William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe (2009)
http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/movies/13kunstler.html
Radical Lawyer's Appeal (and Rebuttal)
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: November 13, 2009
For William Kunstler, the wild-haired, radical civil rights lawyer
with the raspy voice who became a left-wing political star in the
late 1960s, Michelangelo's statue of David symbolized how he saw
himself. A photograph of the statue that morphs into a drawing of
David twirling his slingshot is a recurrent image in the crisply
made, largely admiring documentary "William Kunstler: Disturbing the
Universe." To him, it embodied the moment everyone faces at some time
or other when one has to stand up to injustice or keep silent.
A refresher course on the history of American left-wing politics in
the 1960s and '70s as well as an affectionate personal biography of
Kunstler, "Disturbing the Universe" was directed by Sarah and Emily
Kunstler, his two daughters from his second marriage. Although the
film, with its home movies and family reminiscences, portrays him as
a heroic crusader for justice, it is by no means a hagiography of a
man who earned widespread contempt late in his career for defending pariahs.
The metamorphosis of Kunstler, who died in 1995, from armchair
liberal to middle-aged hippie revolutionary reflected the volatile
political climate of the era. A general-practice lawyer who lived in
Westchester County, he became involved in the civil rights movement
through a local housing lawsuit in 1960; the following year he flew
to Mississippi at the behest of Rowland Watts, the legal director of
the American Civil Liberties Union, to support the Freedom Riders.
Later he defended the Catonsville Nine Roman Catholic activists,
including Daniel and Philip Berrigan who burned draft files to
protest the Vietnam War. He achieved national notoriety as the lead
counsel in the theatrical trial of the Chicago Seven, who were
accused of conspiracy and inciting to riot during the 1968 Democratic
National Convention.
It was the events surrounding that trial that radicalized Kunstler,
the film says. He was outraged by the treatment of the Black Panther
activist Bobby Seale, the eighth defendant, whose trial was severed
during the proceedings and who was bound and gagged in the courtroom
after hurling invective at Judge Julius Hoffman.
Several weeks later the fatal shooting of the Black Panther leader
Fred Hampton in his bed by Chicago police further incensed Kunstler.
The film includes an excerpt from an angry speech in which he
denounced all white people (including himself) as racists.
He had his first major setback in September 1971 as a negotiator and
lawyer for inmates at Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New
York who seized the prison to demand better living conditions. After
armed state troopers stormed Attica, killing dozens, he blamed his
own idealism for his reluctance to tell the inmates what their
options really were. Kunstler's successful negotiation of a standoff
between American Indians and the United States government at Wounded
Knee, S.D., in 1973, was a personal redemption of sorts.
The critical turning point for Kunstler's reputation was his 1986
defense of Larry Davis, a Bronx drug dealer accused of shooting six
police officers. He lost more of his support after the 1991 acquittal
of his client, the Egyptian-born terrorist El Sayyid Nosair, for the
murder of the militant Rabbi Meir Kahane, the Jewish Defense League
founder and Israeli politician. That brought picketers to the
Kunstler home, and Emily, who narrates the movie, recalls that she
and Sarah pretended they didn't live there when they returned from school.
Other signs that Kunstler had grown overly fond of the spotlight were
his defense of a cat for "crimes against humanity" in a mock
television trial and his embrace of the Mafia chieftain John Gotti in
front of the courthouse press corps. A loss of perspective and an
inflated sense of self-importance: all too often these are side
effects of stardom, whether in Hollywood or in the legal profession.
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Filmmakers' Controversy: Their Dad
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/movies/15rose.html
By CONSTANCE ROSENBLUM
Published: November 13, 2009
AT the charmingly retro Waverly Restaurant on the Avenue of the
Americas in Greenwich Village, not to be confused with the stridently
exclusive Waverly Inn nearby, a color headshot of one of the
best-known legal figures of the 20th century hangs on the wall. His
name was William M. Kunstler, and this celebrated civil rights
lawyer, who for nearly two decades lived around the corner, ate lunch
here nearly every day.
"He sat in the last booth in the back and ordered egg salad on white
with butter, along with a malted," his daughter Emily, now 31,
recalled the other day, sitting with her sister, Sarah, 33, just
below the portrait. "He was a man of simple tastes."
For the Kunstler girls, who often joined their father for these
meals, living with such a lightning rod of an individual was an
intense but decidedly mixed blessing. As much as they came to admire
their father's political passions, especially as they grew older,
theirs was hardly a typical or an easy childhood. Mr. Kunstler's
causes ranged from the widely admired (the Berrigan brothers) to the
roundly condemned (the Mafia chief John Gotti). F.B.I. agents
stationed themselves across the street from the family's house;
demonstrators from the Jewish Defense Organization picketed.
Now the daughters have captured their father's long and tumultuous
career, along with glimpses of what it was like to be part of this
unusual family, in the documentary "William Kunstler: Disturbing the
Universe." The title comes from the T. S. Eliot poem "The Love Song
of J. Alfred Prufrock," one of their father's favorites.
The film, which opened Friday, is part of a small but sometimes
illuminating genre: movies about famous parents made by their
offspring. Perhaps the best-known example is "My Architect,"
Nathaniel Kahn's 2003 meditation about his brilliant but supremely
complicated father, Louis Kahn. Other examples include "Heir to an
Execution" by Ivy Meeropol, a granddaughter of Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg, the couple convicted of spying for the Soviet Union. "The
Ballad of Ramblin' Jack," a bio-documentary about Ramblin' Jack
Elliott, was made by his daughter Aiyana Elliott.
In the film "Shouting Fire: Stories From the Edge of Free Speech,"
shown on HBO earlier this year, Liz Garbus uses the biography and
opinions of her father, the noted First Amendment lawyer Martin
Garbus, to explore issues related to his great cause. And "The Hand
of Fatima," a portrait of the rock critic Robert Palmer and his
favorite band that opened Friday at Anthology Film Archives, is the
work of the critic's daughter, Augusta Palmer.
Such an approach can present pitfalls. While a film by a family
member offers the benefits of access and intimacy, the results can
land as hagiography or hatchet job.
"I thought about that issue a lot," Ms. Palmer said. "A film about
someone close to you can be simply navel gazing, on matters about
which no one else is interested. On the other hand, the closeness
often enables you to get at something few others can get at. And of
course struggles with the parent-child relationship are almost
universal, and that's also something an audience can relate to." For
a filmmaker child of a celebrated parent, the urge to tell that
parent's story on screen can feel urgent, especially as a grown child
seeks to come to terms with an often complex legacy. And there is
often a reason a child is moved to tell a parent's story at a
particular moment in life.
Sarah Kunstler, who also practices criminal law, spent five years
making advocacy films with her sister, largely about the criminal
justice system. In 2005, on the 10th anniversary of their father's
death, the time seemed right to explore a chapter of political
history closer to home.
"We were 17 and 18 when he died," Sarah said. "Now we were
approaching 30. It's the time you're making your life choices,
choices that remind you of your parents."
Mr. Kunstler, who died in 1995 at the age of 76, is linked with some
of the most memorable chapters of late 20th-century American history,
events whose shorthand labels the Chicago Seven, Attica, Wounded
Knee offer a capsule history of a turbulent time. But his defense
in subsequent years of very different clients, among them a man
accused of bombing the World Trade Center and another accused of
murdering a rabbi, led him to be described by Vanity Fair magazine as
"the most hated lawyer in America."
Although responsibilities for making the film were shared Emily was
the editor and narrator, Sarah was the writer, and both are listed as
director and producer that is not to say there were no
disagreements, sometimes about issues as tiny as the use of a
particular word in the script.
"We'd fight about the most trivial things," Emily admitted, patting
her sister's arm affectionately as they sat side by side in the red
booth. "We were overworked, underslept. There was a huge lack of
professionalism." Sarah added: "We fought all the time. We'd have
huge arguments. But we'd also make up. It's like childbirth. It's
awful, but in this case we were left with the gift of the movie."
Their goal, they said, was not to produce a straight-ahead "on the
one hand, on the other hand" documentary, but to offer a more nuanced
and intimate portrait, one that sought to understand him politically.
"We wanted to tell what we remembered and how it impacted our life,"
Sarah said.
A few weeks ago the three Kunstler women were reunited under a single
roof. Mr. Kunstler's widow, the radical lawyer Margaret Ratner
Kunstler, moved from the family house in the Village to a Park Slope
brownstone. There she was joined by Emily, who had been living in
Williamsburg, and Sarah, who had been living in Clinton Hill with her
husband, Jesse Ferguson, and their 8-month-old son, William Atticus
Ferguson Kunstler.
The move to Brooklyn resulted in part from Sarah Kunstler's desire to
be surrounded by family while raising a child. But it seemed no
coincidence that the family made the move just as the film was being
released. "We were saying goodbye to the family house," Sarah said.
"But at the same time our mother said she got her family back, and
our dad too."
--------
Film is daughters' homage to radical lawyer William Kunstler
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/movies/2010311701_mr20william.html
"William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe" is an honest and
emotionally complex documentary from Sarah and Emily Kunstler,
daughters of the late defense attorney, who attempt to separate the
legend from the father they knew.
By Tom Keogh
November 19, 2009
In the second half of the 20th century, attorney William Kunstler was
a hero to many who embraced progressive and radical politics in the
United States.
Abandoning small-business law in the late 1950s, he became fearlessly
involved in defending civil-rights advocates the following decade.
Kunstler used the courtroom to wage war against racism and, later,
other excesses of power.
That chapter of his life and many others are included in the
thoughtful and, in some ways, provocative documentary "William
Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe," a portrait of a man reviled by
some and admired by others.
During the 1960s and '70s, Kunstler became closely associated with
dramatic battles between government at all levels and activists of
all stripe. In 1969, he defended the Chicago Eight against the charge
of inciting riots during the previous year's Democratic National
Convention. Four years later, he represented American Indian Movement
co-founders Russell Means and Dennis Banks in their trial for the
occupation of Wounded Knee.
Kunstler's accomplishments, principles and courage are all here in
"Disturbing the Universe." But there is something else that adds an
unexpected layer of emotional complexity.
Directed by Emily and Sarah Kunstler, Kunstler's daughters from his
second marriage, the film is also an attempt by its makers to
separate the legend from the father they knew. The aging Kunstler who
settled in New York to raise a young family was no longer an obvious
darling of the liberal set but rather a defender of less-sympathetic
clients: a drug dealer charged with killing six cops in the Bronx;
the assassin of Rabbi Meir Kahane; one of the accused rapists of the
Central Park jogger. (The latter, Yusef Salaam, was exonerated and
released following a seven-year appeal.)
Emily and Sarah grew up not in the old, warm glow of admiration
heaped on Kunstler but instead facing the wrath of New Yorkers who
vilified him. As second acts go, Kunstler's drew scorn and threats
toward his daughters.
This moving and fascinating documentary is an honest effort to
present both a collective and personal history of a man whose most
controversial work puzzled his frightened children. For them,
"Disturbing the Universe" is not only an accomplished film but good therapy.
--
Tom Keogh: tomwkeogh@yahoo.com
--------
Film honors radical lawyer Kunstler
http://www.telegram.com/article/20091116/NEWS/911160354/1011
By Larry Neumeister
November 16, 2009
NEW YORK They grew up in a home like no other where bullets
arrived in the mail and where their father went to the basement to
open packages he feared could contain explosives.
That was life for the daughters of the late civil rights lawyer
William Kunstler, whose clients ranged from Martin Luther King Jr. to
Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman to John Gotti. Now his daughters are telling
their stories and bringing him back to life on film for a new generation.
The documentary, "William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe," by
Emily and Sarah Kunstler, was released Friday.
The sisters made the 85-minute film to tell their father's story
through the eyes of young girls who sometimes could not understand
his representation of society's most despised.
On the playground, the girls weren't always sure how to answer the
taunts of schoolmates who wanted to know why their father was
representing villains accused of shooting at police officers or
raping a Central Park jogger or committing terrorism.
"We were obsessed. We wanted them to be innocent. We didn't know how
to fight those playground battles for him," Emily, 31, said during a
recent interview.
Sarah, 33, agreed, citing the weeks when protesters gathered outside
their home, once even breaking their home's front window.
"You wonder why is this so important that it's worth doing this to
our family," she said.
By his death in September 1995, Kunstler's booming baritone voice and
unmanaged hair were expected in New York courthouses whenever the
most unsavory of clients needed a lawyer willing to take up a
seemingly lost cause. A surprising amount of the time, Kunstler ended
up winning.
William Moses Kunstler was an ordinary New York City lawyer in the
1950s, living in the suburbs with a wife and two daughters.
His life turned dramatically when he traveled to the South in 1960 to
join the civil rights movement as a lawyer with the American Civil
Liberties Union. The film portrays a man whose parents had black
servants transforming into a legal icon of civil rights struggles.
He became famous when he represented anti-war protesters arrested at
the Democratic National Convention in 1968, a group of activists who
became known as the Chicago 8. Before the trial was over, Kunstler's
hair was long and he was sentenced to more than 40 months in prison
for contempt of court for his courtroom behavior.
Kunstler wore his conviction like a badge and traveled the country
making speeches, attracting scorn from law enforcement agencies.
By 1976, Kunstler had divorced and remarried, starting a second
family with a fellow activist lawyer, Margaret Ratner Kunstler. Emily
and Sarah were born soon afterward, two years apart.
Kunstler's world didn't make a lot of sense to small children,
especially his own, not when he increasingly was representing people
like mobsters, drug dealers and killers.
Sarah chuckles as she recalls vowing as a child never to follow the
path of her father. She graduated from Columbia Law School in 2004.
"Incrementally, your parents creep into you," she said.
--------
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
The radical lawyer as star
By Wesley Morris
Globe Staff / November 13, 2009
'William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe'' is indeed about the
radical-leftist attorney. But this engrossing and provocative
documentary is also about a tragic kind of liberal guilt. The many
cases Kunstler took until his death in 1995 - he defended the
defenseless (African-American victims of discrimination) and the
seemingly indefensible (alleged rapists, murderers, terrorists, and
assassins) - suggest a man whose political sympathies bordered on the
promiscuous.
This became a real problem for two of Kunstler's daughters, Emily and
Sarah. They wrote and directed "Disturbing the Universe,'' and in it
wrestle with their father's incendiary taste in clients.
Emily and Sarah are the children in the second family Kunstler
started, with the civil rights lawyer Margaret Ratner in the
mid-1970s, after his years as a notorious champion of blacks,
radicals, Vietnam veterans, American Indians, and the inhumanely
housed men of Attica prison. The girls were proud of their father's
early fights. But the latter years of his career vexed them.
Kunstler kept his legal office in the family's Greenwich Village
brownstone, and, in agreeing to represent, say, El Sayyid Nosair, who
murdered the Israeli extremist politician Meir Kahane, the house
seemed to be under siege. Bullets would arrive in the mail. The girls
couldn't go out. "Why was I being punished for something my father
did?'' one of them wonders, courtesy of narration, in classic teenage fashion.
Using well-deployed archival footage, the filmmakers present a brief
history of their father, how he began his adulthood as a suburban
lawyer in 1950s Westchester, and found himself drawn to civil-rights
activism, then, by the late 1960s and his star-making defense of the
Chicago 8, to drugs and radicalism.
The film argues that Kunstler's stardom was, in fact, a side effect
he came to enjoy. His public embraces of John Gotti and frequent
appearances on Phil Donahue's talk show bear this out. The notoriety
that came with defending men like Nosair and one of the black
teenagers accused in the Central Park rape trial appealed to him. One
colleague (and Sarah Kunstler's law-firm boss), Elizabeth Fink, says
Kunstler did take those cases for fame. Alan Dershowitz, in a room
with one of the Kunstler daughters, reluctantly says that her father
acted inconsistently with his principles. (In "The Most Hated Lawyer
in America,'' David Langum's very good biography of Kunstler,
Dershowitz's criticism is less polite.)
The fame argument is cogent enough. But Kunstler was also honorably
and dangerously compassionate. There's an anecdote in the film about
his decision to look up the family of the slain Japanese soldier who
charged at him with a bayonet during WWII. He told the parents their
son died a hero.
According to the film, social justice was at the heart of his legal
philosophy. He tried to instill in his daughters the idea that all
white people are inherently racist: They have all the power in
America, and the law is often used against minorities. Seeing a
non-white person in trouble, he gave them the reflexive benefit of
the doubt, regardless of the circumstances. This sense of liberal
guilt warped him. It's as if he wanted to punish a part of himself
for what his forefathers did.
--
Wesley Morris can be reached at wmorris@globe.com.
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