1970 Vietnam Guys Talking War & America In A Bar. Real Stuff (David Hoffman)

In 1970, Americans were split on whether the country should continue the Vietnam War. Both sides had extreme elements speaking on their behalf. In the middle, President Nixon coined the phrase "the silent majority" to represent most Americans who did not protest or speak out but in his view, felt strongly patriotic about America's involvement in the Vietnam War.

Chicago filmmaker Chuck Olin went into his community to see how people felt. He and his team were surprised to find that "ordinary Americans" weren't as one-sided or as silent as the politicians had indicated in the press had assumed.

The filmmaker used 16mm film and a separate audio recorder and just captured real people in real situations talking honestly. Superb documentary filmmaking.

At the time there were several dozen independent 16mm documentary filmmakers making films for an underground audience. Not for television, and there was no other major media outlet available to us. There were film festivals and in major cities, theaters playing 16mm documentaries. It was an exciting time to be a filmmaker and Americans were for the most part, very willing to participate in the films that I, and other filmmakers, were attempting to produce.



[Posted at the SpookyWeather2 blog, April 10, 2025.]