{"id":23638,"date":"2021-01-20T09:56:58","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T23:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=23638"},"modified":"2021-04-15T10:00:01","modified_gmt":"2021-04-15T00:00:01","slug":"the-trial-of-the-chicago-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=23638","title":{"rendered":"The Trial of the Chicago 7"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tagfilm\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"trial-of-the-chicago-7-poster\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Director:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Aaron Sorkin
\nWriter:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Aaron Sorkin
\nCast:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Rylance, Eddie Redmayne, Frank Langella, Michael Keaton, Joseph Gordon-Levitt<\/p>\n

I<\/span>n August 1968, seven individuals – who would collectively become known as the Chicago 7 – make plans to protest at the Democratic National Convention.\u00a0 The resulting protests escalate into wild confrontations with the riot squad.\u00a0 Five months later, the seven appear in court, charged with intent to cross state lines and incite riots and civil unrest.\u00a0\u00a0The Trial of the Chicago 7<\/em> is about the court case that followed.<\/p>\n

Look I’m going to level with you.\u00a0 As courtroom dramas go this movie absolutely rules.\u00a0 I wasn’t particularly interested in Trial of the Chicago 7\u00a0<\/em>due to my lack of familiarity with the subject matter but this thing works<\/em> and you know it early on.\u00a0 It’s the A-game Sorkin stuff.\u00a0 He may have had the occasional wobble in quality in recent years but this is a resounding return to form.<\/p>\n

For those unfamiliar with his work, classic Sorkin\u00a0means lots of fast paced, quippy dialogue.\u00a0 People exchanging heated conversations at exhaustive speed, walking down corridors as they go.\u00a0 The dialogue is heavily stylised and not particularly realistic.\u00a0 It had a Nineties tv drama vibe about it and I mean that in the best way.\u00a0 Characters make impassioned speeches about civil rights and what’s important.<\/p>\n

\"trial-of-the-chicago-7-scene\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sacha Baron Cohen got the awards and praise for Trial of the Chicago 7\u00a0<\/em>and look, I think he’s great as Abbie Hoffman (writer of\u00a0Steal This Book<\/em>), but honestly there was two absolutely sensational performances in this film that I don’t think get their due.\u00a0 I’m talking about Frank Langella as Judge Julius Hoffman and Mark Rylance as William Kunstler.<\/p>\n

Hoffman is a crooked judge.\u00a0 He presents himself as a commanding authoritative presence but he’s full of prejudice and hatred.\u00a0 Langella plays him in such a way that he gets under your skin and every act of insubordination from Abbie Hoffman and the rest of the seven is cause for celebration.\u00a0 There was a legendary number of charges of contempt of court in this trial and honestly, they were all worth it.<\/p>\n

I’m late to the Mark Rylance appreciation party but I loved that man in\u00a0Bridge of Spies<\/em> and here, he is just as memorable as William Kunstler.\u00a0 Kunstler is the defendant for the Chicago 7.\u00a0 He has kind of longish hair and has a bit of laid back hippy vibe about him.\u00a0 But it’s clear he’s passionate about the case and stands up for what he believes is right.\u00a0 He’s soft spoken but when he has something to say, you listen.<\/p>\n

\"trial-of-the-chicago-7-thumb\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s a fascinating story and the film interweaves courtroom scenes with events from the day of the convention.\u00a0 As a Sorkin drama, obviously there is creative license at play but some of the craziest\u00a0scenes you seen in this movie actually happened.\u00a0 I know because I looked them all up.\u00a0 Most of the insanity that leaves you thinking ‘surely not’ involves Judge Hoffman’s clashes with Bobby Seale, the only black man on trial, who is denied fair representation with a lawyer (his chosen lawyer falls in and cannot make the trial) and their verbal stoushes escalate to an extraordinary degree.<\/p>\n

Trial of the Chicago 7<\/em> is about courageous people who took a stand against an unjust war fifty years ago\u00a0but the themes of the film still feel timely and relevant today.\u00a0 Abbie Hoffman, with his outspoken contempt for authority,\u00a0represents one view.\u00a0 Tom Hayden, president of the Students for a Democratic Society, represents the other.\u00a0 Hoffman believes in chaos and creating a scene to draw attention to their cause.\u00a0 To not back down and speak plainly about injustice.\u00a0 Hayden takes a softer, collaborative approach.\u00a0 He believes he can change the system by working with it and from within it.\u00a0 Who is in the right?\u00a0 The two clash at key points in the film over how best to present their defence.\u00a0 Although Hoffman is the bigger personality, he eventually hands over the keys to Hayden for the defence’s closing statement.\u00a0 This gives us a memorable closing scene as Hayden decides emphatically how he wants to be remembered and gives his speech accordingly.<\/p>\n

Honestly, I can’t speak highly enough of Trial of the Chicago 7<\/em>.\u00a0 I was enthralled from the opening minute to the last.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The story of 7 people on trial stemming from various charges surrounding the uprising at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":23640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1149,2177,2971,1068,2441,1272,2206,372],"class_list":["post-23638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-films","tag-aaron-sorkin","tag-eddie-redmayne","tag-frank-langella","tag-joseph-gordon-levitt","tag-mark-rylance","tag-michael-keaton","tag-netflix","tag-sacha-baron-cohen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23638"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23649,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23638\/revisions\/23649"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}