Broadside Chats with "Chicago 10" Director Brett Morgen

By Broadside Style Reporter Emily Sharrer
Photo Courtesy of Myles Aronowitz

What was your aim in making this film?
My goal was to reintroduce this really important moment in American history, one that has a lot of resonance with our culture today given the war, but do it in a way that would bring history into the present. I wanted to do it in a language and style that would make it accessible to younger generations. I wanted the film to be, first and foremost, entertaining. When I see movies about the ‘60s, I feel totally alienated from it, but when you strip away some of the patchouli and the bell-bottoms, you’re left with a bunch of kids who decided to go do something.

Why, out of all the stories you could have told about the ‘60s, did you choose this particular event?
Because it’s funny and revolution isn’t really funny. I’m not an earnest guy. I didn’t want to make an earnest film. I found the Yippies and I thought they were so contemporary. We tend to romanticize the ‘60s in a way that hippies are very political. There was a political revolution and then there was a cultural revolution with the hippies, and what the Yippies did was synthesize these two. One of the goals of the film is to bottle that energy [from the ‘60s] and release that today.

Who is your intended audience?
I hate to alienate, but the intended audience is for college or post-college kids. I wanted to make a film about the ‘60s for an audience who had no intention of seeing a film about the ‘60s. Social change is historically brought about by youth movements and people over 50 know the story, so it was really important for me to reintroduce this story and do it in a manner that’s fun.

Did you wish to portray the 10 as role models?
No, I don’t know if everyone should follow the path these guys did. I wouldn’t think of Abbie as a role model. I do think the message of the movie is it asks them “how far are you willing to go?” I’m not saying you need to go get clubbed on the head, but this is an example; these people are willing to get their heads bashed in, what are you willing to do?

In the movie you used the song “Mosh” by Eminem, which says “Fuck Bush, until they bring our troops home.” Is the film intended to influence college students today to take a stand against the war and do you feel Generation X is more apathetic than people were in the ‘60s about political issues?
You guys are far more committed; I think your generation is far more conscious about global warming and the war and other shit than people back in that time. The last thing I wanted to show people was how cool they were in the ‘60s and how lame you guys are. There is stuff [in the film] that is there for you to embrace and other things you’re there to reject.
What I think we’re lacking, if anything, are national media figures to inspire people like an Abbie Hoffman. He was selling out arenas for 20,000 people and he was one of the most recognizable faces in the country. He was a master of the sound bite. Abbie basically is the creator of the modern sound bite.
One of the things I want people to take away from [the movie] is protests don’t have to be earnest; it can be something exciting and fun.
There are no leaders. The message of the film is, “I ain’t your daddy. I can’t tell ya what to do.” You have to decide for yourself what to do.

The movie uses a lot of actual archive footage of the protests led by the Chicago 8, and also incorporates a lot of cool animations. Were you ever afraid that using too much archived footage would dull down and make the film too much like a documentary?
There have been a lot of documentaries about the war that have come out and people don’t watch them because they feel like they’re going to be boring history lessons. With Chicago 10, we really wanted to make a movie that was fun and visceral and exciting. This movie to me is like a planetarium. You sit down in your chair and tilt your head back and experience a lot more than you thought you would.

In the film, there’s newer music by artists like Beastie Boys and Rage Against the Machine Why did you choose to not include music from the ‘60s?
When you’ve got Rage Against the Machine and have some hot dudes and chicks and they’re getting it on, it makes it more happening, makes it more of an event. The music is very contemporary. Why not use music from the time period? It’s burnt. It’s cliché. If these guys were around today, they wouldn’t be listening to Buffalo Springfield; they’d be listening to Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. It never occurred to me to use Phil Ochs. This is a movie that is inspired by Eminem’s “Mosh” video and I got to use that in the film when they’re marching to the Hilton.

How well do you feel the actors portrayed the voices of their characters?
During the course of our research, we found audio nobody had heard in 40 years and I can tell you all the actors did a great job in portraying these characters.

Did the animation do a good job of getting across the mood you were going for in the courtroom scenes?
The trial was like a circus; it was basically described as cartoonish. [The animation] gives the film a more youthful edge. I either could have interviewed your granddad, which would have been kind of burnt, or I could have gotten actors, but people would be like “that guy doesn’t look like Abbie Hoffman.” It makes the trial seem more accessible.