http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/rothermel010409.html FTA -- Now More Than Ever by Jay Rothermel

FTA (Dir. Francine Parker, 1972).

Preamble: "This film was made in association with the servicewomen and men stationed on the United States bases of the Pacific Rim, together with their friends whose lands they presently occupy." Accepting his Oscar for Best Actor, Sean Penn jokingly referred to the Academy as lovers of "commies and homos." It's a tribute to the low level of politics among our cultural workers today that Sean Penn would be surprised at acknowledgement of his performance. The Academy loves movies about exceptional heroes, whether they are overcoming physical disabilities, sports team segregation, the Holocaust, or the Roman Empire.

The entertainment industrial complex also loves it when its celebrities serve as a prophylactic for US humanitarian imperialism in countries like Sudan or Tibet. (Poor Rose McGowan, conversely, hasn't been heard or seen since expressing understanding for what motivated men and women in Ireland to join the IRA.) All of which brings us to the opposite end of the movie food chain, far from the heights of Oscardom: FTA, Francine Parker's documentary about the "Free the Army" tour. Washington and Wall Street long ago erased this movie. The miracle of globalized media today, however, means we can sit at home and watch it on DVD or its showing on that greener-than-green parrot cage called the Sundance Channel.

What strikes the viewer first about FTA is the humility, sense of proportion, and optimism the film has about events it depicts. We are a long way here from the old Michael Moore bazooka and the longeurs of Ken Burns, Inc.

There are many similarities between FTA and the great rock concert documentaries of the same period: only a few lines of narration for context, and then getting out of the way of the performances.

FTA the movie was long ago blacklisted from theaters, just as FTA the traveling political musical extravaganza was blacklisted from history. A key part of the "culture war" trumpeted by media and academic hacks of the Bill Bennett-David Horowitz-Rush Limbaugh variety (and which is itself part of a larger 30 year war against the gains of the labor, civil rights, women's, and anti-war movements) is the depiction of the those opposed to the Vietnam War as "stabbing our troops in the back." One tonic effect of FTA's DVD release and Sundance showing is to put the lie to that libel. As Washington's invasion and war against the people of Vietnam proceeded, one of the greatest concentrations of anti-war sentiment and activism was found among GIs themselves. The script for the FTA revue itself was drawn exclusively from material GIs published in their own anti-war newspapers.

FTA was the product of a flourishing anti-war culture. Today we see this culture boiled down to a History Channel "flower power" documentary, histories like Tom Brokaw's Boom, and the memoirs of Senators and ex-Senators like John Kerry and Bob Kerry. But Vietnam's war of independence at its height inspired militants around the world, from Che Guevara's guerillas to the 1968 strikers in France.

One of the great pleasures of FTA is the forthright energy of the performers and their audience. The GIs heard their own thoughts -- salty, sarcastic, and full of gallows humor and solidarity at the same time -- repeated back to them. The leaps of consciousness over just a few years as they rejected each rationale of the Washington war machine confirmed the anti-war movement's strategy of orienting to these "workers in uniform." The cast of the FTA revue is filled with gifted performers. They continued with their artistic careers after the U.S. anti-war tide receded. It is a pleasure to see them in their youth, energized by work that gave shape to the feelings of the immense majority. Between concerts they marched in solidarity with local activists protesting Washington's devastating "military base colonialism" in the Philippines, Okinawa, and Japan.

Today one of the movie FTA's great strengths is its potential as a recruiting tool. It is the perfect length to have classes, meetings, and potlucks built around it. The moral authority of the movie is without equal: completely ignoring the pundits and the bi-partisan Wall Street war party in Washington, it lets the anti-war GIs speak for themselves.

Jay Rothermel lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland headline an anti-war tour around military establishments. In the opening, Jane claims that there is a large contingent of military personnel opposed to the war. This is their response to the Bob Hope patriotism and pro-war USO tours. The film was pulled quickly after Jane's Hanoi visit and most copies destroyed. This is a very compelling time capsule. The anti-war movement can be portrayed as lamb to the slaughter. In this case, this group is quite confrontational. I am especially struck by the lyrics from the Okinawa singing group. This is unapologetically anti-Americanism. Some of this goes over the line for me but I didn't live through that time. As a film, it's a little rough technically at times. The filmmaking is not the best but that is not the most important.

In 1971, at the height of the Vietnam War, Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland did more than just become part of an anti-war comedy tour across Southeast Asia. They also reached out directly to enlisted soldiers who were critical of the war.

The documentary of this tour, F. T. A., shows the tour as it goes to Hawaii, The Philippines, Okinawa and Japan. It was directed by Francine Parker, who was only the eleventh woman to join the Director's Guild.

In addition to Fonda and Sutherland, Paul Mooney, Peter Boyle, Steve Jaffe, Holly Near (The Magical Garden of Stanley Sweetheart),Pamela Donegan, Len Chandler, Michael Alaimo (Mr. Mom),Rita Martinson and Yale Zimmerson all appear.

While the tour was a success, the film was incredibly controversial and opened the same week that Fonda made her trip to Hanoi. Within a week of release, American-International Pictures withdrew it from circulation, with Parker saying that this was the result of "calls were made from high up in Washington, possibly from the Nixon White House, and the film just disappeared." David Ziegler, whose documentary Sir! No Sir! Appears on the blu ray of this movie and was part of the team that helped restore F. T. A. Said, "There's no proof, but I can't think of another reasonable explanation for Sam Arkoff, a man who knew how to wring every penny out of a film, yanking one starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland from theaters at a big loss (and, apparently, destroying all of the prints, since none were ever found)."

Now, the film has now been fully restored by IndieCollect in 4K and is available from Kino Lorber, along with a new introduction by Fonda, a 2005 interview with the actress, the documentary Sir! No Sir! And a booklet with essays by historians David Cortight and Mark Shiel.

Regardless of your politics, this is a piece of history that I feel that everyone should watch.