Mandarin Morality

By J.C.

THE TRIAL OF THE CATONSVILLE NINE

Directed by GORDON DAVIDSON Screenplay by DANIEL BERRIGAN and SAUL LEVITT

Father Daniel Berrigan, S.J. (played by Ed Flanders) addresses the court, reading from a poem of his own composition: "We have chosen to say, with the gift of our freedom, that the violence stops here, the death stops here, the suppression of truth stops here, this war stops here."

The eight other defendants look at each other and smile, smiles that convey much of what is wrong with this film of The Trial of the Catonsville Nine. They are smug smiles, full of condescension and unchecked theatrical egotism. The movie is extracted virtually as a piece from Father Berrigan's play, which was in turn a dramatization of his 1968 trial for burning draft records. There Berrigan, his brother Philip and seven other defendants tried to reverse the guilt and put the whole Viet Nam War on trial. But the characters in the film seem to be acting less from deep moral imperative than at the behest of a shared mandarin morality.

One by one the nine defendants relate to judge and jury and audience the separate political histories that led them to this common act of resistance. We listen, waiting to be moved, but we begin instead to notice that the defendants (or the actors playing them) are showing not courage so much as arrogance. They come before us flashing their spirituality like a driver's license.

Resentment grows deeper because we begin to feel cheated, not permitted to empathize with the characters, or even understand them, because they remain so immaculately aloof. This is partly the fault of Director Gordon Davidson, who has used his original company from the theater without having them scale down their acting for the screen. Peter Strauss's reserved and affecting Thomas Lewis is an exception, as is Flanders' creditable Daniel Berrigan. Almost everyone else--most irritatingly Douglass Watson as Philip Berrigan--plays for the rafters. Haskell Wexler's superb photography, however, effectively challenges the visual restrictions of a transposed stage play.

Despite all its faults, there is no doubt that the film was made as an act of political conscience. It was produced, in fact, by Gregory Peck, who financed it entirely out of his own pocket. All the sadder, then, that The Trial of the Catonsville Nine is so misconceived.

--J.C.

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