As a lover of this period of history, I am really excited after watching this film. The dense lines, the plot that does not give people any breathing space, and the rich character images make this film a good movie worth brushing several times. Looking at the existing film reviews, there is no hippie fan to introduce the relevant background, a little lost, can not help but take the initiative to talk about these main characters and historical background.
First of all, not only the United States in the 1960s, but the world in the 1960s has entered the frenzy of the student movement. Under the background of the Cold War, the children of capitalist society were dissatisfied with the abuses and roots of capitalism. 'S children are dissatisfied with martial law and zz culture control, and pin their hopes on capitalist-style democratization. The May storm in France, the hippie movement in the United States, the student movement in Czechoslovakia, "the whole world has entered adolescence."
The seven gentlemen in the film are best known in real history as Abby Hoffman. Yippe is not an organization's name but Hippy's nickname, and the name of the International Youth Party is a mess of Abby Hoffman. They are not a party at all. Both Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin were former SDS cadres. After they met, they broke away and named themselves Yippe, which included the fact that the romanticism of the hippie movement could not exert greater influence on the new left movement. Disappointment. The first major thing the two of them did was to burn the paper money in front of the New York Stock Exchange, to scatter U.S. dollars in front of the exchange and set them alight. Abby Hoffman is well-known because he is best at using the media to create gimmicks, so many incidents and photos have been recorded, including the widely circulated photos of daisies stuck in the barrel of a gun, which came from him leading the hippies. The Pentagon also claimed to exorcise the Pentagon. In addition, before the Democratic Party Congress, Hippies such as Abby Hoffman recommended Mr. Pigusas as the candidate, and this is the name of a pig. (Another argument is that the pig was nominated during their trial.) All sorts of exaggerated performances made historians less positive about him, thinking that Abby Hoffman wanted to use the media to achieve revolutionary goals. However, the seriousness of the revolution was dispelled by the media. From Hippy to Yippe, it represents the development of the hippie movement and the dusk of the hippie movement. Yuppie after Yippe has returned to the mainstream society in terms of dress and behavior.
In the film, Ham Hayden stands on the bench as the representative of SDS. Ham Hayden was originally a reporter for the Michigan Daily. In the early 1960s, SDS and SNCC were established one after another. After the American pro-democracy movement began to erupt, he became interested in student pro-democracy organizations and acted as a liaison between the two organizations. Become the soul of SDS. SDS, the full name of "Student for a democratic society (Student for a democratic society)", took over the SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee) after 1964 and became the leader of the New Left Movement at that time. The Port Huron Declaration mentioned in the film is just It is one of the most important speeches of the New Left movement in the 1960s signed by the SDS led by Ham Hayden. At its peak, SDS had more than 100,000 members, with branches all over the major universities in the United States.
As the leader of the "Black Panther Party", Bobby Sil, whose mouth was covered in the film, represented the power of the black people at that time. In the film, it seems that the black civil rights movement is far away from the New Left, but the fact that the exclusion of whites is the result of the active choice of radical groups and individuals such as "black power" in the black civil rights movement. It can be said that the black civil rights movement was the starting point of the American social movement in the 1960s. In 1955, the Rosa Parks bus incident became a catalyst for the American social movement. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the black civil rights movement directly promoted the SDS and SNCC. Founded, SDS and black civil rights organizations often cooperated in the early days. However, with the failure of Martin Luther King’s non-violent resistance strategy, the black civil rights organizations that advocate violent revolution rose up, and the new left, represented by SDS, gradually turned to merge with the hippie movement. The peaceful demonstration by Martin Luther King Jr. to the fully armed "Black Panther Party" marked the process of the black civil rights movement from non-violent to violent.
Alan Ginsburg, American "Beat" poet and social activist. In the film, it is only a miscellaneous role, but in reality, non-partisan social activists are a force that cannot be ignored in the New Left movement. Alan Ginsberg is known for "Howling", which abandons the rhythm of traditional poetry, uses long and short sentences very irregularly, and uses a large number of vulgar words and descriptions, which caused an uproar among the upper class celebrities.
The Chicago Democratic Congress was the peak and meeting point of various social movements in the 1960s. The hippie movement, the New Left movement, the black civil rights movement, rock bands, and various social activists gathered together to influence the election results. Gathering near the Hilton Hotel, with this riot as a node, the American democracy movement in the 1960s was rapidly disintegrating and declining.
The largest student pro-democracy organization, SDS, split, and an extremist force that split out formed a group of "underground weathermen". With the purpose of extreme violence, it caused more than 200 bombings and was eventually captured as "terrorists." The frequency of violence also gradually turned the public’s impression of the student democracy movement into a negative one. After the 1970s, neo-conservatism spread throughout society. Nixon was elected and began to clean up the violent democracy movement before. The 1969 poll showed 82%. The public supports curbing student protests. Although it seems that the American student democracy movement in the 1960s did not succeed, as Kaliyer said, the sacrifices and sacrifices of blood and sweat were not in vain. New ideas have sprouted in people’s hearts and penetrated into the cracks of the street tiles. New ideas such as racial equality, gender equality, environmentalism, and diversity have been growing in the following decades.
Some afterwords:
Now the world is heading toward a turbulent trend again. No matter which system is concerned, the Chicago Seven Gentlemen seem to be satirizing everyone standing on the power behemoth. This film should not just be regarded as the current election zz The tools of attack have made the dusty history stirred up by this movie a signpost for us to learn from the past.
Related literature:
Chicago Seven Gentlemen Entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Seven?wprov=sfti1
Todd Gitlin: The Media Mirror of the New Left Movement
Greenwich Hippie Commune: Chronicles of the "New Left" Movement in the United States, Abi Hoffman-Alternative Performance Shows in the Sixties
Jean-Claude Carlier: The Age of Utopia
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