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In nineteen seventy-four, Patricia Hearst, heiress to one
of the richest families in the USA, was kidnapped by the Symbionese
Liberation Army. With the countries press following every
minute of the crime, the Authorities and the Hurst family
become increasingly confused as Patty takes on the name Tania,
joins the terrorist organisation and is caught on security
cameras engaging in a bank robbery...
Guerrilla:
The Taking of Patty Hurst is a documentary film by Robert
Stone. Stone is a documentary filmmaker, born in England and
educated in America and France; he has made his name documenting
some of the oddest parts of the American military and governmental
systems.
Based
on the true story of Patty Hurst, and built from archive film
and contemporary interviews, the film gives a fascinating
look into what was one of the biggest news stories at the
time.
In
the early seventies, with Nixon in power and America still
engaged in the Vietnamese War, a group of radical, mostly
middle-class kids, formed the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA).
Their remit: to fight what they saw as the Fascist military
socio-economic system that they felt was controlling their
country.
Apart
from detailing the day by day events as they unfolded, watching
Guerrilla is very much like watching a very slow car
crash. The ideology that the SLA espoused is held in stark
contrast to the number of innocent people that they succeeded
in killing. From robbing banks to shooting at store clerks,
whilst trying to steal a pair of socks, the underlying self
deception that the protagonists laboured under is exposed
for the entire world to see. Here were a bunch of self confessed
middle-class pseudo-intellectuals who where able to delude
themselves into thinking that they were fighting for good
- when in actual fact they acted little better than the violent
criminals that they really were.
The
contemporary footage is just as fascinating: watching the
surviving members of the SLA still trying to justify how shooting
up drug stores and killing innocent bank clerks would somehow
lead to a better world. There is little argument that at that
time, as it remains today, that there is injustice in the
world. Poverty still exists, as do problems over the distribution
of power and wealth - problems that have existed for over
two thousand years. The SLA was not the first to think that
murdering innocents could somehow change the world. And, as
events since 9/11 have shown, this form of self deception
continues today.
If
anyone comes out of this documentary badly it's Patty herself
and the class system which had spawned her. After her capture
she was imprisoned for her part in the robberies and murders.
Strangely enough, although she was convicted and sentenced
to seven years, she was released after serving only twenty-two
months when her sentence was commuted by President Carter;
in 2001 she was pardoned by President Clinton. Patty went
on to appear in a number of films and on television shows,
being an apologist for her actions. The film is a very powerful
indictment of not only political naive stupidity, but also
the justice, as opposed to the judicial, system which exists
in America.
The disc comes with a full commentary track which is illuminating
and worth listening to. There is also a lengthy, on-screen
interview with Robert Stone; a couple of deleted scenes; and
the original trailer for the film. Given the mixture of sources
for the film, the picture remains clear and fairly crisp throughout,
with only the archive footage showing any significant grain.
So,
another good release from Tartan, god love em, if you like
documentaries then this is a must have for your collection.
Charles
Packer
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