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The Weather Underground

United States

2002

92 Min
Color
1.33:1
English
  • Currently 3.7/5 Stars.
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DIR Sam Green, Bill Siegel

EXEC Christian Ettinger, Mary Harron, Sue Ellen McCann

PROD Carrie Lozano, Bill Siegel, Marc Smolowitz, Sam Green

DP Andrew Black, Federico Salsano

CAST Lili Taylor, Pamela Z

ED Sam Green, Dawn Logsdon

MUSIC David Cerf, Amy Domingues

Sundance (Documentary Competition), San Francisco (Documentaries): Golden Gate Award, Locarno (Critics' Week): Critics Week Award

Synopsis

During the Vietnam War and the Nixon administration, a group of white-bread, upper-middle-class college students took up guns and explosives to plot the violent overthrow of the United States government. Sam Green and Bill Siegal’s energetic and incendiary documentary, The Weather Underground, tracks the history of this radical political group, called the Weathermen, and examines the psychology and politics which led its members to commit countless acts of terrorist activism.

Through remarkable archival footage and interviews with members of the dissolved group, Green and Siegal follow the Weathermen from the group’s origins as an offshoot of the Students for a Democratic Society to its planned activities, including the Kent State bombings, the exposure of COINTELPRO, and the liberation of Timothy Leary from prison. The film lays bare the mentality of the members to reveal how they rationalized killing Americans in domestic settings, what it was like to live in a parallel underground world, and how the isolation and invisibility of that life ultimately induced their surrender.

A cautionary tale for individuals and institutions in today’s volatile times, The Weather Underground is a provocative examination of American white privilege, governmental reaction to political revolution, and the ethical dangers of taking up arms even from the vantage point of a moral high ground. –Sundance Film Festival

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Displaying 4 wall posts.
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orangey

6Dec12

good, but a bit too clinical in parts, where I think it fails to engage to viewer with the time's counterculture

Picture of Nelson Núñez

Nelson Núñez

3Sep11

Interesantísimo documental acerca de las acciones, tan cuestionables como legítimas, de este grupo de revolucionarios estadounidenses. La película gana puntos al ofrecer testimonios e informaciones, variados y ricos en matices, que le permiten a cada espectador llegar a su propia conclusión acerca de la validez o no de la violencia como medio de protesta ante las injusticias y las desigualdades del sistema.

Picture of Jessica Williams

Jessica Williams

26May10

Opened my eyes to a movement that was essentially good, but was corrupted by violence due to the public's failure to address the SDS.

  • Picture of Brian O'blivion

    Brian O'blivion

    11Jan13

    What actual good did the movement achieve, instead of talking about it in various anti-this and anti-that forms?

Picture of NU

NU

28Feb10

The Baader Meinhof Complex - http://www.theauteurs.com/films/4002

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Honest, straight-forward, Baader-Meinhof-ish

By pivic on October 17, 2012

Using interviews from 2001 and stock footage, the film-makers have displayed an honest account from the late 1960s where mostly white, middle-class teenagers who wanted a change in America were concerned…  read review

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