Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool (1969) is remembered as one of the great political films of its era—who could forget its climactic melding of fact and fiction, shot in the streets of Chicago during the 1968 Democratic convention, in which Robert Forster’s TV news cameraman is swept into the real-life chaos of police and protesters? Medium Cool is also recognized as a pointed early critique of the news media, noting the amoral detachment of TV journalists and the collusion between their corporate bosses and the government to shape a political narrative. But for people who love Chicago, the film may be most valuable as a cultural document, recording a much younger city in the midst of a turbulent summer. Inspired by Studs Terkel’s book Division Street: America, Wexler set out to integrate real Chicagoans into the action, often letting them improvise their own dialogue; some of that footage wound up on the cutting-room floor, but the voices that remain are strong, honest, and still challenging even after 46 years.
At 91, Haskell Wexler is still alive and kicking—in fact, he’s kicking harder than many filmmakers a third his age, having returned to the Gene Siskel Film Center just last month to preview his new documentary about the street protests that greeted the NATO summit in May 2012. Medium Cool was ahead of its time in recognizing the awesome political power of the camera, something we all reckon with now in a surveillance society where a cell phone lens can become a private citizen’s last avenue of defense against the police. In the end, though, Wexler’s understanding of the camera’s importance may not be as valuable as what he actually shot back in 1968, scenes that gave voice to marginalized Chicagoans long before the so-called democratization of media. As the saying goes, all politics is local.
Directed by Haskell Wexler
