The Weather Underground (2003)

The key players in the radical movement known as the Weather Underground are skillfully brought to life in this Oscar-nominated documentary. The Weathermen were born of sixties protest, but took their scheme to overthrow the U.S. government to especially violent extremes. Never a well-populated movement, the Underground petered out as its leaders aged during the seventies; by decade's end, weary of hiding, most of them had turned themselves over to the authorities. That journey, by which a fire-breathing revolutionary such as Bernadine Dohrn became a (still fiery) gray-haired wife and mother, is an intriguing one. This film, rich in period footage (and some unnecessary sensationalism) captures the era somewhat broadly. But the present-day interviews with the participants, contrasted with their radical selves, provides an exceptionally detailed look inside the organization itself. It's not a nostalgic look back, and the overall mood is sobering rather than celebratory. Lili Taylor provides the narration. --Robert Horton Amazon.com

Focused Film On Political Organization From 60's & 70's

Firstly, these are to be reviews of the film, not your opinion about The Weather Underground organization. This is not your blog! Go post your opinions about 60's/70's radicals, the Vietnam War, Nixon, etc. some place else!

Alright. This is a very focused film on the 60's/70's group The Weather Underground. It has contemporary interviews w/its members, a few people from The Black Panthers, a former FBI agent, loads of archival footage and some helpful narratives that guide you through events of the period. It doesn't stray too far from the members of the organization and I don't think it paints an overly sympathetic view of the members. It let's you make your own judgment on whether their actions during the period make them heroes or villains (which you should not post in a review of the film) or at the very minimum, it educates you about a period in American history (I was a toddler at the time & my parents didn't let me read/watch the news nor talk to strangers).

I give this documentary four stars b/c it is very concise & cohesive in its narrative. I didn't get a complete sense of the individual members, but I did get a sense of their motivations, regrets, etc. July 2, 2008

The Dark Side of the Anti-Vietnam War Movement

After seeing this film, I had to wonder what these people were thinking when they got started. Did they really think that they were going to be the cadre of a nationwide movement to destroy the capitalist system in the United States? It seems so.

One of the biggest flaws, besides their near-total reliance upon violence and the destruction of property, is the simple fact that their whole reason for existing was the Vietnam War. As soon as that war was over, they had no reason to continue.

From the beginning, they lacked any real support from outside their group and that should have made them stop and think. The "Days of Rage" was just an incident where windows got smashed and little more than that. They weren't revolutionaries. They were vandals. For all the time spent in hiding and for all the sacrifices they made, what did they accomplish?

Aside from this documentary and a few other works, there is no lasting legacy of the Weather Underground. One of their members is serving a life sentence, others had served time in prison and been released and some of their members even died in the early years of the group. For what? The United States didn't withdraw from Vietnam because of them specifically, so they couldn't claim the victory that they had suffered for and deprived themselves of creature comforts in its pursuit.

I am glad that most of them have gone on with their lives and have even coninued in progressive causes. However, I see nothing that justifies what they did and I feel sad for their lost and wasted youth.

This is a good film to see for part of the history of the domestic U.S. opposition to the war in Southeast Asia. However, it is also a good film to see for how not to run an anti-war group. November 13, 2007

Fascinating Look At Some Serious A**holes

The Weather Underground is a well done documentary about the movement of the same name. It produces a somewhat sympathetic portrait of some really screwed up people who thought that terrorism was the way to justice. Probably a little too sympathetic; some other posters have noted the absence of several quotes by members of the group praising the Manson murders, for example.

What is really disturbing about this film is how completely unrepentant many of them are. Bernardine Dohrn in particular strikes me as someone who should to this day be considered very dangerous. For some of these folks, it is clear that the only 'regrets' that they had was that they didn't kill more people.

Despite that, the movie is worth watching. I loved some of the music, it gets very moody, and does a good job of documenting the implosion of the Student Left. You may come away from it thinking that they were very brave revolutionaries, or you may decide, like I did, that they are a truly pathetic bunch of malcontents who don't deserve any sympathy. But it's an eye-opening movie and highly recommended. July 3, 2007

YOU DO NEED A WEATHERMAN (PERSON) TO KNOW WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS

In a time when I, among others, are questioning where the extra-parliamentary opposition to the Iraq War is going and why it has not made more of an impact on American society it was rather refreshing to view this documentary about the seemingly forgotten Weather Underground that as things got grimmer dramatically epitomized one aspect of opposition to the Vietnam War. If opposition to the Iraq war is the political fight of my old age Vietnam was the fight of my youth and in this film brought back very strong memories of why I fought tooth and nail against it. And the people portrayed in this film, the core of the Weather Underground, while not politically kindred spirits then or now, were certainly on the same page as I was- a no holds- barred fight against the American Empire. We lost that round, and there were reasons for that, but that kind of attitude is what it takes to bring down the monster. But a revolutionary strategy is needed. That is where we parted company.

One of the political highlights of the film is centered on the 1969 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) Convention that was a watershed in the student anti-war protest movement. That was the genesis of the Weathermen but it was also the genesis of the Progressive Labor Party-led faction that wanted to bring the anti-war message to the working class by linking up the student movement with the fight against capitalism. In short, to get to those who were, or were to be, the rank and file soldiers in Vietnam or who worked in the factories. In either case the point that was missed , as the Old Left had argued all along and which we had previously dismissed out of hand, was that it was the masses of working people who were central to `bringing the war home' and the fight against capitalism. That task still confronts us today.

One of the paradoxical things about this film is that the Weather Underground survivors interviewed had only a vague notion about what went wrong. This was clearly detailed in the remarks of Mark Rudd, a central leader, when he stated that the Weathermen were trying to create a communist cadre. He also stated, however, that after going underground he realized that he was out of the loop as far as being politically effective. And that is the point. There is no virtue in underground activity if it is not necessary, romantic as that may be. To the extent that any of us read history in those days it was certainly not about the origins of the Russian revolutionary movement in the 19th century. If we had we would have found that the above-mentioned fight in 1969 was also fought out by that movement. Mass action vs. individual acts, heroic or otherwise, of terror. The Weather strategy of acting as the American component of the world-wide revolutionary movement to bring the Empire to its knees certainly had (and still does) have a very appealing quality. However, a moral gesture did not (and will not) bring this beast down. While the Weather Underground was made up a small group of very appealing subjective revolutionaries its political/moral strategy led to a dead end. The lesson to be learned; you most definitely do need weather people to know which way the winds blow. Start with Karl Marx.








June 26, 2007

Interesting potrayal of indigenous revolutionaries

Some fascinating facets of young revolutionaries - the collective emotion that makes them to act/ organize, the power they wield on the society to bring in the change (especially students), the problems in pursuing a unified objective and misinterpretation of these objectives by some, which eventually kills of the revoltion.
I also found it interesting that some of the struggles on the 60's and 70's continue to be the struggles of today's generation also. May 24, 2007

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