1971

The story told in "1971" is a very important one for every American and I do recommend you see it. However, despite this I have to be honest...I had a very hard time staying awake during the film. Normally I don't have this trouble but think it wasn't just me...the film, despite about some important events, comes off as very slow. See it...just try to have some caffeine with you.

The story in this film is super-important. At the height of the anti-Vietnam War movement, an unknown group of dissidents broke into a local FBI field office in Pennsylvania and stole the documents in the office. This was important for two reasons: the documents held important evidence of illegal FBI activities and copies of the documents were sent to the press! Now, for the first time, concrete evidence was known to exist that talks about FBI harassment of innocent Americans the agency saw as subversives! So, breaking up marriages and manipulating innocent people was fair game for the agency--mostly because there was practically no oversight of the FBI.

So why is this important today? Well, with increasing surveillance by not only the FBI but Homeland Security, we once again have the POTENTIAL for abuses of civil liberties. Additionally, with the WIKILEAKS and Edward Snowden stories in the news, the events of 1971 seem very familiar once again. Overall, an interesting story told in a rather dry and low energy fashion that every American, on the right, left or in the middle, should see.

Having marched for peace in the late 60's and early 70's I was thrilled by this film!

Smart, committed people penetrated the impenetrable fortress!

I hope they inspire others to uphold true American ideals and non violently oppose abuses of power.

These people are heroic American patriots and their story is a vital part of our history.

This film moved me in a deep way. I'll never forget it.

I'm grateful to the film makers and especially to the brave people who skillfully undertook this action and generously came forward to tell their tale all these years later!

Around the documentary's (24:22) mark John Rains explains that March 8, 1971 would be a great night for the break in because everyone would be distracted by watching the Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier "Fight of the Century." The documentary at (24:29) emphasizes this idea by showing a chart of worldwide TV rights to emphasize the magnitude of the event.

The documentary continues with the dramatization of Keith Forsyth breaking into the FBI offices. He states he could hear the broadcast of the fight and was "hoping for something like a swell" (31:34) to cover the noise he was making while trying to pry the FBI office door open. The dramatization even shows the live in building manager watching the fight (31:37) with audio of the fight broadcast as background noise in order to add to the drama of the moment. It's all very well done and very well edited.

Except, it never could have happened that way. At the (24:24) mark the documentary actually shows a poster promoting the fight which clearly states, "NO HOME TV - RADIO OR DELAYED TELECAST." The "Fight of the Century" was a Pay-per-view (PPV) event. The only way to watch the fight in the United States in real time was to go to a local theater and see it broadcast via closed circuit television. There was no option to watch or listen to the broadcast of the fight at home. The very first time highlights of the fight were shown was almost three years later on ABC's Wide World of Sports on January 26, 1974 to promote the rematch.

This is a great documentary about a great act of civil resistance which resulted in real change. However, as a documentary it does not get a free pass for dramatic effect. The takeaway is that documentarians need to be careful about being overly dependent on oral histories, eye-witness accounts or memories to tell their stories without corroboration.

It's interesting how mass media works on a very-short-term memory. Things that happened today are always said to never have happened before. And then once in a while, they just unearth old information in the form of documentaries. This is a documentary about the 1971 breaking in the FBI office in Media, a suburb of philadelphia to expose infiltration practices of the amerikan political police, which will lead to the exposition of cointelpro. This documentary isn't all about old news though, as the time has passed long enough for the activist to become public about it without any fear of repression. Over forty years later, they get to tell their own stories and the security culture involved in remaining free and unsuspected in the four decades since. It was being streamed on PBS for free during the time of anniversary of the burglary.

Having lived through this period, and remembering a lot of it well, the film was something of a nostalgia trip for me, and a terrific companion piece to Betty Medsger's excellent book. (Wish we'd seen more of her.)

But why oh WHY do documentary filmmakers feel it necessary to use reconstructions with actors, as here? They are not only distracting (and perhaps confusing - ?), they suggest that the director does not trust her witnesses, who are FAR more interesting to watch and listen to than the dully animated wallpaper of the reconstructions.

For a purist like me, such tricks make me distrust the veracity of the material, but then I'm an old school documentarian, and growing more curmudgeonly with the passing of the years.

p.