THE COMPANY YOU KEEP
****
Director: Robert Redford
Screenwriter: Lem Dobbs adapted from the eponymous novel by Neil Gordon
Principal cast:
Robert Redford
Susan Sarandon
Shia Lebeouf
Brit Marling
Chris Cooper
Julie Christie
Country: USA/Canada
Classification:
Runtime: 125 mins.
Australian release date: 18 April 2013
The Weather Underground was an organisation opposed to the war in Vietnam that grew out of the Students for a Democratic Society groups on US campuses, in the 1970s. A clandestine, militant, revolutionary movement, its aim was to overthrow the US government by conducting a campaign of bombings targeting government buildings - evacuation warnings were issued prior to the explosions, consequently no civilians were hurt. It was a period in history when young men were conscripted and sent off to fight a war that many did not agree with; the Weathermen believed that, “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows” (adopting their name from Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues) and that the aggressive, anti-Communist US government needed to be brought down, in order to stop the war.
The Company You Keep, although a work of fiction, does, in Robert Redford’s words, “…..give the audience a look inside of an event that is a piece of American history.” Redford has also said that while he was not involved personally in the movement as he was busy raising his family during those years, he knew of people who were committed to the cause. His aim was to make a film that dealt more with the question of whether or not people change their political beliefs over time and how one is often held ransom by the past, until the truth emerges. In this case, his story involves a zealous journalist and a fugitive who has long been underground, both of whom are searching for the truth.
Jim Grant (Robert Redford) is a single father who has been working as a civil rights lawyer for a number of years in leafy Albany, NY, when his past catches up with him after the arrest of one of his former Weathermen comrades, Sharon Solarz (Susan Sarandon). A local journalist, Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf), becomes involved and figures there is a Pulitzer Prize-winning story in the offing. He, and we, go on the run when Grant, accused of killing someone during a long-ago armed robbery, leaves his daughter Rebecca (Brit Marling), with his brother Daniel (Chris Cooper), and sets off to contact other members of the organisation in order to clear his name.
This is one of the Oscar-winning Redford’s best works as both director and actor, a superior film on all levels. Lem Dobbs’ screenplay, adapted from Neil Gordon’s novel of the same name, is a complex, taut tale that keeps you riveted for over two hours. An amazing cast includes Julie Christie who plays a non-repentant radical; Sam Elliot, who’s an old leftie living the good life; Nick Nolte, who knows where all the underground Weathermen are; and Brendan Gleeson as a retired police chief. Sarandon gives one of her finest recent performances when interviewed by LaBeouf while she is awaiting trial: he represents a generation whose attitude to the ‘60s is one of derision and cynicism; she is still the passionate radical, committed to creating a world which gave people their civil rights and who now bears no regrets for her past actions. Perhaps the real message in The Company You Keep is that the way you choose to live depends upon the principles you uphold. As Grant says to Shepard at a crucial point in the film, “Secrets are dangerous things, Ben. We all think we want to know them. But if you've ever kept one yourself then you understand to do so is not just knowing something about someone else, it's discovering something about yourself.”
Screenwriter: Lem Dobbs adapted from the eponymous novel by Neil Gordon
Principal cast:
Robert Redford
Susan Sarandon
Shia Lebeouf
Brit Marling
Chris Cooper
Julie Christie
Country: USA/Canada
Classification:
Runtime: 125 mins.
Australian release date: 18 April 2013
The Weather Underground was an organisation opposed to the war in Vietnam that grew out of the Students for a Democratic Society groups on US campuses, in the 1970s. A clandestine, militant, revolutionary movement, its aim was to overthrow the US government by conducting a campaign of bombings targeting government buildings - evacuation warnings were issued prior to the explosions, consequently no civilians were hurt. It was a period in history when young men were conscripted and sent off to fight a war that many did not agree with; the Weathermen believed that, “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows” (adopting their name from Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues) and that the aggressive, anti-Communist US government needed to be brought down, in order to stop the war.
The Company You Keep, although a work of fiction, does, in Robert Redford’s words, “…..give the audience a look inside of an event that is a piece of American history.” Redford has also said that while he was not involved personally in the movement as he was busy raising his family during those years, he knew of people who were committed to the cause. His aim was to make a film that dealt more with the question of whether or not people change their political beliefs over time and how one is often held ransom by the past, until the truth emerges. In this case, his story involves a zealous journalist and a fugitive who has long been underground, both of whom are searching for the truth.
Jim Grant (Robert Redford) is a single father who has been working as a civil rights lawyer for a number of years in leafy Albany, NY, when his past catches up with him after the arrest of one of his former Weathermen comrades, Sharon Solarz (Susan Sarandon). A local journalist, Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf), becomes involved and figures there is a Pulitzer Prize-winning story in the offing. He, and we, go on the run when Grant, accused of killing someone during a long-ago armed robbery, leaves his daughter Rebecca (Brit Marling), with his brother Daniel (Chris Cooper), and sets off to contact other members of the organisation in order to clear his name.
This is one of the Oscar-winning Redford’s best works as both director and actor, a superior film on all levels. Lem Dobbs’ screenplay, adapted from Neil Gordon’s novel of the same name, is a complex, taut tale that keeps you riveted for over two hours. An amazing cast includes Julie Christie who plays a non-repentant radical; Sam Elliot, who’s an old leftie living the good life; Nick Nolte, who knows where all the underground Weathermen are; and Brendan Gleeson as a retired police chief. Sarandon gives one of her finest recent performances when interviewed by LaBeouf while she is awaiting trial: he represents a generation whose attitude to the ‘60s is one of derision and cynicism; she is still the passionate radical, committed to creating a world which gave people their civil rights and who now bears no regrets for her past actions. Perhaps the real message in The Company You Keep is that the way you choose to live depends upon the principles you uphold. As Grant says to Shepard at a crucial point in the film, “Secrets are dangerous things, Ben. We all think we want to know them. But if you've ever kept one yourself then you understand to do so is not just knowing something about someone else, it's discovering something about yourself.”