Chicago 10 is meant to build the mythology real people and events using non-fiction elements: Archival footage and–in dramatizing the trial of the protesters–animation. Director Brett Morgen uses a technique called Motion Capture, so that he himself could act out many of the courtroom characters. His physical movements were translated to drawn caricatures and then the voices were added from various actors (Roy Scheider as Judge Julius Hoffman is particularly surprising). By blending the animation with archival footage and a present day soundtrack (Beastie Boys “Sabotage” plays under archival footage of the hippies storming a monument in Grant Park), Morgen intends to ram the spirit of 60’s era protest into current events. However, I’ll be telling people to go see Chicago 10 for the pieces that are more documentary than call-to-arms.

The Yippies (led by Abbie Hoffman) and MOBE (National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, led by Rennie Davis) are organized protesters going to the 1968 Democratic National Convention to renounce the nomination of LBJ, and thereby a government running an unjust war. They converge on a city already in a bad year (the police in Chicago’s 1968 riots came off as the barbarian horde) and Mayor Daley publicly promised any disorderly conduct at the Convention would be squashed. Conversely, Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies were promising the start of the New Revolution. Hence, tensions were high around the Convention before the bunting was even hung.

The hippies take over Grant Park in Chicago. They rally, have concerts, et cetera and things are okay until they try to break a city ordinance and sleep in the park. The trigger happy police are more than happy to break it up with tear gas. The next day, another battle when the hippies provoke police by “taking over” a city monument. So, before any march to the Convention begins, two dramatic clashes between hippies and police occur over the breaking of basic city ordinance. Herein is where Morgen’s mythologizing starts to crumble in the crucible. If, say, Martin Luther King were to march on the Convention, it would have been so organized that no other provocation would have been allowed. The pacifist’s weapon is bringing enough rope for the opposition to hang themselves, not giving them every reason to hang the pacifist.

For an audience that has already turned Abbie Hoffman and Co. into American Heroes, Morgen’s hero-ization will be applauded. For those of us who are at all skeptical about the hippies’ strategy (i.e. orgies lead to love and peace), Chicago 10 comes off as preachy, ham-fisted and even a lesson in how not to protest. It’s a captivating film and the archival footage alone is worth the price of admission, but it’s appealing in all the ways Morgen hoped it wouldn’t be. It fails to recruit a new generation of agitators to march like the good old days and, for a critical viewer, brings into question whether the good old days were really any good at all.

(Chicago 10 opens in limited theaters tonight.)