The War at Home movie review
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The War at Home
(1979)
No, not the awful (and thankfully largely forgotten) Fox comedy that tried and failed to replicate the appeal of Married With Children, but rather a somewhat obscure documentary made in 1979 about the student protests and unrest at the University of Wisconsin during the Sixties and early Seventies. What I thought I was getting was a documentary about the anti-war movement as a whole, which was intended to serve as research for my last novel. But the movie came too late for that (the book is finished), and rather than being an overall look at the resistance to Viet Nam, rather focused narrowly on the story of just one college campus. That made it all the more interesting to me, as I had never heard of UW as a hotbed of radicalism. Having been made only ten years after the height of the protests, most of the people involved were still alive and still relatively young, and all of them agreed to give interviews. The story unfolds slowly, tracking the increasing awareness of students and townspeople that the university was involved in defense research. As student unrest began to grow, some student activists reached out to the black activists in the area, an uneasy alliance, which is discussed with refreshing candor. Through the late Sixties the demonstrations escalated and often became violent; a tremendous help to the documentary was the participation of the chief of campus police at the time, whose interviews help provide another side to the story. The unrest culminated in the bombing of a building where defense research was being undertaken, with the unintended death of a student and the subsequent jailing of the bomber (who also appears as an interviewee). The documentary is both in-depth and open, and the interviews are engaging and interesting. The decision to focus on one campus and its turmoil helped the filmmakers to avoid sweeping generalities, and the relative closeness to the subject matter – it had only been a decade – meant that a wider variety of participants would be available to tell their stories. This greatly strengthens the documentary; it covers Wisconsin with far greater detail than usual, with the result that the viewer becomes engaged in the re-telling of the story. Hearing from the mouths of the participants directly gives the narrative a more immediate feel, as if you are sitting in their kitchen or office listening to the interviewees personally. While the subject matter and restricted focus might not appeal to everyone, I found this an illuminating and engaging documentary. Due to film technology it feels a bit dated, but the words and images remain with the viewer long after the movie finishes. If you have any interest in the subject matter, this is one of the better documentaries about the anti-war movement, painting it with subtle shades rather than the broad strokes usually reserved for films about this subject. It’s well worth a look, again, if you are so inclined. December 1, 2011
(1979)
No, not the awful (and thankfully largely forgotten) Fox comedy that tried and failed to replicate the appeal of Married With Children, but rather a somewhat obscure documentary made in 1979 about the student protests and unrest at the University of Wisconsin during the Sixties and early Seventies. What I thought I was getting was a documentary about the anti-war movement as a whole, which was intended to serve as research for my last novel. But the movie came too late for that (the book is finished), and rather than being an overall look at the resistance to Viet Nam, rather focused narrowly on the story of just one college campus. That made it all the more interesting to me, as I had never heard of UW as a hotbed of radicalism. Having been made only ten years after the height of the protests, most of the people involved were still alive and still relatively young, and all of them agreed to give interviews. The story unfolds slowly, tracking the increasing awareness of students and townspeople that the university was involved in defense research. As student unrest began to grow, some student activists reached out to the black activists in the area, an uneasy alliance, which is discussed with refreshing candor. Through the late Sixties the demonstrations escalated and often became violent; a tremendous help to the documentary was the participation of the chief of campus police at the time, whose interviews help provide another side to the story. The unrest culminated in the bombing of a building where defense research was being undertaken, with the unintended death of a student and the subsequent jailing of the bomber (who also appears as an interviewee). The documentary is both in-depth and open, and the interviews are engaging and interesting. The decision to focus on one campus and its turmoil helped the filmmakers to avoid sweeping generalities, and the relative closeness to the subject matter – it had only been a decade – meant that a wider variety of participants would be available to tell their stories. This greatly strengthens the documentary; it covers Wisconsin with far greater detail than usual, with the result that the viewer becomes engaged in the re-telling of the story. Hearing from the mouths of the participants directly gives the narrative a more immediate feel, as if you are sitting in their kitchen or office listening to the interviewees personally. While the subject matter and restricted focus might not appeal to everyone, I found this an illuminating and engaging documentary. Due to film technology it feels a bit dated, but the words and images remain with the viewer long after the movie finishes. If you have any interest in the subject matter, this is one of the better documentaries about the anti-war movement, painting it with subtle shades rather than the broad strokes usually reserved for films about this subject. It’s well worth a look, again, if you are so inclined. December 1, 2011
