Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8 (1987) on Netflix
R19871h 58mDocumentaryDramaHistory
Eight men are tried in Chicago, accused of conspiring to cause the rioting that broke out during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Their dialogue is drawn from the trial transcripts.
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- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.2/10285 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Plot summary
In the wake of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, eight men are charged with conspiring to cause the rioting in Chicago. Their trial begins in 1969, with William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass representing the defense before Judge Julius Hoffman. The defendants include David Dellinger, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, Bobby Seale, Lee Weiner and John Froines. Seale demands his constitutional rights in the courtroom. The dialogue follows the trial transcripts, and the defendants, the attorneys and the judge address the camera as though it were the jury. Between the recreations come archival footage of the protests and interviews with the men who stood trial.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8 (1987)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Before CBS turned the project down, Jeremy Kagan had Marlon Brando, Walter Matthau, George C. Scott and Dustin Hoffman committed to work on it for scale in 1976; the network thought the material too controversial and nobody cared about the '60s.
- In Conspiracy, the dialogue is taken from the original trial transcripts, and apart from archival footage and interview snippets with the real participants, the whole film stays inside the courtroom.
- All eight of the original defendants, plus defense attorneys William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass, were interviewed for the film, and the defendants also spent time on the set during filming.
- Kagan wrote the script in 1979, but CBS commissioned one and ultimately declined to make the film, because the defendants' courtroom language was unacceptable to the network and Kagan believed the politics made executives nervous.
