from Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay.
 
Abbie is shown in the documentary standing up to Julius Hoffman, the Jewish judge who presided over the trial. And yet, when the judge handed out contempt sentences at the end, he gave Abbie only eight months.

“I have to tell you,” Morgen confides, “I think Judge Hoffman had this kinship with Abbie. I think the judge was kind of humored by him. As much as he viewed the defendants as alien beings, I think he identified with Abbie.”

In the course of making “Chicago 10,” Morgan and his wife, actress-turned-director Debra Eisenstadt, had three children. They live in Rockaway, New York, where the kids attend a Jewish day school and the entire family is involved in the local temple.
 
His next film will recount the Iran-Contra affair, which, he notes, features no Jewish players. “What am I saying?” he declares, all but slapping himself in the forehead. “There’s a massive Israeli component to that story. The Israelis came up with Iran-Contra.”
 
But he’s not finished with “Chicago 10,” and his dream of rekindling the antiwar movement.
 
“Maybe it won’t be my film and it will be Spielberg’s film that suddenly mobilizes a couple hundred thousand young activists,” Morgen muses. “Wouldn’t it be great if Abbie stopped the war in Iraq, 20 years after his death.”