http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jan/15/daughters-take-doesnt-do-kunstler-justice/
By Alison Gang
Friday, January 15, 2010
If you've been lucky enough to stand before Michelangelo's sculpture
"David," then you understand how powerful its effect can be. Sure,
it's impeccably executed; the young man's muscles taut with suspense,
his hand so lifelike you can almost feel the rock resting in it. But
it's more than just Michelangelo's skill with a chisel that makes
this work so powerful. It's the moment he chose that touches us. The
moment when one person faced with an insurmountable challenge must
ask, "Do I dare?"
Perhaps the museum crowds dulled the experience for you, but not for
a young William Kunstler, who would always remember it as a pivotal,
life-changing moment. And dare he did, transforming himself from a
suburban family man into one of America's most famous "radical
lawyers," defending everyone from the Chicago Seven to the Attica
Prison rioters.
Kunstler kept on daring through the 1980s and 1990s, taking on
rapists, murderers, terrorists, and even a house cat in a mock
television trial. But by then the world had changed, leaving Kunstler
clamoring for the spotlight he had grown so accustomed to. He found
it with cases that those who respected him especially his daughters
found difficult to justify.
This quest to understand his choices, both good and bad, is the
impetus behind "William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe," a
documentary produced and directed by Kunstler's daughters Sarah and
Emily. They inherited his passion for correcting injustice. Their
production company, Off Center Media, is dedicated to "exposing
injustice in the criminal justice system," and they have produced
several short documentaries that have resulted in multiple
exonerations and stays of execution. This is their first full-length feature.
The Kunstler family seemed to be a loving one but, as they point out
from the get-go, his daughters never understood why their father had
to be the one who stood up so publicly for such unsavory people,
particularly later in his career. The protesters and death threats
that plagued the girls on a daily basis didn't help matters.
Love him, hate him, or barely remember him, William Kunstler's life
is worth revisiting. And with the American tendency to reshape
history, we sometimes may forget just how shocking some of these
events were. But with an astounding quantity of interviews,
recordings and news footage, the filmmakers put you there in the
Attica prison yard echoing with gunfire, sitting alongside the jury
as Black Panther Bobby Seale is bound and gagged in his chair. It's
nearly impossible not to feel the pulse of injustice that must have
coursed through Kunstler's veins.
But the filmmakers' personal journey to understand their father is
what makes this film feel like an average HBO documentary instead of
an Oscar-worthy portrait of a man and his place in history. Their
misgivings about him are justified, but by jumping off from their own
perspective which doesn't kick in until Kunstler's most relevant
years have passed the sisters limit the scope of their portrayal
and hardly do their father justice.
Kunstler's transformation from an "armchair liberal" to a man
compelled to take action feels incomplete without understanding more
about where he came from. What about his childhood? Did his Jewish
upbringing a fact mentioned only in passing near the end of the
film influence his character? A quick Internet perusal of
Kunstler's credentials shows that he was a New York City native,
graduated from Yale, then Columbia Law School, and was a talented
poet and even a radio broadcaster. All shades of a man left out of
the film, and all far more interesting than the ponderings of the
Kunstler daughters.
If anything, this film should inspire you to learn more about
Kunstler, who never stopped asking himself, "Do I dare?" And here's
hoping a more objective documentarian will be up for giving William
Kunstler one more chance to soak up the spotlight.
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