Skip to main contentVietnam was the first war fought in America's living room, beamed to millions of homes courtesy of television news. But it was the 1974 kidnapping of Patty Hearst that helped solidify network news' role in telling our country's story. One of the first media frenzies played out in the world of modern technology, Hearst's kidnapping was a spectacle of the late 20th century, where news and tragedy were broadcast less as a means of conveying information than as a new form of voyeuristic entertainment.
For those of you too young to know who Patty Hearst was, or those for whom the '70s are all a blur, here's a brief recap: Patty, the granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst (think Citizen Kane) and heir to his publishing empire, was a 19-year-old Berkeley sophomore in 1974 when she was kidnapped by a small group of radical militants calling themselves the Symbionese Liberation Army. With the entire country watching, the SLA began sending taped messages to the Hearst family, which included Patty reassuring Mom and Dad that she was OK and urging them to do whatever her kidnappers demanded.
Finally, the SLA demanded that the Hearst family use its fortune to provide free food to poor people. The family grudgingly acquiesced, but the food giveaways backfired, turning into riots. Thirty-four days into the kidnapping, a tape arrived that had Patty turning against her parents and showing sympathy for her captors. On her 59th day of captivity, Patty Hearst renounced her family, changed her name to Tania, and declared herself a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army. The media circus, already in full effect, was about to get worse.
Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst, the new documentary from Robert Stone (Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey), offers a crash course in the history of the SLA and Patricia Campbell Hearst. Guerrilla paints an amazing portrait of one of the biggest news events of the '70s, drawing upon contemporary interviews and a wealth of archival footage, including old news feeds and surveillance footage of a gun-toting and apparently brainwashed Hearst at a bank robbery.
Stone digs deep into the history of the SLA, placing the organization in the larger context of post-1960s America, when young people were increasingly disillusioned with their country. As one former SLA member explains it, they were part of a generation that was raised with the understanding of how the United States had defeated Hitler, only to see America acting like Hitler in Vietnam. As an organization, the SLA started out as a group of radicals determined to subvert a system that exploited the poor and working class to benefit the wealthy. Under the charismatic leadership of escaped convict Donald DeFreeze-who called himself Cinque-the self-proclaimed freedom fighters fancied themselves moderna-day Robin Hoods.
Guerrilla looks at the odd tale of Hearst and the SLA with the sort of clarity that only comes with the passage of time. Stone shows how the media turned the mounting tragedies into programming, merely replaying the statements issued by the SLA, the Hearst family and law enforcement without offering any sort of journalistic comment. News programs were more than happy to play the infamous SLA tapes, showing poor people queued up to receive food handouts, without examining the group's background-or why a terrorist group's biggest demand was to feed the hungry.
Through hindsight and Stone's documentary view, the Symbionese Liberation Army emerges as an organization that touched upon valid concerns but chose the worst course of action. What is chilling, 30 years after the fact, is not the brutality of what the SLA did but how little in this country has changed. The poor, oppressed and disenfranchised masses Cinque rambles on about helping have only grown in number, while the stranglehold of corporate wealth around the throat of America has only become tighter.
If this documentary has from a great weakness-other than an abrupt ending-it's the lack of participation by Hearst herself. Stone only interviews a handful of people, and Patty-or Tania-is noticeably absent. At the same time, Hearst was always the least interesting character in her own dramatic story, seemingly the perfect candidate for brainwashing, based on her public persona as a charisma-challenged empty vessel. Guerrilla establishes the legend of Patty Hearst-and the people who surrounded her-to be larger than the woman herself.
Not rated. Cinema 21, 616 NW 21st Ave., 223-4515. 7 pm Friday-Thursday, Jan. 28-Feb. 3. Additional shows 1 and 3 pm Saturday-Sunday. $4-$7.
WWeek 2015