Aaron Sorkin‘s screenplays for feature films and television already cover much of the significant moments in U.S. history over the past 60 years, and deal with some of the most significant personalities of the period (Steve Jobs, Marck Zuckerman) or the main institutions of American democracy, including social media and the White House. As a director, Sorkin recently made his debut with ‘Molly’s Game‘, a film that did not impress me that much, and his return to ‘the great politics’ with ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7‘ is, in my opinion, a qualitative leap. The format used this time is the courtroom docu-drama and the case presented is well known to American viewers, being probably quite well documented also for the youngest (many books have been written and no less than 11 fiction or documentary films have been made before this). In addition to the artistic and historical reconstruction qualities that I will mention below, the film also has a direct political message that it never tries to camouflage. The historical moment described in the film was complex and controversial in American history. Aaron Sorkin has done a lot of what can be done with a courtroom drama to catch that historical process, but he has reached, in my opinion, some of the limits that the genre imposes on reflecting the reality outside the courtroom.
The introduction combines news footage with fictional scenes to recreate the charged political atmosphere of 1968: the Vietnam War with lotteries deciding who would be recruited according to the birth date, protest movements against an unpopular war, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and John Kennedy, the hippie movement and the global protests. All roads led to Chicago, where the initially eight protagonists were to play an important role in the demonstrations that would end in violence. They represented different facets of the war protests from the Flower Power and Yippies movements, through veteran or younger pacifists to the Black Panthers whose goals were related to the rights of the Afro-Americans. The public trial intended to designate them as instigators of violence and thus justify the harshness of the police response that followed. In a country where freedom of speech is enshrined in the Constitution and where in theory there are no political trials, the case of the eight (who became the seven following the separation of Bobby Seale, leader of the Black Panthers) was a moment of convergence of the public interest and an opportunity of reflecting on the role of justice in the democratic process. Opinions, then divergent, have remained divided to this day, and the ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7‘ movie is a continuation of these debates, one which has gained new and perhaps unexpected significance of the recent events in American actuality that have brought to focus the debate about the boundaries between freedom of expression and incitement to violence and revolt.
As a court drama, the film works very well. The scenes that take place in the courtroom are based on events that are well known in the United States, the process being documented in the press and by the other media. Skilled screenwriter Aaron Sorkin completed the picture with scenes and dialogues from the prosecution and defense team’s trial preparations, and flashbacks recreating the events on the streets of Chicago in the days of the Democratic Party Convention, making again use of documentary sequences. Director Aaron Sorkin chose an excellent team of actors and directed them professionally. They all do an excellent job, but a few acting creations stand out. Frank Langella is impressive in the role of Judge Hoffman, whose leadership of the trial was criticised at the time and went down in history as a case example. After many years of second-hand casting, Joseph Gordon-Levitt receives a role up to his talent and creates the character of a prosecutor with a difficult task, in conflict with his own conscience. Mark Rylance plays the role of the lead defense lawyer and proves once again that he is one of the best actors of the moment, creating another unique role, which is unlike anything he has done before. Finally, Sacha Baron Cohen dominates the gallery of defendants as Abbie Hoffman, the protester who defies the rules of a society and a system he considers unfair. All these efforts are commendable, the result is a docu-drama and a good quality courtroom movie, but something seems to be missing. The film failed to involve me emotionally. Perhaps the problem is the too explicit sympathies of the filmmakers in connection with this case, perhaps this is about the limits of the genre of courtroom dramas. Memorable films of this kind involve the juries and introduce us to the dilemmas and the debates of the 12 persons in the jury room. In this film the jurors scarcely appear, and the moment of the verdict is not even presented on the screen. For two cinematographic hours we witness a trial in which everything we see on screen leads to one conclusion, but the jury decides differently. Why? We won’t find the answer to this question in ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7‘ and maybe that’s what’s missing from the film.