Chicago 10 Opens Friday

Two decades after the University of Chicago Press published Chicago ’68, the press’ blog brings news of the opening of Chicago 10, “the innovative documentary that revisits the tumult of the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the Chicago 8/7 conspiracy trial of key antiwar activists a year later.”

Twenty years ago we published the most complete account of the events surrounding the 1968 DNC, David Farber’s Chicago ‘68. That book is innovative itself, creating multiple perspectives reflecting both police and demonstrators. Farber shows the developing plans of the antiwar movement for protesting the war in Vietnam during the convention, as the shocks of 1968 shift the ground -- the Tet offensive, President Lyndon Johnson's withdrawal from the re-election race, the assassination of Martin Luther King and subsequent riots in cities across the country, and the assassination of Robert Kennedy.

The documentary, which opens tomorrow, was directed by Brett Morgen (The Limbo Room, The Kid Stays in the Picture). At the same time, the Press announces the release of a paperback edition of Battleground Chicago: The Police and the 1968 Democratic National Convention by Frank Kusch.

Battleground Chicago is essential for understanding what is completely absent in Chicago 10 -- any insight into the motivations, thoughts, and feelings of the individual policemen who were enforcing order on the streets of Chicago. (Or, as Mayor Richard J. Daley famously misstated it: "the policeman is there to preserve disorder.") Kusch interviewed eighty former Chicago police officers who were on the scene and uncovered the other side of the story of ‘68.

And the last line of the posting pretty much becomes our quote of the week:

If you want to get a taste of 1968, go see Chicago 10. But if you want to understand 1968, read a book.

You can’t beat the sentiment anyway, especially not during Oscars Week. So, you know... go read a book.