Commentary 13 Mar 2008 08:15 am
Chicago 10-8=2
- On Tuesday night I saw the feature length documentary Chicago 10 and have been trying to think what to say about the experience and the film. I have to give great credit to the director, Brett Morgen, for having chosen to tell the meat of the story in animation. However, I also have to give him credit for the absolute confusion and lack of information relayed in that same story.
Todd McCarthy in his review in Variety justifies this lack of information:
____“Chicago 10″ is far less interested in ____offering a fresh, probing look at what
____took place on the streets during the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the
____circus trial that followed than it is in celebrating the stars of the anti-war movement.”
This was a warning almost every critic gave in their mixed to negative reviews, so I went
into the film somewhat prepared. However, I found myself even wondering what the trial – told almost completely in animation – was about. This isn’t good for a documentary. One would think relaying information was first and foremost for a doc. Brett Morgen tries boldly to tell a film dramatically without using a narrator or explanatory cards (except at the beginning and end of the film.) Unfortunately, this decision left us in the dark. There’s just a lot of theatrics and in-fighting during the trial, and a lot of cops beating on hippies outside.
The film seems to intercut between the mostly live action doc footage of crowds and Chicago Police and soldiers and beatings to the trial of the Chicago 7. (In this film, others are included adding to the director’s total title count.)
The trial is wholly recreated in MoCap animation. It looks a bit like Waking Life, but whereas the Linklater/Sabiston film has fun with the style and a looseness, this is all hard rock shapes. Areas of the face have that paint-by-numbers type of shading, but the shapes remain hard edged and move like the hair – as a solid shape in 3D. When Abbie Hoffman, with his mounds of curly hair, turns his hair stays solid and is interesting but inaccurate movement-wise. I suspect it stayed locked to the MoCap images without much alteration. It ain’t pretty.
The exterior shots include what, to me, was the best and most daring of the animation. At one point, there’s a bandshell in which a couple of speakers speak to a crowd in the park. The crowd is live action (sometimes color; sometimes B&W), but the speakers are animated. The sequence completely works, and you never question the mix of media but completely take it in. This was a surprise in the film which feels just flat in its loudness (the sound blares throughout) and its constant intent to entertain – without letting us really learn anything.
I’m not sure if any of the Asterisk Pictures work remains in the film, but I didn’t recognize any of the art I saw prior to the film viewing. Curious Pictures gets the big credit at the end of the film.
The Curious Pictures site has a full page about the film with links to a lot of the reviews.
Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 72% on their “Tomatometer.”
