''Chicago 10: Speak Your Peace'' is a 2007 American animated documentary written and directed by

Brett Morgen Brett D. Morgen (born October 11, 1968) is an American documentary filmmaker. His directorial credits include ''The Kid Stays in the Picture'' (2002), '' Crossfire Hurricane'' (2012), '' Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck'' (2015), ''Jane'' (2017), an ...

that tells the story of the

Chicago Eight The Chicago Seven, originally the Chicago Eight and also known as the Conspiracy Eight or Conspiracy Seven, were seven defendants—Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Lee Weiner—charged b ...

. The Chicago Eight were charged by the United States federal government with conspiracy, crossing state lines with intent to incite a riot, and other charges related to anti-

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

and

countercultural A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...

protests in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

during the

1968 Democratic National Convention The 1968 Democratic National Convention was held August 26–29 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Earlier that year incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson had announced he would not seek reelection, thus maki ...

. The film features the voices of

Hank Azaria Henry Albert Azaria ( ; born April 25, 1964) is an American actor, comedian, and writer. He is known for voicing many characters in the animated sitcom ''The Simpsons'' (1989–present), most notably Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum, Comic Book Guy, ...

Dylan Baker Dylan Baker (born October 7, 1959) is an American actor. He gained recognition for his roles in the films such as '' Planes, Trains and Automobiles'' (1987), ''Happiness'' (1998), '' Thirteen Days'' (2000), '' Road to Perdition'' (2002), '' Spide ...

Nick Nolte Nicholas King Nolte (born February 8, 1941) is an American actor. He won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the 1991 film ''The Prince of Tides''. He received ...

Mark Ruffalo Mark Alan Ruffalo (; born November 22, 1967) is an American actor and producer best known for playing Bruce Banner / Hulk since 2012 in the superhero franchise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and in the television series '' She-Hulk: Attorne ...

Roy Scheider Roy Richard Scheider (; November 10, 1932 – February 10, 2008) was an American actor and amateur boxer. Described by AllMovie as "one of the most unique and distinguished of all Hollywood actors", he gained fame for his leading and supporting ...

Liev Schreiber Isaac Liev Schreiber (; born October 4, 1967) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and narrator. He became known during the late 1990s and early 2000s after appearing in several independent films, and later mainstream Hollywo ...

James Urbaniak James Christian Urbaniak (born September 17, 1963) is an American character actor. He is best known for his roles as Simon Grim in three Hal Hartley films: '' Henry Fool'' (1997), '' Fay Grim'' (2006) and '' Ned Rifle'' (2014), Robert Crumb in ...

, and

Jeffrey Wright Jeffrey Wright (born December 7, 1965) is an American actor. He is well known for his role as Belize in the Broadway production of ''Angels in America'', for which he would win a Tony Award, and its HBO miniseries adaptation, for which he woul ...

in an animated reenactment of the trial based on transcripts and rediscovered audio recordings. It also contains archival footage of Abbie Hoffman,

David Dellinger David T. Dellinger (August 22, 1915 – May 25, 2004) was an American pacifist and an activist for nonviolent social change. He achieved peak prominence as one of the Chicago Seven, who were put on trial in 1969. Early life and schooling Delli ...

William Kunstler William Moses Kunstler (July 7, 1919 – September 4, 1995) was an American lawyer and civil rights activist, known for defending the Chicago Seven. Kunstler was an active member of the National Lawyers Guild, a board member of the American Civil ...

Jerry Rubin Jerry Clyde Rubin (July 14, 1938 – November 28, 1994) was an American social activist, anti-war leader, and counterculture icon during the 1960s and 1970s. During the 1980s, he became a successful businessman. He is known for being one of the ...

Bobby Seale Robert George Seale (born October 22, 1936) is an American political activist and author. Seale is widely known for co-founding the Black Panther Party with fellow activist Huey P. Newton. Founded as the "Black Panther Party for Self-Defense", ...

Tom Hayden Thomas Emmet Hayden (December 11, 1939October 23, 2016) was an American social and political activist, author, and politician. Hayden was best known for his role as an anti-war, civil rights, and intellectual activist in the 1960s, authoring t ...

, and

Leonard Weinglass Leonard Irving Weinglass (August 27, 1933 – March 23, 2011) was a U.S. criminal defense lawyer and constitutional law advocate, best known for his defense of participants in the 1960s counterculture. He was admitted to the bar in New Jer ...

, and of the protest and riot itself.

Plot

At the 1968 Democratic Convention, protesters, denied permits for public demonstrations, repeatedly clashed with the Chicago Police Department, and these clashes were witnessed live by a television audience of over 50 million. The events had a polarizing effect on the country. Needing to find a scapegoat for the disturbances, the

Nixon Administration Richard Nixon's tenure as the 37th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1969, and ended when he resigned on August 9, 1974, in the face of almost certain impeachment because of the Watergate Scanda ...

charged eight of the most vocal activists with

conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agre ...

inciting to riot A riot is a form of civil disorder commonly characterized by a group lashing out in a violent public disturbance against authority, property, or people. Riots typically involve destruction of property, public or private. The property target ...

, and other charges and brought them to trial a year later. The defendants represented a broad cross-section of the anti-war movement, from counter-culture icons Abbie Hoffman and

, to renowned pacifist

. Seven of the defendants were represented by

and famed liberal attorney

, who went head-to-head with prosecution attorney Tom Foran. The eighth defendant,

, co-chair of the Black Panther Party, insisted on defending himself and was bound, gagged and handcuffed to his chair by Judge Julius Hoffman.

Cast

as Abbie Hoffman and

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

and David Stahl *

as Tom Foran *

as Judge Julius Hoffman *

Rennie Davis Rennard Cordon Davis (May 23, 1940 – February 2, 2021) was an American anti-war activist who gained prominence in the 1960s. He was one of the Chicago Seven defendants charged for anti-war demonstrations and large-scale protests at the 1968 D ...

and Richard Schultz *

Reg Rogers Reg Rogers (born December 23, 1964) is an American stage, film, and television actor, known for his roles in '' Primal Fear'' and '' Runaway Bride'' and for the TV miniseries ''Attila''. He also appears in theater, both on Broadway and Off-Broadw ...

* Ebon Moss-Bachrach as

Paul Krassner Paul Krassner (April 9, 1932 – July 21, 2019) was an American author, journalist, and comedian. He was the founder, editor, and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine ''The Realist'', first published in 1958. Krassner became a key ...

* Debra Eisenstadt as Mary Ellen Dahl and Waitress *

Lloyd Floyd Lloyd Floyd (also known as The Man of 1,036 Voices) is an American voice actor who has been a Screen Actors Guild member since 1982. Early life As a child, he booked his first audition for Stephen DeAngelis of Grey Advertising for a Ground Rou ...

as Robert Pierson / Arthur Aznavoorian / Police officer *

as himself *

Catherine Curtin Catherine Curtin is an American actress. She is best known for her role as correctional officer Wanda Bell in the Netflix comedy-drama series ''Orange Is the New Black'' (2013–2019). Her other notable recurring roles include '' Insecure'', ' ...

as Barbara Callender * Chuck Montgomery as Lee Weiner *

Dave Boat Dave Boat is an American voice actor Voice acting is the art of performing voice-overs to present a character or provide information to an audience. Performers are called voice actors/actresses, voice artists, dubbing artists, voice tale ...

as Norman Mailer, Marshal #1 *

Roger L. Jackson Roger Labon Jackson is an American voice actor. He is known for voicing Ghostface in the ''Scream'' film series, where E! ranked him as #46 on their list of ''Best Kept Secrets of Hollywood''. He is also known for voicing the character of Moj ...

as Marshal #2, Reporter #4, Reporter #6 *

Amy Ryan Amy Beth Dziewiontkowski, known professionally as Amy Ryan, is an American actress of stage and screen. A graduate of New York's High School of Performing Arts, she is an Academy Award nominee and two-time Tony Award nominee. Ryan began her pr ...

Anita Hoffman Anita Hoffman ( Kushner, March 16, 1942 – December 27, 1998) was a Yippie activist, writer, prankster, and the wife of Abbie Hoffman. Hoffman helped her husband plan some of the most memorable pranks of the Yippie movement. She support ...

Production

The title of the film is drawn from a quote by

, who said, "Anyone who calls us the Chicago Seven is a racist. Because you're discrediting

. You can call us the Chicago Eight, but really we're the Chicago Ten, because our two lawyers went down with us." The animated courtroom sequences were also informed by Rubin's description of the trial as a "cartoon show." Morgen tells ''IONCINEMA'', "We took events that happened forty years ago and ultimately wrote a film about today. I wasn’t born then so I couldn’t do it any other way," and "That’s why when

goes to the witness stand and says: ‘Politics is theater and magic, is the manipulation by the media of imagery that hypnotizes the country into believing in a war that didn’t exist’, he’s not speaking about the Vietnam war, he's referring to Colin Powell testimony in front of

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

. That was my interpretation of it." Traditional music was not used in the film because according to Morgen, it "became a cliché, something anachronistic." Morgen explained to ''Chicago Magazine'' that the inclusion of music by artists such as

Black Sabbath Black Sabbath were an English rock music, rock band formed in Birmingham in 1968 by guitarist Tony Iommi, drummer Bill Ward (musician), Bill Ward, bassist Geezer Butler and vocalist Ozzy Osbourne. They are often cited as pioneers of heavy met ...

Rage Against the Machine Rage Against the Machine (often abbreviated as RATM or shortened to simply Rage) is an American rock band from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1991, the group consists of vocalist Zack de la Rocha, bassist and backing vocalist Tim Commer ...

, the Beastie Boys, and Eminem is because "I don’t think of this as a movie about 1968 at all. I think this is a movie about 2007 and 2008."

Release

The film premiered January 18, 2007 at the

2007 Sundance Film Festival The 2007 Sundance Film Festival ran from January 18 until January 28, 2007, in Park City, Utah with screenings in Salt Lake City, Utah and Ogden, Utah. It was the 23-rd iteration of the Sundance Film Festival. The opening night film was '' Chic ...

. It later premiered at

Silverdocs The AFI Docs (formerly Silverdocs) documentary film festival is an American international film festival created by the American Film Institute and the Discovery Channel. It is held every year in Silver Spring, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Starte ...

, the AFI/ Discovery Channel Documentary Festival in Downtown Silver Spring, Maryland. The film opened in limited release in the United States on February 29, 2008. It was aired nationally on the

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

program ''

Independent Lens ''Independent Lens'' is a weekly television series airing on PBS featuring documentary films made by independent filmmakers. Past seasons of ''Independent Lens'' were hosted by Angela Bassett, Don Cheadle, Susan Sarandon, Edie Falco, Terrence H ...

'' on October 29, 2008.

Critical reception

''Chicago 10'' received generally favorable reviews from critics. , the film holds an 81% approval rating on the review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, based on 84 reviews with an average rating of 6.74/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Brett Morgan's half-animated, half-documentary film is an arresting, sometimes visionary portrait of the historic and chaotic trial."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

reported the film had a weighted average score of 69 out of 100, based on 24 reviews. Jim Emerson of ''RogerEbert.com'' gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, and writes, "Through the kaleidoscopic prism of Brett Morgen's uproarious "Chicago 10," a zippy mixture of documentary footage and motion-capture animation, we see how the confrontations between police and protesters at the 1968 Democratic National Convention played out as political theater," and how " ring the trial, the defendants turned Judge Julius Hoffman's kangaroo courtroom into the stage for a wild farce, complete with kisses, costumes and paper airplanes." Emerson observes, "Through the prism of this movie we can see how bbieHoffman's satirical brand of "political theater," a concept he did not invent but adeptly exploited, may have seemed both cynical and naive at the time, but was keenly perceptive, even prescient."

Accolades

The film was the winner of the Silver Hugo for Best Documentary at the

Chicago International Film Festival The Chicago International Film Festival is an annual film festival held every fall. Founded in 1964 by Michael Kutza, it is the longest-running competitive film festival in North America. Its logo is a stark, black and white close up of the comp ...

in 2007. The film was nominated in 2009 for Best Documentary Screenplay from the

Writers Guild of America The Writers Guild of America is the joint efforts of two different US labor unions representing TV and film writers: * The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), headquartered in New York City and affiliated with the AFL–CIO * The Writers Gu ...

and nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy Award in 2009 for Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Graphic Design and Art Direction.

References

External links

* * * *
''Chicago 10''
site for

''Chicago 10''
at Sundance.org
10''
at Beyond Chron
NPR's ''Fresh Air'' interviews Brett Morgen
*
"The 34 best political movies ever made"

Ann Hornaday Ann Hornaday is an American film critic. She has been film critic at ''The Washington Post'' since 2002 and is the author of ''Talking Pictures: How to Watch Movies'' (2017). In 2008, she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Ear ...

, ''The Washington Post'' (Jan. 23, 2020), ranked No. 33 {{DEFAULTSORT:Chicago 10 2007 films 2007 animated films 2007 documentary films American animated documentary films American independent films Participant (company) films 2000s American animated films Films directed by Brett Morgen Films scored by Jeff Danna Roadside Attractions films Films about activists Films about the Chicago Seven Curious Pictures films Films produced by Graydon Carter Cultural depictions of Abbie Hoffman 2000s English-language films