Rebels with a Cause

If you ignore its rather insular cheerleading perspective, former SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) member-cum-filmmaker Helen Garvy's Rebels with a Cause offers an intermittently engaging social and political history of the SDS (once a national student activist organization with chapters on college campuses) from its genesis at the dawn of the '60s to its troubled disintegration in 1970. Combining talking-head interviews with former SDS leaders and members of the rank and file (including Tom Hayden, Todd Gitlin, Carl Oglesby, and Juan Gonzales, among others), together with occasional archival stills and footage, the program traces SDS's highlights: the creation of the influential Port Huron statement (1962), which laid out SDS's ethical framework; the civil rights and anti-poverty marches and demonstrations of the early '60s; the gradual re-direction of virtually all SDS activity into the one overarching project of stopping the Vietnam War; the burgeoning concern with women's issues; and finally the splintering of the group into squabbling factions and increasingly militant sects (such as the Weathermen) at the end of the '60s. On the minus side, the program is often repetitive (an hour-long documentary would have accomplished the job here), the history somewhat rose-colored (SDS's Marxist preaching is pretty much ignored, the terrorist activities of the Weathermen are seriously downplayed, and the conventional Boomer self-congratulatory '60s hagiography historical style is often evident). On the plus side, however, there is no gainsaying the genuine accomplishments of SDS (even if many were indirect) in helping to trailblaze the kind of socially responsible thinking that we now take for granted in the (study) halls of academe. Recommended, with reservations. Aud: C, P. [Note: DVD extras include a text bio on filmmaker Helen Garvy, 28 text pages of background information about the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), 23 text pages of “Port Huron Statement” excerpts from SDS's first official document, and 32 text pages of the reprint of former SDS president Paul Potter's 1965 speech at the March on Washington. Bottom line: the text-only extras make for a lot of onscreen reading, but it's still nice to see this solid documentary out on DVD.] (R. Pitman)