Patty Hearst (film)

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Patty Hearst
Pattyhearstposter.jpg
Film poster
Directed by Paul Schrader
Screenplay by Nicholas Kazan
Based on
Every Secret Thing
by
Produced by Marvin Worth
Starring
Cinematography Bojan Bazelli
Edited byMichael R. Miller
Music by Scott Johnson
Distributed by Atlantic Releasing
Release date
  • September 23, 1988 (1988-09-23)
Running time
108 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$1,223,326

Patty Hearst is a 1988 American biographical crime drama film directed by Paul Schrader. The film stars Natasha Richardson as Hearst Corporation heiress Patricia Hearst and Ving Rhames as Symbionese Liberation Army leader Cinque. It is based on Hearst's 1982 autobiography Every Secret Thing (co-written with Alvin Moscow), which was later rereleased as Patty Hearst – Her Own Story.

Contents

The film depicts the kidnapping of student Patty Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army, her transformation into an active follower of the SLA after a long-lasting imprisonment and process of purported brainwashing, and her final arrest after a series of armed robberies.

Plot

Members of the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnap Patty Hearst from her Berkeley apartment and take her to their safe house, where she is kept blindfolded in a closet. Her captivity is interrupted by brief lessons in the SLA's teachings and, eventually, offers of sex. She is told by the group's leader, "General Field Marshall" Cinque, that she is being used for bargaining for the release of two captive comrades, an offer eventually refused by the state. In its place, the SLA devise a program for the Hearsts to donate $70 to every poor Californian.

As negotiations begin to break down in this recent attempt, Cinque informs Patty that the War Council has to decide what to do with her. As she is slowly ingratiated in the group, she is given the choice to join or go home, though the latter option is reinforced with a bottle tapping on her leg, a reminder to "join or die".

After undergoing a series of tests, Patty is brought into the SLA as a member and given the name Tania. She poses for pictures with the group and records lines to give to the media while undergoing military drills. The group plans a bank robbery and pick the Hibernia Bank as the site. Though the robbery is successful, Patty is unable to recite her prepared speech.

The group acquires a vehicle from a family of Black Muslim neighbors and move to Los Angeles. While out with Teko and Yolanda, Teko is nearly arrested for stealing and Patty shoots at the police to enable their escape. Hiding out at a motel, the group learn that the SLA's main safe house has been raided and watch the subsequent shootout on television, in which the members besides themselves are killed.

The trio move to Pennsylvania to stay at the home of SLA member Wendy, who is somewhat disillusioned with the cause following the arrest of a comrade. They meet up with an SLA chapter in San Francisco and continue performing bank robberies and bombing police cars. Teko and Yolanda split from the group in search of a black leader and the apartment is later raided by the FBI, leading to Patty and Wendy's arrest.

Patty's attorney has psychiatrists subject her to a range of probing questions about her captivity. Yolanda, situated in a cell adjacent to Patty's, tells her that they should have killed her a long time ago. In the subsequent trial, Patty is cross-examined and she is found guilty on the charges of bank robbery and using a firearm during the commission of a felony.

Later, Patty explains to her father her strategy to change the public's perception of her and that she was guilty of one crime; living.

Cast

Production

The film was written by Nicholas Kazan (son of Oscar-winning director Elia Kazan) drawing narration from Hearst's memoir. [1]

Patty Hearst premiered at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival on May 13 in the feature film competition. [2] The film opened on September 23, 1988, in the US and grossed $601,680 in its opening weekend. It made a total domestic gross of $1,223,326. [3]

Reception

The film garnered a generally mixed critical response, although Richardson's performance was applauded by most critics. Amongst credited critics, the film has a rating of 54% positive reactions on Rotten Tomatoes, with 13 reviews counted. [4] Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote that "Patty Hearst is a beautifully produced movie, seen entirely from Patty's limited point of view. It is stylized at times, utterly direct and both shocking and grimly funny." [5] Roger Ebert writing for the Chicago Sun-Times praised Richardson's performance: "The entire film centers on the remarkable performance by Natasha Richardson as Hearst." but concluded that "This whole story seemed so much more exciting from the outside." [6]

Pauline Kael called the film "a lean, impressive piece of work" and even suggested that it answered the longstanding mystery about Hearst: "Did Patty Hearst become part of the S.L.A. willingly, out of conviction, or was she simply trying to save her life? The movie shows you that, in the state she was in, there was no difference. Natasha Richardson, who plays Patty, has been handed a big unwritten role; she feels her way into it, and she fills it. We feel how alone and paralyzed Patty is — she retreats to being a hidden observer. Patty is a girl who is raped in mind and body, and no longer knows when it started." [7]

Related Research Articles

Camilla Christine Hall was a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a small, far-left militant group that committed violent acts between 1973 and 1975. They assassinated Marcus Foster, Superintendent of the Oakland Public Schools and the first black superintendent of any major school system, kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst, and committed armed robbery of banks.

Sara Jane Olson is an American far-left activist who was a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) in 1975. The group disbanded and she was a fugitive for decades before being arrested. In 2001, she pleaded guilty to attempted murder related to a failed bombing plot. In 2003 she pleaded guilty to second-degree murder related the death of a customer during a botched bank robbery the SLA committed in California. Known then as Soliah, she was also accused of helping a group hide Patty Hearst, a kidnapped newspaper heiress, in 1974. After being federally indicted in 1976, Soliah was a wanted fugitive for several decades. She lived for periods in Zimbabwe and the U.S. states of Washington and Minnesota.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patricia Soltysik</span> American criminal

Patricia Monique Soltysik was an American woman who was best known as a co-founder and activist in the Symbionese Liberation Army, a far-left militant group based in Berkeley and Oakland, California. She participated in the group's violent activities, including armed bank robbery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Symbionese Liberation Army</span> American terrorist organization (1973–1975)

The United Federated Forces of the Symbionese Liberation Army was a small, American militant far-left organization active between 1973 and 1975; it claimed to be a vanguard movement. The FBI and wider American law enforcement considered the SLA to be the first terrorist organization to rise from the American left. Six members died in a May 1974 shootout with police in Los Angeles. The three surviving fugitives recruited new members, but nearly all of them were apprehended in 1975 and prosecuted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patty Hearst</span> American kidnapping victim (born 1954)

Patricia Campbell Hearst is a member of the Hearst family and granddaughter of American publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst. She first became known for the events following her 1974 kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army. She was found and arrested 19 months after being abducted, by which time she was a fugitive wanted for serious crimes committed with members of the group. She was held in custody, and there was speculation before trial that her family's resources would enable her to avoid time in prison.

William Lawton Wolfe was one of the founding members in 1972 of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), an American radical group based near Oakland, California. While in the group, he adopted the name "Kahjoh", though the media misspelled this as "Cujo".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald DeFreeze</span> Leader of the Symbionese Liberation Army (1943–1974)

Donald David DeFreeze, also known as Cinque Mtume and using the nom de guerre "General Field Marshal Cinque", was known as the "spokesman" of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a small, American far-left group that formed in Oakland, California in 1973. Some analysts suggested he was a figurehead; others said he was the leader. Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, he dropped out of high school and was involved from the age of 14 in frequent brushes with the criminal justice system. He received generous probation in the late 1960s, leading some sources to suggest he was serving as a police informant to the Los Angeles Police Department.

Randolph Apperson Hearst was a newspaper publisher and member of the wealthy Hearst family. He was the fourth of five sons of William Randolph Hearst and Millicent Hearst as well as the father of Patty Hearst.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Schrader</span> American film director

Paul Joseph Schrader is an American screenwriter, film director, and film critic. He first became widely known for writing the screenplay of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976). He later continued his collaboration with Scorsese, writing or co-writing Raging Bull (1980), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Bringing Out the Dead (1999). Schrader is more prolific as a director: his 23 films include Blue Collar (1978), Hardcore (1979), American Gigolo (1980), Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), Light Sleeper (1992), Affliction (1997), and First Reformed (2017), with the last of these earning him his first Academy Award nomination. Schrader's work frequently depicts "man in a room" stories which feature isolated, troubled men confronting an existential crisis.

Nancy Ling Perry was also known as Nancy Devoto, Lynn Ledworth, and Fahizah while a founding member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a small leftist terrorist group based in northern California. Considered one of its chief theorists and activists, she died in a shootout with the Los Angeles Police Department at an SLA safehouse in that city.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wendy Yoshimura</span> American still life watercolor painter

Wendy Masako Yoshimura is an American still life watercolor painter. She was a member of the leftist terrorist group the Symbionese Liberation Army during the mid-1970s. She was born in Manzanar, one of numerous World War II-era internment camps for Japanese Americans who were forced out of their homes and businesses along the West Coast. She was raised both in Japan and California's Central Valley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angela Atwood</span> American criminal (1949–1974)

Angela DeAngelis Atwood, also known as General Gelina, was a founding member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), an American far-left urban guerrilla group which kidnapped Patricia Hearst and robbed banks. She was killed, along with five other SLA members, in a nationally televised shootout with the Los Angeles Police Department.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Harris</span> SLA member (born 1947)

Emily Harris was, along with her husband William Harris (1945–), a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), an American left-wing terrorist group involved in murder, kidnapping, and bank robberies. In the 1970s, she was convicted of kidnapping Patty Hearst.

<i>Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst</i> 2004 American film

Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst is a 2004 PBS documentary film about the 1974 kidnapping of Patty Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army left-wing revolutionary group. It was directed by Robert Stone, and features interviews with Timothy Findley and SLA members Russ Little and Michael Bortin.

James William Kilgore is a convicted American felon and former fugitive for his activities in the 1970s with the Symbionese Liberation Army, a left-wing terrorist organization in California. After years of research and writing, he later became a research scholar and ultimately worked at the University of Illinois' Center for African Studies in Champaign–Urbana.

Thero Lavon Wheeler (1945–2009), aka Bruce Bradley while a fugitive (1973–1975), was a founding member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, an American left-wing organization in the San Francisco Bay area. He left the group in October 1973 as he objected to its plans to undertake violent acts. Law enforcement later classified the SLA as a terrorist group.

Mary Alice Siem was a student at the University of California, Berkeley when she became involved in 1973 with a prisoner outreach program at Vacaville Prison. She became the girlfriend of Thero Wheeler, an inmate who escaped in August 1973. He was a founding member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), an extremist group based in Oakland that was classified as terrorist by law enforcement. It was known for murders, armed robberies and the kidnapping of heiress Patty Hearst after Wheeler and Siem left the group in October 1973.

Joseph Michael Remiro is an American convicted murderer and one of the founding members of the Symbionese Liberation Army in the early fall of 1973. It was an American leftist terrorist group based in the Bay Area of California. He used the pseudonym or nom de guerre "Bo" while he was a member of the group.

Colston Richard Westbrook (1937–1989) was an American teacher and linguist who worked in the fields of minority education and literacy. At the University of California, Berkeley, he established a program of prison outreach and approved students from the Bay Area to serve as volunteers. Some of the participants from Berkeley and two former prisoners at Vacaville Prison were among the founding members in 1973 of the radical leftist group known as the Symbionese Liberation Army.

Third Sight is an underground rap trio from the Bay Area of California. Formed in the early 1990s, the group's members are MC Jihad, Dufunk, and D-Styles.

References

  1. The 10 Best Paul Schrader Movies - Page 2 - Taste of Cinema
  2. "Festival de Cannes: Patty Hearst". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-07-27.
  3. Patty Hearst at Box Office Mojo
  4. Patty Hearst at Rotten Tomatoes.
  5. Review in The New York Times, 23 September 1988.
  6. Review in the Chicago Sun-Times, 23 September 1988.
  7. Kael, Pauline (2011) [1991]. 5001 Nights at the Movies. New York: Henry Holt and Company. p. 571. ISBN   978-1-250-03357-4.