THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 on Netflix

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (October 2020)

If wonders where Boniface Mwangi might have learned the art of ‘peaceful protest’ and its consequences, they need to watch not ‘Gandhi’ but ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’. It’s the latest Netflix historical thriller scripted and directed by Aaron Sorkin, creator of ‘The West Wing’ and the current Broadway production of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’.

Set in 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War, ‘The Trial’ is all about the anti-war protest organized by several of the seven and set to coincide with the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. It was meant to open in cinemas worldwide, but thanks to the Pandemic, Paramount Pictures sold it to Netflix for USD56 million.

Already the film is forecast to be Oscar-winning, in part because it deals with the timely topic of peaceful protests turning into blood baths. It happened this past summer when anti-racist advocates protested the murders of George Floyd and Breana Taylor. And it happened 52 years ago when an estimated 10,000 anti-war activists were met by 23,000 armed police sent by the notorious Chicago Mayor Daley to tear-gas and clobber all in sight.

Seven months later the supposed ringleaders of the protest were taken to court, charged with Conspiracy to cross state lines with intent to incite violence during the Democratic Convention.

Sorkin is a master storyteller, and he enlisted a brilliant cast to play not just the eight men charged, including Black Panther leader Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul Mateen II), who was beat up, gagged, handcuffed and left to sit like that in the courtroom for his protest against being associated with seven strangers with no legal defense.

In ‘The Trial’, Sorkin masterfully exposes the total corruption of the judicial and political system, given the Mayor had the eight convicted without evidence long before the trial began. Daley saw the eight as troublemakers and thugs (similarly to how President Trump characterized ‘Black Lives Matter’ activists).

The eight were definitely popular leftist leaders: Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne) and Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp), co-founders of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS); Abbie Hoffman (Sasha Cohen) and Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong), co-founders of the Yippie (cultural anarchist) movement, Bobbie Seale who had only been in Chicago four hours when the protests took off, but the Mayor and the FBI were out to finish the Black Panthers. The other two were anti-war activists meant to get off easy so the court could look ‘compassionate’.

Sorkin’s story almost accurately depicts the facts of these explosive historic events. However, on several critical counts he embellishes and manipulates issues of time and space. Nonetheless, his taking ‘creative license’ with recent history to amplify the truths of protestors’ anti-war message and its historic implications is forgivable. Yet, with only one of the eight, Rennie Davis, still alive to correct details, he regrets his role was understated in the film since he’s the one who called 150 groups from across America to come to Chicago.

That said, the film is brilliant and long overdue.