They’re about making the past present and relevant and useful.” In that sense, I don’t think of either of them as historical films. In a 2013 interview with Mubi, co-director Bill Siegel said, comparing two of his films: “Both ‘The Trials of Muhammad Ali’ and ‘The Weather Underground,’ I think, are such great challenges to audiences to think through issues that continue to confront us today.
With the benefit of hindsight, they are able to reflect on their suburban white disillusionment, the urgent desire to explode the nation out of complacency, and the tactics they created to upend their own middle-class comfort. (David Gilbert’s interviews are conducted from a maximum security prison, where he is currently serving a 75-year sentence for armed robbery that led to the death of two police officers.) Members interviewed in the film include Dohrn and Gilbert, along with Bill Ayers, Mark Rudd, Brian Flanagan, and Laura Whitehorn, who all speak candidly about their beliefs and paths from student activists to FBI’s Most Wanted.
In 2003 interviews, now fascinating time capsules on their own, what is striking is the members’ frustration with (and their reflection on) the limited impact of their actions, many of which carried severe consequences. Diverging reactions to the Days of Rage created a rift between the Weathermen, SDS, and the Black Panthers, leading the group to adopt more violent actions and eventually heading underground. They took their name from a lyric in Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”: “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” Their formation began with the Days of Rage, a series of demonstrations taking place in Chicago over the course of a few days in October 1969.Īs various members explain in the film, the combination of low turnout and a high police presence led to a more violent action than the group intended. The Weathermen were formed at Ann Arbor’s University of Michigan after a split with the non-violent group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). “There’s no way to be committed to non-violence in the middle of the most violent society that history has ever created,” said a young Bernardine Dohrn in 1969, and it’s both jarring and energizing to hear a petite white girl confidently asserting views that still feel urgent today. Martin Scorsese's Favorite Movies: 58 Films the Director Wants You to See Meet Vidgo, the Little Streamer That Believes It Can Win Over Middle AmericaĢ023 Emmys Predictions: Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or a Movie Where to Watch This Week's New Movies, from 'Beau Is Afraid' to 'Evil Dead Rise' and More
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