The Trial of the Chicago 7
Is Aaron Sorkin in on the joke? The 59-year-old is one of the most famous and most celebrated writers of the 21st century — two facts that also make him one of the most parodied.
His TV show The West Wing, once a critical darling that rained down Emmy’s on both cast and crew, is in the midst of a major re-evaluation with the show’s inherent optimism now striking most viewers as saccharine or even condescending in the Donald Trump era.
However, mixed reviews of The Newsroom aside, Sorkin remains championed in his industry as one of the best modern writers of dialogue.
With The Social Network he wrote arguably the best film of the 2010s and his directorial debut Molly’s Game was an impressive, if somewhat shallow, start to his career behind the camera.
His writing techniques and habits were well-worn by the mid 00s but if Sorkin is aware of the social media backlash to his output, he doesn’t care.
Three years later after Molly’s Game, he returns to the director’s chair with The Trial of the Chicago 7 where so-called ‘Sorkinisms’ and that relentless optimism about the American spirit abound.
Sorkin, who originally wrote Chicago 7 for Steven Spielberg, even recycles a joke verbatim from S1 of The West Wing, a show which debuted in 1999.
Chicago 7 is set 30 years prior. The incoming Richard Nixon administration demands the conviction of eight left wing activists (of differing political beliefs) for their role allegedly inciting a riot at an anti-Vietnam War demonstration which, in actual fact, helped Nixon ascend to the presidency.
In the courtroom the three key roles of prosecution, defence and judge are taken by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mark Rylance and Frank Langella respectively. Sacha Baron Cohen and Eddie Redmayne play the most fleshed-out two of the so-called ‘Chicago 7’ — although Jeremy Strong serves as a good comedic foil and Yahya Abdul-Mateen is brilliant as the underdeveloped Black Panther leader Bobby Seale.
Langella’s loathsome Judge Julius Hoffman dominates the courtroom scenes, dripping with disdain for the defendants and quickly developing a hatred of Rylance’s exasperated William Kunstler who only realises too late, despite it being clear to everyone else, he is in a political trial, not a criminal one.
In many ways Chicago 7 is peak Sorkin — a courtroom drama (A Few Good Men), told largely through flashbacks (The Social Network) based on a true story (Molly’s Game) with lots of artistic licence taken to serve the script (Steve Jobs).
But Sorkin has never been too tethered to the truth — speaking to New York Magazine about The Social Network he said:
“When you’re writing nonfiction that’s always a question that you’re wrestling with, especially when you’re writing about people who are still alive. On one hand, you don’t want to screw around with people’s lives, you never want to say anything that isn’t true, and you don’t want to mess with history. On the other hand, this isn’t a documentary. Art isn’t about what happened, and the properties of people and the properties of ‘characters’ are two completely different things. There’s a set of facts I’m dealing with, and I try to imagine motivations and fill in blanks that none of us can see.”
With Chicago 7 those interested in the true story can literally look up the court transcripts. (Yes, the judge really was that much of an ass).
The script was originally written in July 2007 after Spielberg approached Sorkin to gauge his interest — Sorkin agreed though he admits “I left not knowing what the hell he was talking about.”
The Writer’s Strike saw the project kicked into the long grass (although even back then it was hoped Baron Cohen would play charismatic activist Abbie Hoffman, one of the starring roles whose stand-up routine helps guide the audience along).
Resurrected in autumn 2018 the film’s 2020 parallels are thuddeningly obvious; one need only substitute Nixon’s furious Attorney General John Mitchell (played by John Doman) for Trump lackey and current AG Anthony Barr.
The repeated refrain of ‘The World is Watching’ was as accurate for USA in 1969 as it is in 2020; a year when thousands took to the streets to protest racial inequality and police violence in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by police.
Sorkin reflects in the production notes: “The script didn’t change to mirror the times, the times changed to mirror the script.”
In one courtroom scene Black Panther leader and defendant Bobby Seale is bound and gagged due to his repeated efforts to demand an attorney. Rylance’s Kunstler asks him ‘Can you breathe?’. The times, perhaps, are still changing to mirror the script.
Chicago 7 is standard Sorkin in many ways, the rat-a-tat dialogue, the political preaching, the characters who act smarter than they are and the unmistakable overarching belief that We’re Better Than This.
Nowhere is that better seen than Gordon-Levitt’s prosecutor Richard Schultz. Sorkin reimagines Schultz as an establishment figure with grave doubts about the prosecution and who is, in spirit, on the side of the defendants. (Contemporary reports from the time do not so much as suggest this). The schmaltzy end to his ‘arc’ is not so much foreshadowed as it is signposted with huge flashing lights.
But as with all of Sorkin’s output, it’s important to remember he is a dramatist and not a biographer or documentarian.
And in Chicago 7 he is cannibalising himself. The climactic courtroom scene echoes Jack Nicholson’s iconic rage-filled testimony in A Few Good Men, but this time it’s an understated witticism rather than a bellowing ‘YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!’.
The screen almost immediately fades to black and then the film fast-forwards to after the trial is over — Sorkin doesn’t care about the verdicts in this political trial, because they’re not the point and, he’s saying, neither should you.
The Trial of the Chicago 7 is now streaming on Netflix.
