Rebels With a Cause

Rating:
Summary: Glimpses of Radical Politics Past
Review: I'm surprised that no one has reviewed this DVD yet. It deserves to be seen by anyone hoping to comprehend, at this late date, the important role of SDS in the political turmoil of the '60s.

Helen Garvy, a long-time SDS member and staffer, has produced an utterly sincere documentary about SDS's history, as seen through the eyes of those who participated in it. Given that upfront slant, it is reasonably objective and thoughtful. It is also crisply produced, well-photographed, and nicely packaged.

I'm not quite sure, however, what today's generation of college students and anti-war activists are likely to make of it. As someone who was immersed in the youth culture of the '60sand 70's, I found it slightly unnerving to watch 90 minutes of greying radicals -- most of them old enough to be grandparents -- reminisce about civil rights, the anti-war movement, and the hopes and dreams of that earlier era. Not that they don't have plenty of worthy things to say -- they do -- but the juxtaposition of interview clips with b&w photos of the same members as young radicals definitely had me contemplating my own mortality.

Contrast this, if you will, with the energizing effect of another recent documentary, "The Weather Underground," which has similar juxtapositions, but somehow manages (through a wider array of film clips) to actual throw the viewer back into the emotional intensity of the time. "Rebels With a Cause," by contrast, feels more like sitting down with one's parents and leafing through an old photo-album.

Still, I don't mean to damn Garvy's effort with faint praise. This is valuable oral history, perfect for stimulating discussion in a study group or class. SDS was a remarkable phenomenon, the classic New Left organization that went from left-liberal to radical to revolutionary over the course of 10 short years, until it finally blew apart from sectarian in-fighting. The film is especially good in covering the early years when civil rights and community organizing were the primary focus; (the anti-war focus didn't really kick in until the escalation of the war in '64-65.) This is a part of the '60s that often gets short shrift, with Martin Luther King made to serve as shorthand for what really was a more complex and far-reaching movement.

I've always been fascinated by SDS, perhaps because I was never a member. By the time I got to college (1968), SDS was already beginning to sink into Marxist-Leninist rhetorical excess and I watched the feeding frenzy from afar, diligently reading my best friend's New Left Notes each week until my eyes glazed over. By the next fall, SDS was kaput, for all intents and purposes. It is to Helen Garvy's credit that she succeeds in putting it all together, salvaging the admirable from the deplorable.