Aaron Sorkin (2020)

As the title suggests, much of Aaron Sorkin’s new film comprises courtroom proceedings.  Sticking to the actual trial transcripts for these sequences – assuming that’s what he did – must have been quite a discipline for Sorkin, who loves the sound of his own writing voice.  He does, though, give himself increasing rein as the trial nears its climax, and the balance of screen time starts to shift towards behind-the-scenes debates and disputes among the seven defendants and their legal team.  This is the second feature Sorkin has directed, and it’s considerably better than the first, Molly’s Game (2017), thanks in no small part to the subject matter.  But it’s not exciting or imaginative film-making.  Nor is it – I can already say this – at all memorable.

The defendants in the famous trial, which began in September 1969 and ended in February 1970, were charged with conspiracy and crossing state lines with the intention of inciting riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where they organised anti-Vietnam War protests.  For much of the five months of the trial, they were the Chicago 8 – Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Lee Weiner, John Froines and Bobby Seale.  Their ages ranged from late twenties (Davis) to mid-fifties (Dellinger).  Their political affiliations and approaches were various, too.  Hayden and Davis were activists in the national Student Democratic Society, Hoffman and Rubin leading lights of the Youth International Party:  the Yippies, as they were known, had a broader countercultural agenda and, in the case of Hoffman anyway, expressed their radicalism more flamboyantly.  Seale co-founded the Black Panthers.  Three months into proceedings, in December 1969, his case was declared a mistrial.  And then there were seven.

At one point of Sorkin’s film Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen) reassures Weiner (Noah Robbins) and Froines (Daniel Flaherty) that they’re in the dock only so that they can be found not guilty and thus help create the false impression of a fair trial.  Weiner and Froines were, indeed, acquitted on both counts.  Each of the others was found not guilty of conspiracy but guilty of inciting a riot.  The presiding judge, Julius Hoffman (no relation to Abbie, as Sorkin has the latter point out), imposed the maximum penalty, including a five-year prison term, on all concerned.  When the case went to appeal, in November 1972, the convictions were reversed.  The grounds for the Court of Appeal decision included that the judge had shown prejudice in refusing to allow defence attorneys to screen prospective jurors for racial or cultural bias.  Judge Hoffman’s conduct of proceedings was notorious in several respects, including the numerous contempt charges he handed down to the defendants and their attorneys.  These charges were eventually heard by a different judge, who returned guilty verdicts in some cases, but imposed no jail sentences or fines.

Indictments arising from events at the Democratic Convention weren’t returned until after the Nixon administration took office in January 1969:  Lyndon Johnson’s Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, had taken the view that the violence in Chicago resulted largely from police mishandling of the protests taking place.  A preface to the film’s main action suggests the decision to press charges came about because John Mitchell (John Doman), Richard Nixon’s new Attorney General, had taken umbrage at Ramsey Clark’s conduct during the handover process.  It’s a grimly amusing notion that the very big deal the trial became had its origins in, as much as a political agenda, a perceived personal slight.  There’s not much scope, of course, for sustaining this idea through what follows – except in the persisting air of unease of Richard Schultz (Joseph Gordon-Leavitt), the straight-arrow federal prosecutor appointed by Mitchell.

Sorkin sets the scene with a zippy montage of news film, summarising key events in America’s involvement in Vietnam up to and including the protests at the Convention in August 1968.  The narrative that follows is competently handled but The Trial of the Chicago 7 often has the thinness of reconstruction.  The film deals with what might be seen as a flashpoint in American culture wars of the period.  It depends for substance on the viewer’s making a connection between the late 1960s and the politically riven now:  Sorkin expects his audience to realise the issues being played out on screen are-just-as-relevant-today.  And so we do – especially the race issues reflected in confrontations between Bobby Seale (Yahla Abdul-Mateen II) and Judge Hoffman (Frank Langella).  On the judge’s orders, Seale, having been beaten in a cell, is returned to court gagged and chained.  It’s as well that Judge Hoffman accepts Schultz’s motion to declare Seale’s case a mistrial before the mistreatment to which he’s subjected takes over the story.  It’s also worth noting that Yahla Abdul-Mateen and Frank Langella are oddly well matched as these two antagonists.  Their performances share a self-important quality.

Sorkin has assembled a surprising collection of actors for the main parts.  As Tom Hayden, Eddie Redmayne seems to be speaking in someone else’s voice but his college-boy neatness is right for the film’s conception of Hayden, and Redmayne gradually works his way inside the character.  In the livelier role of Hayden’s political and temperamental opposite, Sacha Baron Cohen turns Abbie Hoffman into a hollow showoff.  It seems surprising that Sorkin means to dismiss Hoffman in these terms.  One’s suspicion that the hollowness comes from the actor rather than the man he’s playing is confirmed when Hoffman finally gives evidence in court and undergoes a character change in the witness box:  his sudden sincerity comes over as bombast, too.  (In making the transition feel phony, Baron Cohen gives Sorkin what he probably deserves.)  John Carroll Lynch is good as the decent, sometimes comically impassioned David Dellinger.  The other defendants are played by Jeremy Strong (Rubin) and Alex Sharp (Davis).  I already can’t remember anything about them.

As William Kunstler, the chief defence attorney, Mark Rylance isn’t at his most inspired but still stands out, thanks especially to some inventive hand gestures.  The film, though it’s always entertaining, moves up a level when Kunstler and his colleague Leonard Weinglass (Ben Shenkman) approach Ramsey Clark (Michael Keaton, excellent) about giving evidence, and in Clark’s subsequent court testimony.  This is a voir dire session only:  Judge Hoffman then decides to refuse to let the jury hear from Clark.  It’s a curious feature of The Trial of the Chicago 7 that the technical legal issues are more absorbing than the central political drama.  Sorkin keeps inserting into his flashback reconstructions of what happened in Chicago snippets of black-and-white footage of the actual events.  He may think this ‘cinematic’ but it comes across more as a lack of self-confidence.  It’s as if he feels the audience needs these reminders that the riot really happened.

Before sentencing, the judge invites Tom Hayden to say a few words on his and the others’ behalf – and, by speaking briefly and moderately, to minimise his own sentence.  Hayden replies by reading out the names of the more than 4,500 soldiers that have died in Vietnam since the trial began.  Hayden ignores the judge’s repeated objections as he proceeds with the roll call.  It’s harder for Eddie Redmayne to drown out Daniel Pemberton’s swelling elegiac music, which Sorkin decides should accompany this big finish, and which just about ruins it.

20 October 2020