Rennie Davis — Not the Golden Globes — Had the Final Word on “Chicago 7”

In one of those synchronicities of modern life, the death of Rennie Davis was announced around the same time as the Golden Globe nominations, which include Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 in the Best Movie, Director and Screenplay categories. Now I’m, as you know by now, a child of old Hollywood and — the gods help me — I’m a fan of show biz awards shows. I’ll tune in the Golden Globe Awards later this month because it’s hosted by funny Tina Fey and Amy Poehler — and because it’s even honoring those old lefty heroes Jane Fonda and Norman Lear. (Quick aside: I once went to Norman, who served on my Salon board of directors, for some business counsel. “Norman,” I began our meeting in his office, “I need your advice…” He cut me off: “Go to her, drop to your knees, BEG her forgiveness!” Very funny man.)

But, as usual, I’ll be railing at the TV set when the gold statues are handed out. Last year, the foreign press handed its Golden Globe for Best Movie to Quentin Tarantino’s repulsive Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I mean, who are these people in the foreign press? And this year I’m already fuming over the nominations of Mank (a strangely lifeless, overpraised movie featuring a caricatured performance by the usually artful Gary Oldman) and, even worse, The Trial of the Chicago 7.

As far as I can recall, there has NEVER been a good Hollywood version of American radicalism. But Sorkin’s movie was particularly bad — sentimental, cliched, fake — even by Hollywood standards. I was a young New Left activist at the time, and I remember enough to tell you that we NEVER called these antiwar defendants “the Chicago 7” — because that would’ve been a racist erasure of the one non-white defendant, Black Panther leader Bobby Seale, who was later severed from the case by tyrannical Judge Julius Hoffman for demanding his legal rights (after being infamously bound and gagged in the courtroom). They were — and always will be for us — the Chicago 8.

So yes, Sorkin’s fabrication of history begins with the very title of his film. But don’t take my word for it. Let’s hear directly from defendant Rennie Davis, who not long before his death penned a gently humorous but scathing critique of Sorkin’s Hollywoodization of the trial. I quote briefly from it here:

“I was portrayed as a complete nerd afraid of his own shadow. I felt sorry for Tony winner Alex Sharp who played me… I once told the Chicago defendants that no movie producer will ever fully capture the courage and elegance of the actual defendants. It was my honor to know them. They were an inspiration that is needed again today.”

Let me salute Davis, as he and the other brave leaders of the movement against the Vietnam War continue to pass over to the other side. Thank you, Rennie.

PS This photo of Davis — in the center, with plaid shirt and glasses — and the other Chicago defendants was taken by the great Richard Avedon during the trial.