The War at Home

This is an excellent film for those who are interested in the 60s war resistance movement or who lived in the Madison, WI area during that time. It uses a great combination of interviews with the leaders, both student and other, of the time, and archival footage. A good reminder of a time when people took a stand for what they believed in.

I have lived in Madison, WI the majority of my life and my father was a University policeman during the latter part of the anti-war protests. Who knows, maybe he was even pictured in the film - it's difficult to tell as the police are most often shown in their riot gear. Over the years he has related some of his experiences during that time. He attended the UW during the early 60's and wasn't much older than the students involved in what he described as chaotic and sometimes scary encounters. As a result of this, I have always been very interested in the anti-war movement nationally and especially on the UW campus. This film gives me a detailed perspective of the city I lived in during my childhood and shows me how much the Madison of today has been influenced by those events. On a broader level the film demonstrates how Madison was a microcosm (albeit a somewhat extreme example for it's relatively small size) of the national political climate. It all at once makes me wish I had been there but also thankful that I wasn't which I think may be indicative of the schizophrenic nature of our country at that time. It's a retrospective worth watching not just for its point of view but also as a historical document. It's a thoroughly informative film which has relevance today both because of the long shadows these events have cast ever since but also given the political issues being raised today over the war in Iraq. Sit back, watch, enjoy and surprise yourself by finding out what you never knew about a seemingly well-documented and recent period of our history.

In 1982, when I was a freshman at Edgewood College, I was in an Intro to Political Science; Jim Rowen was my teacher. It was an outstanding class and very influential on my political outlook. I began the class a Republican like my parents and family and at the end of the semester was a Democrat.

The movie was very informative and documented very well the trials and tribulations that the protesters experienced and often times suffered. The build up to the Sterling Hall bombing was very vivid and riveting.

Both the movie, and moreso the class, taught me how wasteful Pentagon spending is when done excessively as it was during the Reagan years as well as with the poor, misguided president we have now.

The movie indicates that with poor policies which lead a nation into a war they have no business fighting, then there will often be repression by the government justifying the war and diligent, compelling people asking questions and voicing their dissent. The hope is that there are enough diligent people as there were during the Vietnam War to make a difference.

I saw this many years ago, but remember it as the best movie to really recreate the feeling of being in the 1960/70's. The government repression, the anger, fear and paranoia are all there. Enough to cause unsettled sleep for 3 nights. I wasn't at Madison, but a much quieter campus, and the experience was the same all over the country. For comparison, I found "Berkeley in the Sixties" to be very boring.

The most famous Vietnam-related production of 1979 was "Apocalypse Now", but there was also the documentary "The War at Home", focusing on the anti-war movement in Madison, Wisconsin. You've probably seen ample of footage from the era showing students protesting and police attacking them; lots of that here. It also shows the Kent State shootings, which radicalized a number of people. Allen Ginsberg even describes the FBI's COINTELPRO, whose aim was breaking the political movements sweeping the country.

Watching the documentary, it was impossible not to draw parallels to the present day. I bet that in 1979, people authentically thought that there would never again be any wars. I wish!

Definitely worth seeing. Others that I recommend are "Hearts and Minds" and "The Weather Underground".