Documentary filmmaker Robert Stone screened his 2004 film "Guerrilla: the Taking of Patty Hearst" Wednesday night as part of the Watson Institute's War, Peace and the Media Screening Series. Stone said the "intersection of mass media and terrorism (in the film) is a parable of the post-9/11 world."
The War, Peace and the Media Screening Series brings global-interest media to the University to stimulate discussion about international issues, particularly as they relate to and are shaped by the media, according to the Watson Institute's Web site.
"Guerrilla" depicts the story of the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Bay Area group famous for its 1974 kidnapping of Patricia Hearst, granddaughter of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst. Tracing the genesis of the SLA in Vietnam-era Berkeley, Calif., through Hearst's kidnapping and eventual allegiance with the group, the film explores the nature of extremism and its relationship to the surrounding media frenzy.
"What's interesting about (the SLA) is that they got so much attention," said Stone, who was nominated for an Academy Award in 1988 for his documentary "Radio Bikini."
In the discussion following the screening, Stone noted that the kidnapping turned into "a great 1970s pop culture event," drawing parallels between sensationalist news coverage of the SLA and coverage of terrorism today.
"We were witnessing the transformation of the news media into an extension of the entertainment industry," he said. "We want to understand the world in terms of narrative. ... Terrorists provide that."
Stone also discussed how a group of average people could become a gun-toting, radical terrorist cell. "You have these increasing layers of isolation," he said. "The SLA became increasingly cult-like, which is what happens when you don't expose yourself to alternative views. It's like people reading their own blogs, or President (George W.) Bush only listening to (Vice President) Dick Cheney."
The film combines interviews with extensive archival footage mostly taken from the cutting room floor of Bay Area news stations. Stone's interviews included testimony from former SLA members Russ Little and Mike Bortin. The news station outtakes from the coverage of the kidnapping provide a glimpse into the frenzied media climate, which the SLA both produced and thrived on.
Stone also screened two short clips from his upcoming documentary feature "Oswald's Ghost," which investigates the impact of conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy on American politics and culture.
In his introduction, series co-coordinator and Watson Visiting Fellow Eugene Jarecki praised Stone's technique of balancing information and entertainment in his documentaries. Winner of the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for his documentary "Why We Fight," Jarecki said Stone's approach to the medium constitutes "real intellectual sex appeal."
Stone's film represents "cutting-edge developments in political media-making," Jarecki said. Unlike better-known documentary filmmakers Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock, he added, Stone "rejects simplistic answers."
