I haven't seen this film since its release in 1981, but it made a big impression at the time - Having graduated from university in 1970, the Kent State shootings were well known to me and were a major event in my life. Consequently, I was amazed at how much tension the film was able to maintain as its well known climax was approached.
It was difficult to imagine how much polarization existed between "students" and "establishment" back in 1970. In 1981, my first reaction to the film was disbelief that people could have so little understanding of each others points of view. But on further reflection, the film got it quite right - The students felt that their elders wanted to sacrifice tens of thousands of its own youth (and hundreds of thousands of Viet Namese peasants) to some misplaced or invalid cold war ideal. The older generation felt that its youth were traitors to a country that had just fought so hard to defeat the Nazis and the Japanese. On top of that there was the emergence of the civil rights movement. It was probably inevitable that Americans would be killing other Americans (at home) before people started coming to their senses.
A few days after I watched the film I spoke to a friend about it. He said that the film's tension was so strong that his wife was sitting at the edge of her chair while she watched it. I asked him what HE thought of the film. He replied: "I didn't watch it; no one wants to remember what happened". That's probably why one of the most memorable films I've seen is not currently available. I checked the "contains spoiler" box because, although I think of the Kent State story as common knowledge, the current generation of movie goers might not know about it at all.
It was difficult to imagine how much polarization existed between "students" and "establishment" back in 1970. In 1981, my first reaction to the film was disbelief that people could have so little understanding of each others points of view. But on further reflection, the film got it quite right - The students felt that their elders wanted to sacrifice tens of thousands of its own youth (and hundreds of thousands of Viet Namese peasants) to some misplaced or invalid cold war ideal. The older generation felt that its youth were traitors to a country that had just fought so hard to defeat the Nazis and the Japanese. On top of that there was the emergence of the civil rights movement. It was probably inevitable that Americans would be killing other Americans (at home) before people started coming to their senses.
A few days after I watched the film I spoke to a friend about it. He said that the film's tension was so strong that his wife was sitting at the edge of her chair while she watched it. I asked him what HE thought of the film. He replied: "I didn't watch it; no one wants to remember what happened". That's probably why one of the most memorable films I've seen is not currently available. I checked the "contains spoiler" box because, although I think of the Kent State story as common knowledge, the current generation of movie goers might not know about it at all.