William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe (2009)
Average Rating: 6.8/10
Reviews Counted: 28
Fresh: 22 | Rotten: 6
It doesn't even feign impartiality, but this family-made documentary about the famously rabble-rousing attorney shines a light on the life and times of a divisive public figure.
Average Rating: 7/10
Critic Reviews: 11
Fresh: 9 | Rotten: 2
It doesn't even feign impartiality, but this family-made documentary about the famously rabble-rousing attorney shines a light on the life and times of a divisive public figure.
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Average Rating: 3.6/5
User Ratings: 252
Movie Info
During the second half of the 20th century, William Kunstler was one of the most admired attorneys in America -- and one of the most hated. Kunstler was a man who thrived on controversial cases; in the 1960s, he specialized in defending clients who ran afoul of the law on civil rights and free speech issues, and he spoke on behalf of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Lenny Bruce, members of the Black Panther Party, Native American activists, and prisoner's rights groups. Kunstler found himself in
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All Critics (28) | Top Critics (11) | Fresh (22) | Rotten (6) | DVD (1)
Like the recent animated documentary Chicago Ten, this is a timely reminder of a era when "change" was more than just a campaign slogan. But it's also a personal portrait, with shadings.
Top CriticWilliam Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe offers a deeply personal view of a larger-than-life figure. It's a view filtered through a prism of memory and emotion, but one well worth investigating.
Leading the defense in the 1969-70 trial of the Chicago Seven, William Kunstler became a radical and a celebrity, and this vivid documentary captures how those two facets of his life worked together in morally urgent and contradictory ways.
Terrific archival footage from a range of seminal civil rights events, as well as affecting narration written by Sarah Kunstler and spoken by Emily Kunstler (who also edited the film), round out this superior documentary.
The film's point is clear. And for those looking for a straight answer, it's this: The bravest lawyer isn't the one who takes on the clients that allow him to feel good about himself. It's the one who takes on the clients that give us nightmares.
Kunstler's accomplishments, principles and courage are all here in Disturbing the Universe. But there is something else that adds an unexpected layer of emotional complexity.
A testament, at least in part, to Kunstler's long and controversial career as a lawyer-activist, defending members of minorities and unpopular causes, and changing the law and the country in the process.
Tries to examine and then reconcile Kunstler's legacy as a fighter for causes with his choosing to defend mobsters, terrorists, rapists and drug dealers.
Still worth seeing despite the co-directors' inability to understand that a great lawyer will go out of his or her way to defend people being tried and convicted in places like the NY Post.
One of the most pronounced recent trends in documentary is the use of the medium as a form of public therapy.
The radical lawyers' daughters - Emily and Sarah Kunstler - provide us with an intimate if not always flattering portrait of the man The New York Times once called 'the most hated and most loved lawyer in America.'
A very moving tribute to an underappreciated hero who spent his life as a tireless defender of the defenseless.
Civil rights? The American Indian Movement? The Chicago 10 trial? The Central Park rape trial? Attica prison riots? Kunstler was in the thick of all of them.
His daughters, Emily and Sarah Kunstler, made this timely documentary partly to celebrate their late father (he died in 1995) and partly to reiterate his fundamental beliefs.
...an in-depth but deeply emotional chronicle of their father's fascinating life.
Fails to demystify the man bearing the film's title.
Other than a few tasty tidbits, like the fact that he wrote Joseph McCarthy's will while still a young family attorney, there's not much fresh news about William Kunstler in this documentary.
A fond introduction to the activist lawyer by his daughters that may be more informative for their generation given that it covers little new ground.
Audience Reviews for William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
update: see the trailer and possible the entire doc on-line. A truely remarkable documentary film. Unless you lived the time this fellow lived through, you can not possibly know the hardship, the unreal odds that were stacked against this lawyer.
If there ever was a David and Goliath, this was David.
A documentary film about the late American civil rights attorney William Kunstler directed by daughters Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler that premiered at the 25th Sundance Film Festival in January 2009.
William Kunstler was a famous 20th-century lawyer whose clients included Martin Luther King Jr., Larry Davis, Malcolm X, Phillip and Daniel Berrigan, Abbie Hoffman, H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Filiberto Ojeda Ríos and Leonard Peltier.
The New York Times called him "the most hated and most loved lawyer in America".
Filmmakers and daughters of the subject, Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler explore their father's life, from middle-class family man, to movement lawyer, to "the most hated lawyer in America."
NOTES about the film:
1 The film has generally received favorable reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 79% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on 28 reviews.
2 Stephen Holden of the New York Times described the film as a "refresher course on the history of American left-wing politics in the 1960s and '70s as well as an affectionate personal biography of Kunstler."
3 In 2009, the film was nominated for the Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
Directed by
Emily Kunstler
Sarah Kunstler
Produced by Emily Kunstler
Sarah Kunstler
Jesse Moss
Susi Korda
Vanessa Hope
Written by Sarah Kunstler
Music by Shahzad Ismaily
Cinematography [Brett Wiley, Martina Radwan]
Editing by Emily Kunstler
Distributed by Arthouse Films
Release date(s) Fall, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyPjMva8u9I for the trailer. Also, you MAY be able to see the entire doc if you google search : william kunstler
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Movie: ID: 770802632 Title: William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe Release Date: 2009-11-13 00:00:00.0 MPAA: 6 Status: 1
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Given they are neophyte film-makers, this is clearly, amazingly respectable work, though the constant intercession of "oh, we are his daughters and we made this film" in the voiceovers does get tiresome by trail's end. On the flip, the film immensely benefits from the daughters' access to information and materials. Taken in total, obviously a labor of love.
RECOMMENDATION: It's a no-brainer. The further left your politics, the more likely you'll like it. The further right your politics, the more likely you should steer clear.