Filmmaker Peter Miller explores the crimes, trial, and execution of notorious 20th-century anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti in a documentary that highlights just how this landmark case came to symbolize the injustice and intolerance experienced by immigrants longing to pursue their dreams in the land of the free. It was 1920 when Italian immigrant anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti were accused of murder in Massachusetts. Seven years later, when the jurors delivered their final verdict
in a notoriously prejudiced trial, both men were condemned to death despite massive protests both in the U.S. and abroad. Eight decades later, as America continues to wrestle with issues of civil rights, immigrant liberties, and dissent, the case of Sacco and Vanzetti continues to resonate. In addition to balancing the personal and political aspects of the case as well as looking into the legal climate of the era, Miller's film brings the prison writings of Sacco and Vanzetti to life as never before as Tony Shalhoub and John Turturro read the deeply personal letters written by the pair during their ordeal. Additional music, artwork, poetry, and film clips inspired by the case propel the narrative by highlighting just what a lasting impression the Sacco and Vanzetti case has had on American culture. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
Nicola Sacco, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, and the incredible firestorm of outrage generated by their criminal trials have been largely neglected in recent years, but Peter Miller's absolutely engrossing documentary Sacco and Vanzetti brings it all back.
The meat-and-potatoes style of Sacco and Vanzetti seems less a failure of imagination than a means of putting in the foreground its intriguing subject matter.
Miller, a New Yorker, uses archival footage, dramatized readings and talking heads, including Sacco's niece and a neighbor of Vanzetti's, to get his point across.
[Pic] does a superb job of condensing an overwhelming mass of documentation, archival imagery and artistic representation into a concise yet passionate history lesson whose relevance could not be timelier.
A long-held cause celebre for leftists the world over, the story of immigrant activists Sacco & Vanzetti is told in Peter Miller's rote documentary as a reference point for the way immigrants are still mistreated in America.
Surprisingly, this is the first nonfiction film to tackle the subject and Miller manages to find the parallels to contemporary times without being too pedantic or heavy-handed.
With cases of such importance, it's always a good idea to be reminded every now and then as to how things can go wrong, and justice means that just because a person is guilty of SOMETHING, doesn't mean that it's okay for the State frame them for something
Watching the film, it's hard not to feel a cold chill of recognition, particularly when Miller's interviewees discuss immigration, patriotism and war, and civil liberties versus homeland security in a time of national crisis.
A solid documentary about one of the worst miscarriages of justice in American history.
January 28, 2009
Randy Tippy
Super Reviewer
"Sacco & Vanzetti" is an informative documentary about Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two immigrants and anarchists who were railroaded for a murder and robbery that happened near Boston in 1920 and executed in 1927.(Even though I heard of them, the particulars of the case were unfamiliar to me until now.)
While borrowing too much from the Ken Burns school of documentary filmmaking(admittedly it does open it up a little but the music is definitely overkill), the documentary does an adequate job of linking their case to today via the immigrant issue and the war on terror. But regrettably it does not do the same with the death penalty and there is little information on anarchism as a philosophy. No matter how far we have come as a nation, it always seems like there is always more work to be done.
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