SORKIN’S ‘CHICAGO 11’ NETFLIX’S LATEST SHOT AT OSCAR GLORY
AARON Sorkin has seen a lot over more than 30 years in Hollywood, but even he couldn't have predicted how neatly a Vietnam War-era film would fit the political climate of 2020.
The Trial of the Chicago 7, the second movie directed by the famed screenwriter, follows the Vietnam War protesters who were accused of inciting riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention. The film has been nominated for six Academy Awards, including for Sorkin's screenplay, and represents Netflix Inc's latest shot at the industry's top prize.
Reflecting on the film, which took about 14 years to make from conception to completion, Sorkin marvelled at how little things have changed in the 60 years since Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Bobby Seale and the others went on trial for their roles in the riots.
The anti-racism movement of last summer helped audiences connect with its message about the importance of protest in a democracy, he said.
"We thought the movie was plenty relevant last winter when we were making it," Sorkin, 59, said. "We didn't need it to get more relevant, but it did, obviously. I've been asked a lot if I changed the script to reflect events in the world. And I didn't ever. The world changed to reflect the script."
The idea for the movie came from Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg.
He called Sorkin, the creator of the TV series The West Wing, over to his house in 2006 and said he wanted to make a movie about the Chicago Seven. Sorkin enthusiastically agreed to write it without admitting he didn't know what Spielberg was talking about.
"I left his house, called my father and asked who the Chicago Seven were," Sorkin recalled.
The Chicago Seven (there were initially eight) were from different factions of the anti-war movement that rallied thousands of young people to come to Chicago in the summer of 1968 to protest the Democratic Party's expected nomination of Vice-President Hubert Humphrey to succeed President Lyndon Johnson.
They were met by 12 000 Chicago policemen, 5 600 members of the Illinois National Guard and 5 000 US Army soldiers.
The trial began more than a year later, pressed by President Richard Nixon's Justice Department. Sorkin did some first-hand research through conversations with Hayden, a leader of Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Michigan in the 1960s. Hayden, who's played by Eddie Redmayne, gave Sorkin a sense of the tension between himself and Hoffman, a prominent anti-war activist who is played in the film by Sacha Baron Cohen. Hoffman took his own life in 1989.
Hayden, who later had a long career in California politics and was married for 17 years to actress Jane Fonda, died in 2016 after a lengthy illness.
The drama between the two became an important part of the script, along with the police confrontation early in the film and the courtroom fireworks, after Sorkin dropped the notion of turning the story into a Broadway musical or play.
He rewrote the screenplay dozens of times and the film went through numerous iterations, first with Spielberg set to direct, before eventually going into production at ViacomCBS Inc's Paramount Pictures.
Netflix bought the picture for $56 million (R814m) and released it to home audiences on October 16 last year. It's one of eight movies vying for the best-picture Oscar.
Sorkin, who also wrote the screenplay for the hit courtroom drama A Few Good Men, and won an Oscar in 2011 for adapting the Facebook story The Social Network to the big screen, said that while he thinks some aspects of moviegoing may be permanently changed because of Covid-19, he still wants his pictures shown theatrically when the pandemic is over. He just started production on a new film, Being the Ricardos, a biopic about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.
"I really do think we're going to have our cake and eat it, too," Sorkin said. "I think that people are going to go back to the movies. I think we're going to have the convenience of being able to watch a feature at home."