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In 2013, the creator and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin arranged a scene in the fourth episode of the second season of the American TV series " Newsroom " : as a leading star, Will McAvoy, the leading anchor of ACN TV and (self-proclaimed) Republican, will take part in New York, one of the opinion leaders of the Occupy Wall Street, by using superb cross-examination skills and logical reduction in the live broadcast. Shelly Wexler, a university PhD candidate in anthropology, was speechless and frustrated.
As a representative of "mature" and "sophisticated" and pro-Democratic Party, Sorkin used the words of the characters in the play to conduct a single campaign against the massive but empty slogans, chaos, excessive idealism, and lack of maneuverability. Aspects of dimensionality reduction strikes. Sorkin’s words are extremely clear: the left-wing movement, which aims to despise authority and chant slogans, is actually useless for real political reforms. It can neither arouse the recognition of the general public, nor can it be like the right-wing "Tea Party" movement to the specifics. The impact of policy is ultimately just a political expression of self-confidence.
On October 16, 2020, Netflix launched Sorkin's latest movie " The Trial of the Chicago 7 " ( The Trial of the Chicago 7 ). The film shows that between 1969 and 70, at the direction of the Nixon administration, federal prosecutors prosecuted seven anti-Vietnam war activists from different backgrounds who led the protests outside the Chicago Democratic presidential election a year ago. Sorkin once again used the words of the characters in the film to discuss left-wing movements. Only this time, he reflected on the argument in the previous "Newsroom".
On May 26th, African American George Floyd (George Floyd) died due to excessive law enforcement by the white police in Minnesota. The United States broke out again after the 2014 shooting of African-American Michael Brown. The "Black Lives Matter" (Black Lives Matter) protest movement. Although most of the protests proceeded peacefully, some protests escalated into riots and robberies. At least 200 cities have declared curfews, a total of more than 30 states dispatched 65,000 national guards to maintain law and order, more than 14,000 people were arrested, and at least 19 people were killed in the campaign.
In this context, the latest "Chicago Seven Gentlemen Trial" (hereinafter referred to as the "Trial") is more like a statement on the gangster campaign that is sweeping across the United States and the upcoming presidential election in less than 20 days.
The story of "Trial" began on the eve of the 1968 US presidential election. At that time, the American countercultural movement also reached a climax, and the assassination of Martin Luther King (Jr.) intensified the civil rights movement. A large number of anti-war activists, hippies, and left-wing activists intertwined with each other on various political, gender, and cultural issues, and ultimately aimed at the anti-Vietnam War. Many people have decided to hold large-scale demonstrations at the Democratic Party Congress in Chicago in late August. The demonstrators and the police faced off on the streets of Chicago for eight days, which eventually caused a series of bloody clashes. More than 500 demonstrators, 100 civilians and 150 policemen were injured.
After Nixon took over as President of the United States in 1969, the conservative government decided to kill chickens and behave. Attorney General John N. Mitchell instructed federal prosecutors to sue the eight organizers of the Chicago protests for "inciting" the Chicago protests for conspiring to commit cross-state crimes and inciting riots. This trial was essentially a political show. In the context of the Nixon administration's emphasis on "law and order," it was not so much a judicial trial as a parade. However, the anti-war activists followed the tide and turned this public demonstration into a stage for expressing opinions. As the trial began, several hippie defendants (they called themselves "Yippies") continued to tease and insult the judges in court, and even used the content of the trial as propaganda materials outside the courtroom, accusing the judicial system of the anti-war activists. unfair.
As a common law country, the court trial in the United States is an adversarial litigation. The real confrontation is the offense and defense between the lawyers of the prosecution and defense; but the protagonist of this trial under the spotlight eventually became Judge Julius Hoffman (Julius Hoffman). Hoffman himself was hardly a "bad guy" before, and he was even a staunch dissident during the prevalence of McCarthyism in the United States. But in this trial, Hoffman lost his grace: he frequently rejected the defendant’s lawyer’s motions, refused key witnesses to appear in court, and ignored the demands of the leader of the Black Panther Party Bobby Seale, and even ordered the court. The bailiff tied it on the seat and plugged it with cloth strips. Throughout the trial, Hoffman acted like an out-of-control insulted person. His interaction with the defendant was like a vicious circle: the more he was unfair to the defendant, the more the defendant scorned and insulted him, and then became furious. For the sake of dignity, he continued to punitively unfairly treat the defendant. The Attorney General wanted to stage a judicial drama with severe penalties, but in the end he became a dull duo of Hoffman and the defendant.
On February 18, 1970, the jury found guilty of conspiracy, two of the seven were completely innocent, and the remaining five were sentenced to five years in prison for inciting riots across the state. Two and a half years later (November 1972), the Federal Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit overturned Hoffman’s sentence and ordered a retrial due to Hoffman’s prejudice during the trial and the FBI’s illegal wiretapping of the defense attorney’s office. Give up the lawsuit. The Chicago Seven eventually won double victories in anti-war propaganda and judicial trials.
Sorkin continued his screenwriting skills in "Social Network" ( Social Network , 2010), " Moneyball " ( Moneyball , 2011), and "Steve Jobs" ( Steve Jobs , 2015) over the past ten years . He did not follow the schedule. The whole story is deduced in sequence; instead, he takes the Chicago trial as the main axis, and the timeline keeps jumping back and forth between the Chicago protest scene, the defendant's lawyer's office, and Hoffman's courtroom. In 2010, a reflection of the same protest and the whole process of trial documentary "Chicago 10" ( Chicago 10 ) has also taken a similar approach (relatively brisk introduction of this documentary is a lot of animation, reproduce the whole process of the trial ). The limitation of historical themes has forced Sorkin to adopt this already somewhat old-fashioned narrative technique.
However, in order to set off the climax, Sorkin also changed the nature of many court events. For example, the passage of reading the names of soldiers who died in the Vietnam War occurred before a certain court hearing in a real historical event. For the sake of the plot, Sorkin insisted on placing this segment at the stage of closing the case. For the audience, the protagonist’s generous statement at the end of the case is a routine expectation, but Sorkin tried hard to choose one. This anti-routine way of advancing the climax can be regarded as a certain way to achieve the same goal. However, due to the large number of characters involved, "The Trial" is still more like a re-engraving of history than a masterpiece of elaborate composition.
The most interesting thing is that Sorkin arranged a period of infighting between the seven gentlemen in the second half of the film. The Seven Gentlemen have different social identities: among them are social activists who are lawyers, there are young leaders who can respond to each other, and there are also a group of hippies who were very eye-catching in the United States at that time. Among them, a verbal conflict broke out between the casually dressed and naughty hippie (Abbie Hoffman) and the anti-war activist Tom Hayden (Tom Hayden). Hayden believes that silly hippies regard anti-war as a stage for their own performance of "uninhibited love for freedom", and use it as a good opportunity to harvest fans and gain social attention. Hayden even thinks that the latter does not want the war to end at all, because there is only the Vietnam War. Continue, they can continue to perform. Hayden was dissatisfied with the empty performances of hippies who presented daisies to police and soldiers (the famous "flower power" [flower power], which was used by Abby and another defendant, Rubin [Jerry Rubin]. Important promoters of the movement) to promote the progressive movement, and because of the "stupid" and "deteriorating" hippies, it drags down the real progressives.
On the other hand, Ippis Abbey counterattacked Hayden. He believed that such intellectuals as Hayden wanted to reshape politics through elections and did not hesitate to give up some value for this reason. This is 100% utilitarian pragmatism. He further pointedly pointed out that the seven gentlemen stood on the dock not because they really launched some riot in Chicago, but because their position was completely on the opposite side of the authorities, and they were merely sacrificial offerings in this dispute. .
Compared with the TV questioning in the "Newsroom" seven years ago, Sorkin's position has shifted slightly. Seven years ago, Sorkin was undoubtedly an intellectual elite of the Democratic Party on the northeast coast. He despised the idealistic left-wing practice of the academy and sat on the latter with a sense of superiority. Seven years later, polarized bipartisan politics, conflicting racial issues, and a more fierce cancel culture seemed to push Sorkin into a more emotional and ideological situation. Compared with McAvoy, the utilitarian and moderate Republican in "Newsroom", the seven gentlemen who spoke by De Sorkin in "The Trial" highlights the more moderate people who are gradually being swallowed up by the polarized political party fascination. Middle ground.
Both inside and outside the film, the Seven Gentlemen have achieved victory. However, the victory of the Seven Gentlemen is not so much the victory of the anti-war clamor and the hippie movement, but the cocoon of Judge Hoffman. Appeal trials in the United States do not conduct factual review. Most of the review focuses on the procedural compliance of the entire judgment. It is the prejudicial trial process of Judge Hoffman in the first trial that makes the seven gentlemen " Escape from the dead". Although the Seventh Circuit rejected the verdict and ordered a retrial, the Nixon administration was unwilling to provide a stage for the Seven Gentlemen to perform again, which finally brought the trial to a "successful" conclusion.
The review of the Seven Gentlemen acquitted by the Circuit Court was announced on November 21, 1972, and just 14 days ago, Nixon won the 49 states in the presidential re-election election, 520:17 electoral votes, 60% to 37.5%. The popular vote defeated the anti-war liberal Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern (George McGovern). In terms of the results of "Trial" alone, the anti-war factions have won moral and judicial victories; but if you look back at history, Nixon, who advertises "law and order", is well versed in the inner psychology of the "silent majority" , And successfully re-elected with this phraseology.
The successful appeal of the Seven Gentlemen, perhaps in the eyes of conservatives including Nixon, was just a trivial defeat; and the slogan emphasizing "law and order" ensured the full return of conservatism in the 1970s and 1980s, and even more so. The Republican Party was able to control the White House for 30 years during the 34 years from 1969-92. In this sense, Hayden in "The Trial" is right-it is obviously more important that the candidate he supports can finally sit in the oval office than the hippie daisy who wants to float the Pentagon. . But Sorkin only expressed this in a glimpse.
"The Trial of Seven Gentlemen in Chicago" started filming in October last year and went live less than 20 days before the election, but it perfectly metaphors current American politics. Especially after Freud's protests intensified, Trump repeatedly mentioned "law and order". As a challenger, Biden not only lowered his support for protests, but instead emphasized peaceful protests, and at the same time chose to choose. When he was the California Attorney General, Kamala Harris, who was known for her tough judicial style, served as her vice president partner.
Regardless of whether the United States will still have seven gentlemen belonging to the 21st century, and whether the United States can reconcile its contradictions and seek common ground while reserving differences in an irreconcilable situation of division, Sorkin expects a pragmatic "person", perhaps in 20 days' time. Is about to be born. And "The Trial of Seven Gentlemen in Chicago" may also be Sorkin's rallying call for liberal voters. This may be the meaning of this movie.
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