1971 (2014)

Wonderful Movie

Better Late Then Never

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The story told in "1971" is a very important one for every American and I do recommend you see it. However, despite this I have to be honest...I had a very hard time staying awake during the film. Normally I don't have this trouble but think it wasn't just me...the film, despite about some important events, comes off as very slow. See it...just try to have some caffeine with you.The story in this film is super-important. At the height of the anti-Vietnam War movement, an unknown group of dissidents broke into a local FBI field office in Pennsylvania and stole the documents in the office. This was important for two reasons: the documents held important evidence of illegal FBI activities and copies of the documents were sent to the press! Now, for the first time, concrete evidence was known to exist that talks about FBI harassment of innocent Americans the agency saw as subversives! So, breaking up marriages and manipulating innocent people was fair game for the agency--mostly because there was practically no oversight of the FBI.So why is this important today? Well, with increasing surveillance by not only the FBI but Homeland Security, we once again have the POTENTIAL for abuses of civil liberties. Additionally, with the WIKILEAKS and Edward Snowden stories in the news, the events of 1971 seem very familiar once again. Overall, an interesting story told in a rather dry and low energy fashion that every American, on the right, left or in the middle, should see.

I think this documentary should be school material in classes. Absolutely interesting how the government infiltrate his people for no good reasons. A group of decent and smart guys presented the FBI's misdoing to a nation in a sneaky way.I love the idea and the outcome. True heroes! The government should be ashamed. The government clearly was and still is afraid of their own shadow...Funny thing though, nothing has changed in 50 years. Nowadays even the economic system and foreign nations spy on people just to collect data and everybody thinks that's okay. Well clearly it is not okay to spy on people and treat them like soon to be criminals. May it suit purpose.History repeats itself - this well done documentary shows that. I recommend to watch it. This is living history. Here's hoping it will be translated into other languages!

Having marched for peace in the late 60's and early 70's I was thrilled by this film!Smart, committed people penetrated the impenetrable fortress! I hope they inspire others to uphold true American ideals and non violently oppose abuses of power.These people are heroic American patriots and their story is a vital part of our history.This film moved me in a deep way. I'll never forget it. I'm grateful to the film makers and especially to the brave people who skillfully undertook this action and generously came forward to tell their tale all these years later!

Johanna Hamilton co-wrote and directed "1971" (2014). The film tells the story of people we now call the "Media Eight." These were eight extraordinarily brave people who risked long prison terms by breaking into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania on March 8, 1971.Many peace activists had long suspected that the FBI was more interested in stifling legal dissent than it was in fighting crime. The raid on the FBI office was successful, and the activists took thousands of documents.Ultimately, these documents were published by the Washington Post, and this, in turn, brought about a public realization that the FBI wasn't protecting the American people, but rather was subverting the Constitution. The activists were never caught, and only revealed themselves in 2014.The movie moves back and forth from reenactments of the planning and the break-in itself, to newsreel footage of the fallout from the release of the documents, to present-day interviews with the activists. Betty Medsger, then a young reporter for the Post, actually wrote the newspaper story about the documents. By an interesting coincidence, she knew two of the Media Eight, although obviously she didn't know that her friends were part of the group that carried out the break-in. Ultimately, when she learned of the connection, she wrote a book about the event, and the book was then turned into this documentary film. (Medsger also appears in the movie.)This is a riveting, amazing story. It could be dismissed as improbable were it fiction, but it's fact and it really happened. I think the movie partially captures the sense of what life was like for anti-war activists in the early 1970's. (I should know, because I was a antiwar activist during this period.) Where the movie is weakest, in my opinion, is that it doesn't explain to a younger generation why being against the war in Vietnam was so important--and so frustrating-- to so many people.After all, for a 20-year-old college student today, the Vietnam war is ancient history. The Media break-in was almost 44 years ago. The Vietnam conflict is as meaningful to a college student today as the Great War was to me when I was in college.Director Hamilton assumes that people watching the movie will know about Vietnam, about Cambodia, and about the FBI harassment of nonviolent activists. If they're in their 50's, or older, they'll know about this. If they're younger than that, they probably won't know. I wish she had given us a few minutes of footage of the Vietnam conflict, and a few minutes of footage of people being dragged off by the police for sitting in, for blocking military shipments, or just for being where the government didn't want them to be and saying what the government didn't want them to say. That footage would have made the actions of the Media Eight more meaningful to younger people watching the movie.We saw the film at the excellent Dryden Theatre in George Eastman House in Rochester, NY. (It was shown as part of the Conscience series.) Reporter/author Betty Medsger was there to answer questions after the screening. This event was a true contribution to the community by the George Eastman House, and I'll take this opportunity to publicly thank them.Shortly after the Media break-in, a larger group of antiwar activists broke into a draft board office in Camden, New Jersey, and began to destroy files. This was done in an attempt to disrupt the draft and, therefore, to disrupt the war in Vietnam. The FBI had an informer in the group, and the FBI actually helped make the break-in possible, then swooped down and arrested the 28 people involved. These activists--who became known as the Camden 28--fought the case in court and won! Surely, the Camden activists were inspired by the Media break-in, and the jury was inspired by the knowledge they had of FBI tactics and harassment. Bob Good, a Rochester, NY activist, was one of the Camden 28, and he was in the audience at the screening of "1971." Betty Medsger pointed him out, and the crowd gave him a standing ovation.