On this Spotlight Episode of More Like This, we're featuring the film, The Trial of the Chicago 7. Piecing together some of the most dynamic and insightful interviews from the Official Trial of the Chicago 7 Podcast, we take a deep dive into the creative process of the acclaimed film. Krista Smith speaks with director Aaron Sorkin in detail about his inception process, as well as Yahya Abdul Mateen II (Bobby Seale), Sacha Baron Cohen (Abbie Hoffman), Jeremy Strong (Jerry Rubin), Eddie Redmayne (Rom Hayden), Alan Baumgarten (film editor), Phedon Papamichael (director of photography), Shane Valentino (production designer), Susan Lyall (costume designer) and Lawrence O’Donnell (political commentator and author). You may now press play.
On this Spotlight Episode of More Like This, we're featuring the film, The Trial of the Chicago 7. Piecing together some of the most dynamic and insightful interviews from the Official Trial of the Chicago 7 Podcast, we take a deep dive into the creative process of the acclaimed film. Krista Smith speaks with director Aaron Sorkin in detail about his inception process, as well as Yahya Abdul Mateen II (Bobby Seale), Sacha Baron Cohen (Abbie Hoffman), Jeremy Strong (Jerry Rubin), Eddie Redmayne (Rom Hayden), Alan Baumgarten (film editor), Phedon Papamichael (director of photography), Shane Valentino (production designer), Susan Lyall (costume designer) and Lawrence O’Donnell (political commentator and author). You may now press play.
Krista Smith: [00:00:00] Welcome to More Like This, a podcast from Netflix Queue, the journal that celebrates the people, ideas and process of creating great entertainment. I'm Krista Smith. I've spent over 20 years interviewing some of the biggest names in Hollywood. And on this show, I'm bringing you fresh new perspectives from across the entertainment industry, with the kind of access only Netflix can offer, but I won't be doing it alone.
I get to collaborate with some of the best writers, interviewers, [00:00:30] and experts in the business. This week, we have something a little different for you. Instead of building an episode around a few topics, we're shining a spotlight on a single film. Today, we focus in on the trial of the Chicago 7. The historic legal drama about the contentious trial that resulted from the protests of the 1968 Democratic National Convention written and directed by Aaron Sorkin.
We've highlighted pieces from the official trial of the [00:01:00] Chicago 7 podcast to provide you with an all encompassing view at one of 2020's most prescient and engaging films. This spotlight features interviews with everyone from Aaron Sorkin, to actors, Jeremy Strong and Sasha Baron Cohen to experts on the time period like Lawrence O'Donnell, to the film's cinematographer editor, costume designer, and more. For the full length versions of all of these interviews, you can listen to the official Trial of the Chicago [00:01:30] 7 podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.
Now, let's start with Aaron Sorkin, who will take us back to the beginning of the story.
Aaron Sorkin: [00:01:39] On a Saturday morning in 2006, I was asked to go to Steven Spielberg's house, which is unusual, you know, Steven and I don't hang out, uh, uh, together. And he told me that he really wanted to make a movie about the terrible riots in Chicago in 1968 and the crazy conspiracy trial that [00:02:00] follows.
And I said, sure, uh, I-I'm in, I want to write that movie. And as soon as I left his house, I called my father and asked him what riot happened in Chicago in 1968? What was the crazy conspiracy trial that followed? I'd-I've never heard of any of it. I, I was just saying yes to Steven and I heard the word trial in there and I liked that.
I wrote the first draft, uh, I had to do research for awhile then wrote the first draft, turned it in and the next day, the [00:02:30] Writers Guild went on strike. And by the way, I remember 14 years ago back at that original meeting, uh, at Steven's house, Stephen saying, uh, "and I think it's important that we get this film out before the election."
He actually was talking about was 2008 and then we heard the same thing before 2012 and before 2016. And it, it seemed to me that the trouble we were having getting off the launch pad were the riots themselves that were going to inflate the cost, the budget [00:03:00] of the film, and it was going to not be in proportion to what, you know, we felt the audience's appetite was going to be for the film.
Uh, in other words, the box office wasn't going to match the budget. The movie had to cost less to do. And two things happened at once I guess that that finally got the movie made, one, Donald Trump was elected president and he started at his rallies rhapsodizing about the good old days when they'd carry that [00:03:30] guy out of here on a stretcher and punch him in the face and uh, you know, beat the crap out of him and that kind of thing.
The demonizing of protests. That started happening, and I directed my first movie, Molly's Game and Steven was sufficiently pleased, uh, with that, that he thought I should direct Chicago 7, and that the time to make it was now. And we couldn't have foreseen that, uh, there would be clashes on the streets between protesters and police.
We [00:04:00] couldn't have foreseen that in one, I think it was two week period, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd would be killed. And, uh, for that matter, we couldn't have foreseen the intramural struggle on the left between the left and the further left, uh, that's dramatized by Tom and Abbie on film.
Krista Smith: [00:04:22] The parallels are just uncanny. Well, this film obviously is based on historical facts. These are real [00:04:30] people. There was this real trial, all of it. And you've described this more as a portrait, not a photograph. So-
Aaron Sorkin: [00:04:37] Right.
Krista Smith: [00:04:37] -When you're writing this, how do you, how do you decide to stick completely to historical events? And then when you decide to go your own way and kind of create color around that, talk to me a little bit about that process.
Aaron Sorkin: [00:04:50] You know, I think that every writer, uh, when they're writing nonfiction has their own internal compass, and if your internal compass isn't [00:05:00] working, usually the studio's legal department will, will help you out there.
Krista Smith: [00:05:05] [Laughs]
Aaron Sorkin: [00:05:06] So, okay, yes, it's a portrait. It's, uh it's, rather, it's a painting. It's not a photograph. It's not meant as journalism. Now, all these things happened. I didn't make anything up in this movie, but people don't speak in dialogue and people's lives don't unfold in scenes that form a narrative arc. Tha-Those are the things that that writers do.
So, [00:05:30] trial itself lasted almost six months. Actual trials aren't really is entertaining as, as movie trials or TV trials or, or stage trials. So what would be important to me is, is, is the larger truth.
Krista Smith: [00:05:45] Now I want to talk a little about you as a director, because this is your second film, so I want to know what were you most focused on as far as what you had to get right?
Aaron Sorkin: [00:05:57] Wow. There was a lot to be [00:06:00] afraid of, uh, here. I was, I was, there was plenty, I was afraid of uh, before Molly's Game, but you know, Molly's Game had 11 people in it. Uh, and Chicago 7 h-has, has riots and tear gas. One of the things I was thinking about was just how do I make sure that they're all in the same movie?
I felt like coming to work every morning like I was being tossed the keys to a formula one race car. And if I can just make sure I don't put the car in the wall, these guys are gonna win the race, these [00:06:30] actors. But listen, I, I mean you asked me what w-what I was worried about, what I was nervous about, the answer is really e-everything. I didn't stop being nervous until picture locked. I got about 48 hours, uh, to uh, break to not be nervous, and then the nervousness begins of are people gonna like it?
Krista Smith: [00:06:51] And then it starts all over again, the cycle. What do you hope audiences feel when the credits roll?
Aaron Sorkin: [00:06:57] Well, let me be [00:07:00] clear, um, before a movie can be anything else, before a movie can be important or relevant or persuasive or provocative, uh, uh, before it can be any of those things, it has to be good. It just has to be a good movie. Uh, it has to be a good story well told. Uh, so when I'm sitting down to write a script or nowadays to direct a movie, I'm not thinking about [00:07:30] things like, what do I want the audience to be thinking after they leave the theater?
I'm, I'm really only involved in their experience from the moment the lights come down to the moment the lights come back up again. And, and I'm only involved in the, the elements of drama, uh, the things that have been around for 2,500 years. But once you've done that, And you look around and you see what the world is like now, obviously I understand that there will, I hope there will, uh, um, [00:08:00] be a conversation after the lights come back up once you're walking home, walking to your car, um, or after you've turned off Netflix.
Uh, I-I, it's impossible to miss the parallels with what's going on today, and, uh, I'm sure that there are going to be people, uh, who'll say that these spoiled, privileged college boy brats, [00:08:30] uh had it coming to them and they, they should have gone to prison. They should have gotten the hell beaten out of them, and, a-a-a-and then the same for the protesters today. And there'll be others, uh, who will say, look, uh, there it is, everything's exactly the same with Donald Trump and the role of mayor Daley. I hope that we can stop demonizing protest as something that's un-American, whether that protest is kneeling during the national anthem or that protest is taken to the streets.
Now I agree with Joe Biden, looting isn't protest. [00:09:00] L-lighting- setting, setting things on fire, uh, uh, isn't protest, uh, but protest is not anti-American. It's not anarchistic. I have one more, uh, uh, hope for the film, if I can achieve the goal of, you are happy you spent that two hours watching this movie, that, that- I'll feel good, uh, about that. Again, because of the times we're living in, this movie comes with more freight than that, but I-I-I [00:09:30] hope people will see that we, we don't want to return to 1968. That, uh, that, that, that was a kind of necessary spasm, uh, that we had to have, and, and that we're 50 years better than that now.
Krista Smith: [00:09:47] We, we have come a long way. We don't want to go back.
Aaron Sorkin: [00:09:49] We thought we'd come a long way. Uh, and we had, I really believe that we, uh, uh, uh, that we have come a long way, but, you know, leadership is important.
[00:10:00] Krista Smith: [00:10:02] Next, we have Lawrence O'Donnell, MSNBC host and author of Playing With Fire: The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics.
So many people have been drawing parallels between 1968, and obviously the trial, and what's happening today. What do you see as the sharpest parallels, and then what do you see as the [00:10:30] distinct differences?
Lawrence O'Donnell: [00:10:32] The, the sharpest parallels are the visuals. I-I've never seen, um, protests, and I've never seen protest reaction like 1968 until this year, until 2020, uh, beginning in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd.
But it's of a peace, I think, with the kind of protest that [00:11:00] erupted, uh, the day after Donald Trump's inauguration, we saw the single largest protest in the history of protests on the planet, which was the Women's March in Washington D.C. that was duplicated all over the country and all over the world.
Uh, and so th-that, that created, uh, a mobilization that, you know, that, that Tom Hayden and Abbie Hoffman could only dream about. They got [00:11:30] huge numbers at the time, you know, to get a hundred thousand people to show up in Washington D.C. as they did in 1967, uh, was absolutely astonishing. We'd never seen that before in, in the history of public assembly in America.
Um, but you know, the day after Donald Trump was inaugurated, they had about a million in Washington D.C. alone. Um, and so the, the enormity of that [00:12:00] mobilization, you had, uh, an energy base to it that I think enlivened with in 2020, which happens to be Donald Trump's re-election year. The, the George Floyd protest and so we ended up seeing more people on the street. We also ended up seeing, you know, more fire, more, more things, burning, more things destroyed. That's, that's straight out of 1968. I mean, that, that that's that imagery, [00:12:30] uh, at that scale, um, across the country, uh, we just haven't seen since 1968.
Krista Smith: [00:12:38] What do you see as the unifying factor in the protests of 2020 with the protest movements of 1968?
Lawrence O'Donnell: [00:12:45] The similarity, the, the unifying principle of the protests between 1968 and 2020, is life and death. What they were protesting in Chicago was a matter of life and death. [00:13:00] Their own lives and their own deaths. If they followed what their draft cards required them to do and show up for military service and go to Vietnam and get killed.
And we see scenes of kids burning their draft cards in, uh, in this film, and that was a federal crime, you'd go to prison for that. It-it was not a small thing. But they were taking that stand in the same way that the Black Lives Matter protest and the protest in the [00:13:30] aftermath of George Floyd has been about life and death, and they have been about the, the danger to the lives. The lethal, deadly danger to the lives of black people in this country. And as in the 1968 protests, people who were not at risk of losing their lives in Vietnam, were still out in those streets protesting. Women who could not be drafted and could not be [00:14:00] sent there were still out there protesting.
David Dellinger in the, in the movie, we see, is much too old to have been drafted. He was still out there protesting, and that's what we see this year. We saw all over the country, uh, we saw, you know, masses of people whose, whose lives do not really put them at risk for a deadly intervention by police, but they were out there [00:14:30] and they were trying to defend the lives of other people.
So that's actually the unity of these two protests. 1968 was a protest about life and death. Nothing less than life and death. And Black Lives Matter has exactly the same stakes.
Krista Smith: [00:14:47] And Mayor Daley in, in terms of Chicago, I mean, he gave basically the police license to respond aggressively.
Lawrence O'Donnell: [00:14:55] Mayor Daley was doing what every mayor in America did then. You- [00:15:00] police were used as a bludgen. They were not used as diplomats. They were not used as social scientists. They were used as a weapon, and police officers gleefully accepted, uh, that duty and, and gave that duty to themselves.
And so the Chicago police behaved the way police departments would have behaved pretty much all over the country at the time. And did routinely behave when people weren't looking, um, the unique place that the [00:15:30] Chicago police have in this history of this kind of law enforcement is they became the very first police force on a, on a large scale, you know other than Birmingham, Alabama, during the, you kn- during the civil rights protests, which involved actually relatively few police officers, uh, and relatively few victims in the, uh, when you look at the video of that. The Chicago police became the very first police officers [00:16:00] caught on tape. The very first police officers behaving that way on a giant scale. The entire department of a major American city attacking thousands of people and caught on tape. They were the first ones.
And they, they had no idea what the power of the cameras were. They were beating up network cameramen. They were beating up, you know, New York Times photographers. They were beating up every member of the press who had a camera, uh, and that's [00:16:30] part of how the verdict against them was delivered so clearly. There was a national commission that investigated the riots that declared those riots, to be a police riot in Chicago. And that finding came out three months before this trial started in 1969.
Krista Smith: [00:16:51] My other questions about Abbie Hoffman and Tom Hayden, because Aaron, the way he presents them and the way they were, it was two very [00:17:00] different approaches to activism, as our listeners can hear in this next clip:
Movie Clip: [00:17:04] I don't know what good it does to insult the judge. And it was the view of the jury and the press and for Anna Schultz, who'll be recommending sentencing for convicted-
It's revolution time. We may have to hurt somebody's feelings.
Krista Smith: [00:17:15] Which one do you think, and this is interesting as you were a teenager at the time, which was more impactful?
Lawrence O'Donnell: [00:17:22] Um, they are two sides of the same coin. I, and I, [00:17:30] and I think they always both understood, um, that they were two sides of the same coin and they had two different approaches to this. You know, Tom Hayden didn't have to associate with Abbie Hoffman if he didn't want to. He chose to, and Abbie Hoffman didn't have to associate with Tom Hayden if he didn't want to, he chose to.
Tom Hayden knew that Abbie Hoffman could dramatically increase turnout at this protest. And Abbie Hoffman knew that [00:18:00] Tom Hayden would do the organizational work and team up with other people who would do the organizational work so that they would choose things like locations where to do it, how to get the buses, how to get buses coming from all over the country to deliver thousands of people to Chicago. Uh, where people would sleep, how do you get permits?
All that sort of thing. Uh, Abbie Hoffman didn't know about any of that, didn't care about any of that, and didn't have to care about any of that. Uh, and so, [00:18:30] you know, it's like a giant, it's like a giant touring rock band. And there are, you know, uh, record producers on the bus and there's, there are wild musicians on the bus and there are agents on the bus and there are, you know, people who know how to make the sound system work.
That's what they were in, and they all knew it. And so, you know, there were, there were, there were tensions, but when you pull back and you watch them over a [00:19:00] period of years, as opposed to just within this relatively tight frame of the film, and you look at the, the, the full run of the way they dealt with each other and the way they dealt with the movement, I-I don't think ultimately either one of them would have any real serious problem with the other.
But whenever you, y- whenever you say we're-we're going to look at these people under the most extreme pressure they've ever been under in their lives and we're going to tighten [00:19:30] this world to where they basically are in the same room together, uh, and they're all facing potential long stretches in federal prison. Then the tensions that, that Aaron, uh, deliveries in that are, are real. Uh, they're understandable. Um, but I don't think those two guys ever lose sight of the value of each other to the larger movement.
Krista Smith: [00:19:59] Well, [00:20:00] I have to get you to talk about Aaron because you are uniquely qualified having, uh, worked with him for many years on The West Wing.
Can you just tell me, what is his secret power? Like h- it's obviously storytelling, but he does it in a way that illuminates these giant, important issues for an audience, but distills it into entertainment.
Lawrence O'Donnell: [00:20:27] Aaron is a dramatist. [00:20:30] And so he looks at the world the way a dramatist does, and he sees things that others don't see. And so he saw in this trial whenever he decided to focus on it, and I know he was talking about it so long ago, I-I mean, it feels like, you know, 15 years ago. Um, and, and, and he [00:21:00] found the drama in it, which is not, it's not easy. It's, it's very tricky. Um, he found his frame, he found his way in. He found what he needed to find in this.
And it just happens to be in a political arena. Um, and people might think, oh, you know, that's what he does just [00:21:30] because he was associated, he created a television show, uh, that has 154 episodes set in The White House, and so, you know, that- he's got that I think label in some people's minds, but, uh, the truth of it is, um, he, he will find drama anywhere, uh, [The] Social Network is an example of that, uh, y-you can't predict where a drama just like Aaron is going to [00:22:00] find the drama, and then be able to shape it and make you care about what he cares about.
Krista Smith: [00:22:09] It's a thrill to talk to you and, um, I really appreciate you participating.
You're going to hear from some of the key members of the cast of The Trial of the Chicago 7, including Sasha Baron Cohen, Eddie Redmayne, Yahya [00:22:30] Abdul Mateen II, Jeremy Strong, and John Carroll Lynch.
Jeremy Strong: [00:22:34] I first read the script about, I want to say seven or eight years ago, and it landed on me like an ocean.
Krista Smith: [00:22:42] That's the voice of Jeremy Strong who plays defendant, Jerry Rubin, and whose credits include his Emmy award winning performance in Succession, and Sorkin's directorial debut Molly's Game.
Jeremy Strong: [00:22:55] I thought it was one of the most [00:23:00] powerful and morally trenchant scripts I'd ever read and, and at the time where I was in my life, I think I would have been lucky to play a bailiff, but I remember thinking, uh, this is the kind of story that I would swim to the ends of the earth, um, to, to serve and be a part of.
So, so, uh, you know, Aaron is obviously a virtuosic screenwriter, [00:23:30] and one of the, one of the, one of the greatest screenwriters ever to work in the medium.
Eddie Redmayne: [00:23:34] One of the things that Aaron does with such, such uh, beauty and deafness is he takes a story that should be dense at a moment in history that not everyone knows about that is, um, and makes it light and funny.
Krista Smith: [00:23:50] This is Academy award winner, Eddie Redmayne, who plays defendant Tom Hayden, the leader of the Students for a Democratic Society [00:24:00] who later went on to become a California State Senator.
Eddie Redmayne: [00:24:03] It's so funny and filled with jazz and characters that are, that are, that are so fully fledged. There, you know, some of the great playwrights and screenwriters managed to do this, an ensemble, um, films or plays, but so rare in which every character has an arc and every character has a moment.
And I think it's a testament to the, to the depth of the str- of the script and the, um, the [00:24:30] quality of Aaron's, um, uh, uh, delicious quality of Aaron's writing that, that he's attracted such a, such a band of players.
Krista Smith: [00:24:40] Yahya Abdul Mateen II, an Emmy winner for his performance in Watchmen plays, Black Panther Party chairman Bobby Seale. He was struck by both the tone of the trial and the behavior of the judge, Julius Hoffman.
Yahya Abdul Mateen: [00:24:53] You know, obviously there was, there was a lot of depth and, uh, , uh, um, more serious moments in the trial, but [00:25:00] one of the first things that I was struck by was, uh, th-the amount of comedy, uh, in the trial, and I didn't believe that this judge was a real, was a, was a real figure.
I had to go look up the transcript and the things with the missing up- mess- messing up the names and how just the ridiculous this, this- the figure, the character this judge was. It's something almost like a c- like out of a cartoon, you know, like a, a caricature. So yeah, I was very, very shocked to see [00:25:30] that some of the, that, you know, the- those moments, a lot of those moments came directly from the transcript and, you know, and the trial. And then I was, I was just moved by, you know, the importance of the script.
Krista Smith: [00:25:40] John Carroll Lynch, who plays defendant Dave Dellinger. A leader of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, otherwise known as "the Mobe," has worked with some of the foremost filmmakers of our time, including Martin Scorsese and David Fincher.
He was particularly struck by [00:26:00] Sorkin's ability to take a lengthy and complex series of events and marshal them into a dynamic and riveting narrative.
John Carroll Lynch: [00:26:07] This trial was, uh, several months and the events obviously leading up to the riots we're, you know, several months as well and, uh, and you could make an entire, obviously an entire, uh, you know, uh, series of these events and, and not exhaust them. So to create a sweeping narrative the way he does and to focus the, the, um, [00:26:30] the material towards this central question of what it means to revolt? What does revolution mean? And how does one, uh, how does one go about doing that, uh, with such a reactionary response? Uh, and I, I, he does an amazing job.
Krista Smith: [00:26:47] When the actors first joined the project, they each brought varying degrees of familiarity with this chapter in history and the individuals they would play.
Sasha Baron Cohen, whose body of work across [00:27:00] comedy and drama has led to six Emmy nominations, an Academy Award nomination, and a Golden Globe win, was deeply knowledgeable about his character, defendant Abbie Hoffman, one of the founders of the Youth International Party, otherwise known as the Yippies.
Sasha Baron Cohen: [00:27:17] When I was in university, my undergraduate thesis was about radical Jews in the civil rights movement in the sixties. And I found out that a lot of the Jewish radical students who [00:27:30] went down to Mississippi and the South to, uh, campaign for voting rights for the African-American community, then went on to other radical causes.
One of those guys was Abbey Hoffman. And so basically that core left wing group then became the, uh, the embryo for the anti-Vietnam war movement. And obviously they were trained activists, so it was, it's [00:28:00] been a subject that I've been interested in since, you know, my late teens and Abbie was one of those guys, Abbie was down South protesting, uh, for the, you know, protesting against discrimination and trying to get equal rights for the African-American community.
And ironically, he was imprisoned using a law that was passed at the end of the civil rights movement that he was so integral in, you know, contributing to.
[00:28:30] Krista Smith: [00:28:29] Yahya Abdul Mateen II had a hometown connection to his character.
Yahya Abdul Mateen: [00:28:34] I grew up in Oakland, the Black Panthers in my household was a very, um, uh, had a very strong, you know, historical presence. It's hard to grow up in Oakland, uh, and then not know about the presence and the history of the Black Panthers. I live in and grew up in West Oakland, particularly, uh, which is, which is, uh, uh, the area that the black, uh, the Black Panthers, uh, were, uh, founded in. Um, and, uh, you know, for me, [00:29:00] this was, you know, a chance to, uh, to tell sort of a hometown story or the story of, of, of, of what I consider to be a hometown hero.
Um, I didn't know much about the trial of the Chicago 7 specifically, um, or really at all, um, a-a-actually, but I did know that at some point, uh, Bobby Seale did, uh, experience the, uh, the horrific, uh, brutalization, you know, that, that, that, that went into him being, uh, bound and gagged in, in court, um, but I did [00:29:30] not uh, have the awareness that that took place, um, in this a-and this particular trial. So that, that was a learning experience, you know uh, for me as well.
Krista Smith: [00:29:40] Writer-director Aaron Sorkin has spoken about the film being a painting, not a photograph, and the focus being how the story resonated today and getting at the essence of the characters. Jeremy Strong explains how that informed his approach.
Jeremy Strong: [00:29:55] I think you don't ever want to, uh, [00:30:00] do an impersonation, and I know that that's not what Aaron wanted. Aaron didn't want, you know, Madame Tussaud's wax museum of these characters, sort of walking and talking. Um, I think, I think what I try and do is, um, is internalize as much as possible, uh, through using every available resource at my disposal and really [00:30:30] trying to internalize the essence of, of this, of this person.
Um, and then, and then free yourself from any obligation of doing, you know, uh, as you say, something imitative, um, and instead just to make it your own. And, you know, Aaron, Aaron obviously did so much research, as we all did, and, and, you know, I, I looked at everything that could be found on Jerry Rubin. I read Jerry's books, I read the books that were written about Jerry, I read the trial [00:31:00] transcripts, and you get a- you start to, I think, uh, accumulate a composite sense of who a person was and also of their spirit. Because you're not writing an essay about them, you're trying to understand them on a visceral level.
Krista Smith: [00:31:14] Sasha Baron Cohen meanwhile had to contend with Abbie Hoffman's distinctive accent.
Sasha Baron Cohen: [00:31:19] I mean listen, I deeply regret taking on this character because it's bloody hard. I mean, the first thing is I had to learn the accent, which hopefully, um, [00:31:30] I got away with, um, and that itself, it's a very specific accent. He's from Boston, but he's Jewish. He's educated in Brandeis. He's- in a way there are two Abbie's, there's the public persona of Abbie where he's trying to inspire people. And there's the private Abbie, so trying to differentiate between those two. And there's the balance between the clown and the intellect. And [00:32:00] obviously at the end of the movie, he is the one who's brought up to represent the Chicago 7, rather than Tom Hayden, who is the more obvious choice.
So, you know, for this role, I've been reading a lot of his transcripts, and I've been blown away by his intelligence. He's so eloquent and so original, uh, and so [00:32:30] inspiring that it wasn't surprising that he led people to do things that were completely out of their comfort zone.
Krista Smith: [00:32:37] I asked Yahya Abdul Mateen II what he wanted to ensure that he captured about Bobby Seale.
Yahya Abdul Mateen: [00:32:43] I wanted to make sure to capture, um, Bobby's sense of, uh, dignity. I wanted him to be, um, seen as a human, as a fully fleshed out, uh, human being, um, who had the [00:33:00] right to uh, life, liberty pursuit of happiness. You know, uh, this, this was a film that showed that- showed Bobby, uh, as, uh, in a situation where his human rights, his basic rights, his rights as, uh, granted by the constitution of the United States, we're being, uh, threatened and, uh, taken away, and that was in jeopardy.
And so in that situation, you know, the way that I work as an actor is, is, is I say [00:33:30] what a good- every good story is about- is is a love story. And that love story, uh, is about a character who finds something, an idea, or a person or a quality, they find something that they love. And over the course of the story, if it's a good story, the events of that story is going to try to take it away from them.
And it's up to that character to defend that idea or to defend that thing that they love. And to try to take it [00:34:00] back and protect it. And so in this case, Bobby was protecting his humanity. He was protecting his h-his manhood, his humanness, his rights, uh, uh, to, to be a black man in America. Um, and, and to be afforded all the rights that the constitution says, comes with that. And so I set out to protect, uh, those, those values in this film. And, you know, that was sort of my, my approach as I began this journey.
Krista Smith: [00:34:29] The [00:34:30] dynamic between Bobby Seale and the judge leads to one of the most shocking moments in the film. In this next clip, you'll hear the tensions escalating.
Movie Clip: [00:34:39] Would the defense like to cross examine the witness?
Yes. I'm sitting here saying that I would like to cross examine the witness.
Only lawyers can address a witness.
My lawyer is Charles Gary.
I'm tired of hearing that.
I couldn't care less what you're tired of.
What did you say?
I said it would be impossible for me to [00:35:00] care any less what you are tired of, and I demand to cross examine the witness.
Sit in your chair and be quiet. And don't ever address this court in that manner again.
Krista Smith: [00:35:12] Yahya talks about what it was like to work with Frank Langella who plays judge Julius Hoffman.
Yahya Abdul Mateen: [00:35:19] Oh man. That was, uh, some of the highlights, uh, of, uh, of that, of that, uh, of that experience. Um, you know, and being w- being on such [00:35:30] warring sides, i-i-it's, it's best to do that in my experience as an actor, when you have a good comradery, because then you can- because, you know, arguments, arguments, they're, they're in the moment, they're heated and they're passioned, but they kind of feel good because you want it because it's about scoring, you know, it's about one, one upsmanship.
But we had a lot of fun in between the takes, Frank and I, I'd go up to him, I'd talk, a-ask him for career advice or he'd asked me about, you [00:36:00] know, the work that I've done and say, you know, you're a very talented young man, I hope that you keep on, you know, you know that, that you keep on doing this. I'm glad that you found this profession.
And I'm talking to him about, you know about his work and about how I, you know, appreciate him as well. So, well you know, Frank and I have built a, built a very, very good, good, good rapport during the making of this film. Aaron also knew that, and Bobby Seale, where there was a character that needed to be treated delicately that needed to be given a lot of attention that the actor needed to ma- that as an anchor that I [00:36:30] needed to be safe, so he made sure that I had everything that I needed, uh, on set. He made sure that my own humanity and my own dignity was never questioned or was never in jeopardy throughout the entire filming process. Uh, so I'm, I'm deeply appreciative to Aaron for that.
Alan Baumgarten: [00:36:53] I love working with writer-directors because the vision is so pure and intact. Aaron writes a script, and he [00:37:00] literally hears it in his head when he writes it. And then when he's shooting it, he's paying attention to that, to getting the actual dialogue and performance of that dialogue as close to what he's looking for as possible.
Krista Smith: [00:37:10] This is editor Alan Baumgarten, who worked with Sorkin on Molly's Game and was nominated for an Academy award for his work on American Hustle.
Alan Baumgarten: [00:37:19] Scripts tend to have a fairly high page count, and yet somehow the cut comes out to a reasonable length. I'm amazed at that. My first cut came in very [00:37:30] close to what we ended up with.
Phedon Papamichael: [00:37:31] I mean, they say movie gets made three times, like when you write it, when you shoot it, and then when you edit it. Not in this case, I mean, it's, it's conceived once and that's in Sorkin's mind when he first sits down.
Krista Smith: [00:37:42] That's Academy nominated director of photography Phedon Papamichael, whose credits include Ford v Ferrari and Nebraska.
Phedon Papamichael: [00:37:51] My job is just to, to get as close as possible to that vision and bring it, you know, to the screen, and, and, and he gives me a lot of freedom in terms of [00:38:00] obviously all the lens choices for setups and stuff, but I'm also very conscious of what, what he actually wants.
Krista Smith: [00:38:07] Production designer, Shane Valentino, whose credits include Nocturnal Animals and Straight Outta Compton echoes this sentiment.
Shane Valentino: [00:38:15] I'm grateful for that kind of trust. I'm a type of person that thrives in that environment. Um, it really gives me a lot more confidence and to sort of speak in a way that, um, I, I often don't have, you know, sometimes [00:38:30] it's, you know, we're dictated to, as opposed to really sort of relied on. Um, and so that's been very, very nice.
Krista Smith: [00:38:37] The film's dynamic structure, which shifts back and forth between time and place within scenes presented the film's team with unique challenges.
Susan Lyle: [00:38:46] Breaking down the script into story days and flashbacks was very complicated on this movie.
Krista Smith: [00:38:54] This is costume designer Susan Lyle, who previously collaborated with Sorkin on the film [00:39:00] Molly's Game.
Susan Lyle: [00:39:01] As you break down the script, some of these flashbacks might be one line, a lot of them. So you really need to know where you are. And I had to build kind of a spreadsheet in order to fully understand where I was, because it could be 20, 30 scenes later, we have a flashback to that same day. So finding my, my time and place was the first step and [00:39:30] it took forever. And once I had it though, I really had it. And and it really helps to have it, you know, in your head when you're, uh, when you're meeting actors and talking them through it.
Krista Smith: [00:39:40] Papamichael decided he needed to create a color coded map. So he could determine the days, times, and seasons.
Phedon Papamichael: [00:39:46] I'm known for, you know, not planning too much and not preconceiving too much, but in this case, um, just to track all that, I broke down all the courtroom days, knowing what time of year and the what time, uh, [00:40:00] you know, the seasons, and-and then I had this whole colored map, you know, day one it's, you know, sunny in the courtroom and we do two overcast days, then it's another sunny day. So I had to keep, um, you know, more track of that than I usually do, which was great. It's a great challenge and yeah.
Krista Smith: [00:40:16] Papamichael's granular attention to these details would make a significant difference. Here's editor, Alan Baumgarten.
Alan Baumgarten: [00:40:23] He did a phenomenal job of lighting throughout the entire film. And it's really what gave a lot of the film it's artistry and and beauty in [00:40:30] the sense that, uh, the courtroom had different looks for different days, different times of day, and the different locations were, were very carefully lit.
Krista Smith: [00:40:38] Baumgarten also explains that Papamichael's use of multiple cameras provided a bounty of options in the editing suite.
Aaron Sorkin: [00:40:46] We had a lot of options with coverage thanks to Phedon Papamichael, the DP, the courtroom scenes had some beautiful wide shots, so we were able to stand back or s- feel th-the scale of the room. And a lot of the coverage [00:41:00] was over the shoulder or from a point of view that was a bit of a distance. So from the judges POV or from the witness stand the angles down to the courtroom or down to the, uh, attorneys, had the proper, uh, rake and so forth. And we felt very naturalistic in a way.
Krista Smith: [00:41:18] For production designer Shane Valentino, the films color palette was central to his approach.
Shane Valentino: [00:41:25] And this is not a documentary, right? So there are parameters so that people actually can- when they [00:41:30] see it, they can say, oh, w-we're in that particular period, but then there is a lot, when you're inside those lines, you have a lot of flexibility.
That's where we can play with color palette, right? So we can invoke some kind of feelings. In a lot of the films I've worked on I've tried to pick colors that could be sort of a way to move through emotions, and then also to also speak to particular characters. We use red, white, and blue, the colors of the flag as these colors that were sort of significant, [00:42:00] uh, for for moments in f- in the film. So when all of the, the, the, the confrontation is between the Chicago Police Department, which is significantly blue, and so that- the counterpoint to that wasn't- was another group- blue grouping that I did, which was all of the protesting, like when Tom Hayden, Rennie, uh, Dave Dellinger, uh, uh, uh, Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman are all together.
We, we, I [00:42:30] used a lot of blues, uh, just sometimes very subtly, but that's how I sort of marked them together. And then when we ever saw them separated the, uh, protesters, you know, this group I just talked about, we've used sort of like whites and ivories to sort of speak to them when they were outside of them being clumped together.
And then reds, I use more as about, uh, as a, as a link for all of those, those traditional power structures. So when we were in the courthouse and when we're in the Attorney General's office, we have those [00:43:00] hits of like reds and burgundies.
Krista Smith: [00:43:01] Creating costumes for the large ensemble cast set a relentless pace for costume designer, Susan Lyle.
Susan Lyle: [00:43:08] I have come up with 382 principle costumes. That is before police officers and extras. So that is a lot, that's a lot, even I, I was sort of, oh, is that a lot? But on Molly's Game, Jessica Chastain hit 90 something changes alone. There were some days in the courtroom [00:43:30] when our seven plus Bobby plus Kunstler plus Wineglass plus Schultz and, uh, foreign and the judge, you know, they would have to all change.
It was all, it was 19 peop- 19 in that little core, two or three times a day sometimes. And, and then there's also the jury, the court clerk, the stenographer, the bailiffs, the y-y- [00:44:00] and the gallery. It was really something. It was very, very busy. Every minute of the day was very, very busy. There were no periods of waiting around and nothing to do.
Krista Smith: [00:44:10] The scenes of the gatherings and demonstrations, as well as the violence that erupted between the police and protestors were filmed over several days and nights in Chicago's Grant Park, across from the Hilton Hotel on Michigan Avenue, where many of the convention delegates had stayed. And by the Logan Statue, the hilltop monument that served as a gathering [00:44:30] point for demonstrators.
Phedon Papamichael first researched the settings using archival photographs and documentary footage. Surprisingly, he found that the story's main sites had not changed significantly since 1968.
Phedon Papamichael: [00:44:43] We shot in, in Grant Park in in front of a Hilton, uh, the actual foot bridges, which, um, amazingly enough, uh, we looked at, you know at photographs from the sixties, and there's of course some new buildings that, you know, we could fix a bit in post, but it's, it turned out that [00:45:00] w-we'll have to do very little.
Krista Smith: [00:45:01] To capture the riot scenes, Papamichael used several different cameras, including two free roaming cameras, a handheld camera, a steady cam, or sometimes two handheld cameras. He also used vintage widescreen lenses that help create a dreamy, surreal atmosphere that contrasted with the courtroom scenes.
Phedon Papamichael: [00:45:22] Where we have a lot of movement, uh, all of the Chicago riots, all really has that energy from almost like, you know, Haskell Wexler's [00:45:30] Medium Cool. Um, so we did uh, handheld, and it has a very, very different energy, uh, in terms of, uh, the framing and the compositions and, uh, really gives it a lot of energy that since it's intercutting, it's really a nice uh, juxtaposition to the two uh, visual spirits of the movie.
Krista Smith: [00:45:49] When it came time to edit those scenes, Alan Baumgarten inner cut footage from the actual riots as well as footage from the film that inspired Papamichael, Haskell Wexler's [00:46:00] Medium Cool. The cinema verite style drama set in Chicago in the summer of 1968.
Alan Baumgarten: [00:46:06] Part way through the edit, Aaron decided we should explore putting some archival footage into the riots. We had a bunch of material that we'd been looking at for reference, um, from the events of that time, and we decided to use a little bit of it during the first riot. And we clearly said we'd make it black and white right away, just so it would separate and be an obvious, uh, [00:46:30] reference in, in terms of being authentic and giving it some energy and being almost like a touchstone or a brushstroke, uh, to augment the material that we had, which was already very powerful.
Krista Smith: [00:46:41] Production designer Shane Valentino thought carefully about the world he was creating, particularly the Black Panthers headquarters.
Shane Valentino: [00:46:49] We're in a day and age where I think we are far more aware of how we occupy spaces and how we represent spaces. And so I wanted to actually not just show, uh, the [00:47:00] Black Panthers as this militarized group. The approach to me was to try and highlight uh, a lot of the different programs that were part of the Black Panther.
I mean, we're only in it for a very short amount of time, probably like a page, but we decided to do a um, steady cam shot and we start and we can look into some other rooms. And so we try to show how they had food drives and they had clothing drives and they had all these kinds of educational programs.
Krista Smith: [00:47:25] For costume designer Susan Lyle, historical references were a source of [00:47:30] inspiration, and she sourced vintage pieces extensively.
Susan Lyle: [00:47:34] My approach was to look up what was real and start there and then make it cinematic. Most everything is, is a period piece in this film. I rented from all these different costume houses. Actually, I tried to keep it more of a Northeast feel to it, because it has a certain feel and certain look to it that I thought was more appropriate and actually did a lot of sourcing in Chicago. [00:48:00] Uh, just because it's so great to do out there.
Krista Smith: [00:48:03] Lyle worked closely with the actors, who came prepared with their own research and thoughts about their characters.
Susan Lyle: [00:48:09] Jerry Rubin is- he's our head- headband man. And he is our stripes and gold and green man. Jeremy Strong arrived at his first fitting wearing a headband that he found himself. And then he slowly started to show me a few more he'd [00:48:30] found, uh, he was a lot of fun for me. Um, he was really daring.
Sasha Baron Cohen in playing Abbie Hoffman wanted to make sure that whatever costume he wore, there was a reference in reality, in history, abbie was seen in it somewhere before. It was the birth of modern activism and it was being loud and it was being, uh, [00:49:00] colorful. I would say that Abbie Hoffman was very calculated in everything he wore, even though it's supposed to appear as if he so unassumingly got out of bed and put on this shirt that has a snake embroidered all the way up. He understood that he would be photographed. I'm sure of it and, uh, he knew what he was doing.
Krista Smith: [00:49:23] As the film entered post-production, the timeliness of the story, and the parallels with events happening in America [00:49:30] today came into sharp focus. As we conclude this episode, I leave you with editor Alan Baumgarten, who explains.
Alan Baumgarten: [00:49:37] As it happened, when we were finishing this film, the events that we've now been witnessing for the past several months of uh, protest and civil unrest and police in the streets of of cities across the country were happening on the nightly news, it was uh, quite a big shock, really, and chilling to see, um, tear gas, police attacking [00:50:00] protesters, uh, the police taking off badges, the military presence in the street, and know that, you know just the day before we were locking picture or mixing the sound and doing color correction. So as we were finishing this film, we were literally seeing some of the same images and content material playing out in real life in our own world. So it was a quite, um, overwhelming in a sense for us to be finishing this film, as some of this was actually happening.
[00:50:30] Krista Smith: [00:50:33] Again, for the full length versions of these interviews, listen to the official Trial of the Chicago 7 podcast. The film, The Trial of the Chicago 7, is streaming now on Netflix. For more content to explore, please visit NetflixQueue.com. That's Netflix-q-u-e-u-e dot com and follow us on Instagram and Twitter.
Listen in next time for more like this. [00:51:00]