The Weather Underground: An Interview

The Weather Underground, Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature, was co-directed and co-produced by Bill Siegel. John K. Wilson interviewed him recently via email.

John K. Wilson: Although most reviews of your film have been very positive, and call the documentary fair and balanced (if I'm allowed to use that phrase), a few conservative critics consider it too positive about the ex-Weather Underground. You've noted that you began this film after becoming friends with Bill Ayers and trying to reconcile this friendship with his past in the Weathermen. Do you worry that you were too friendly with some of the lead figures? Or is a mainstream journalistic ideal of balance and objectivity not something that concerns you?

Bill Siegel: I can't answer your question quite as you've asked it. While I knew Bill Ayers through my work in education before Sam Green and I started working on the film, I wouldn't say we were friends. More like work acquaintances. And even in that, I'd had very little contact with Bill. Just enough where I hoped he'd remember me when I first approached him with the notion to try and do the film and see if he would talk to us. So in that sense, the reconciliation you ask of was moot.

In terms of journalistic ideals of balance and objectivity, I separate the two. I don't think it is humanly possible to tell a non-fiction story objectively, at least not with any significant detail, depth, or context. I think the best I can do is to be subjectively honest. By that I mean, anyone telling a non-fiction story has to make choices, edits, etc, about what elements to include at all, in what order, and so forth. So to think that I can remove myself from that process and still make the decisions mindfully, to me seems contradictory and mythological.

Balance, on the other hand, is something that was very important for us to try and achieve. We worked hard to shape a story that we felt represented many points of view. We knew we were dealing with a story that was very contentious and controversial, one that aroused a broad spectrum of emotions. We wanted to try and shape the story in way that would reflect that, while still leaving it open-ended enough for the viewers to make up their own minds.

In my estimation, critics that have said the film is too positive, often seem to mean not negative and condemning enough of the Weather Underground. I certainly feel there is important and valid criticism of their efforts in the film, but I think some critics really wouldn't have been satisfied with anything much short of getting a tearful apology from former members. I take the fact the film has been regarded in so many different ways, there really isn't a one sentence consensus about it, as testimony to its open-endedness and balance.

Did 9-11 and the reaction to it (especially the anger and threats aimed at Bill Ayers) make you reconsider this project, or change the way you edited it? Did you feel pushed to condemn the idea of terrorism more forcefully, or do you think the Weather Underground is fundamentally different from al-Qaeda?

For awhile after 9-11 we stopped working on the film altogether. I think we were both too numb, horrified and grief-stricken to even think about how to proceed. Once some time had passed, we looked at what was happening in the world at that point and ultimately got to a place where we felt it was more important than ever to find a way to finish it. In terms of how 9-11 shaped the film, this may sound strange, but I know that it did, but I'm not honestly sure exactly how it did. It isn't like I could point to scenes and say, "That's there because of 9-11."

I know that we did come to a recognition that it would be impossible for people to watch the film and NOT bring their own experience of 9-11 to bear upon their viewing. And I think therefore we kind of, unconsciously or subconsciously, recognized that we would not be able to reflect every person's experience with 9-11 and somehow contextualize it in the scope of the film. So in that sense, perhaps, it made our focus even tighter, and forced us to concentrate even more severely on the story we were trying to tell, certainly with heavier and more sober emotions, in ultimately defining the story we felt we were able to commit to film, limitations and all.

Susan Braudy's new book, Family Circle, concludes with a short discussion of "a lively, romantic documentary film called 'The Weather Underground.'" According to Braudy, "Kathy Boudin was conspicuously absent from the film" and Braudy hinted at a conspiracy theory behind the film: "It looked as if Kathy's old comrades were supporting her version of events to help her get out of jail. Kathy's group was trying to write Kathy out of history, at least until she was released from prison." So, were you the tool of "Kathy's old comrades"? And why didn't you cover Kathy Boudin?

Kathy Boudin was one of several former members of the WU who declined to be interviewed. Sam was the one who actually corresponded with Kathy, but in my opinion her decision not to participate was hers, not her "old comrades." With her possibility of parole, she had very sound reasons not to be interviewed and we respected her desire not to participate the same way we respected anyone else's decision not to participate.

There seems to be almost a dilemma with the film: On the one hand, violence is wrong. On the other hand, not many filmmakers are doing documentaries about peaceful anti-war groups, past or present. Do you think that the Weather Underground ultimately succeeded in using mostly symbolic violence to get attention? Did the violent means undermine any potential support, even if they got the publicity?

I think these are questions best addressed by a feature-length film or long book. Fortunately, there is a film out now that at least tries to wrestle with these questions. I hope people will come see it!

In today's era of apathy and cynicism, do you find something appealing about the scale of passion and commitment in the Weather Underground and other 1960s activists? Do you wish we could bottle the essence of the Weather Underground and use it in small doses today? And what lessons should this past provide for today's activists?

Yes, I do find something appealing about the scale of passion and commitment in the Weather Underground, while I also have severe concerns about some of the tactics they adopted in carrying out their beliefs. I think that struggle within myself, to understand the best and most effective ways to dissent, to work toward a more humane, sane, peaceful and just society, is part of what attracted me toward wanting to work on the film. I think the alienating danger of thinking you have THE answer to this immensely difficult challenge is one important aspect of the WU story for people to consider. Moreover, I think the whole idea of figuring out what the role of the US should and could be in the world, and what role "we the people" have in shaping the relationship the US has with the world, are responsibilities we all have to undertake. I hope the questions the film raises can play a role in engaging people in discussions of that challenge.