Documentaries (was Re: Jazz)

[Dennis Perrin/Nancy Bauer]

>   Anyone mention Emile deAntonio or Haskell Wexler? Forget the name of the
>former's documentary (mostly interviews with Bernadine Dohrn and Billy
>Ayers, etc. while underground) on the WU. Saw it once, back in the late 70's
>in a natural food co-op in Santa Monica. During the Q & A afterwards the
>friend I went with and I were peppered with a heavy handed lecture on
>political prisoners, armed struggle and such. I made clear that
>we from a reformist org, the Students for Economic Democracy (student org.
>of Tom Hayden's Campaign for Econ.Demo.) and their arguments were far from
>convincing.
>One partial irony was that Jane Fonda was one of the supporters of Emile
>deAntionio
>against a suit brought by the Feds to get all outakes from the filming of
>the documentary on the Weatherman. Most of the Hollywood Left did the same.
>The Feds lost the case.
>        Michael Pugliese, who does need a weatherman to know which way the
>wind blows...
>

The name of the Weather docu is "Underground." It was filmed, I believe,
around '74-75, just after Weather published Prairie Fire, their political
statement. The shots of Dohrn, Ayers, et al., were done in silhouette, from
behind curtains, etc. The dialogue is incredibly leaden, filled with
guerrilla jargon and kindred fantasy talk by those who were well out of it.
Still, it's interesting as a period piece. (I've always had this morbid
fascination with Weather.) It's on video, but hard to find.

DP