Lots of issues are stirred up in the new documentary “William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe”: counterculture stories, the rights of legal defendants, the ethics of a defense attorney, the role of government in meddling with justice.
All these, plus the way a father’s profession affects his children. How’s that enter into it? “Disturbing the Universe” is directed by Emily and Sarah Kunstler, the daughters of the movie’s subject.
William Kunstler was one of those rare attorneys who become as famous as the cases they argue (Alan Dershowitz is another; he’s interviewed in the film).
Although he spent years as a lawyer in the 1950s, living a suburban life in Westchester County, New York, Kunstler came to public attention with his freewheeling handling of the case against “The Chicago Seven,” the trial of the supposed agitators at the 1968 Democratic Convention.
For that circuslike case, Kunstler decided to put the government on trial — to prove enough official misconduct to render the arguments against the defendants irrelevant. He succeeded.
Kunstler had been radicalized by working on civil-rights cases earlier in the 1960s, and after the Chicago trial he stayed loyal to the cause. He threw himself into negotiations with the rioting prisoners at New York’s Attica penitentiary in 1971, a situation that, as the film suggests, he may have misread.
He also charged into the Wounded Knee incident of 1973, when American Indians occupied a town in South Dakota. As though playing into Kunstler’s experienced hands, the U.S. government so perverted the case that the trial of the Indian activists eventually fell apart.
The film is told from the perspective of Kunstler’s daughters, and they affirm how proud they are of their father from this period, before they’d even been born. They also declare how mystified they were by some of his later choices; there is enough in “Disturbing the Universe” to suggest Kunstler’s biases, and his unabashed love of being in the spotlight.
As his career went on, his politics became completely doctrinaire, and Kunstler seemed to go out of his way to pick defendants accused of crimes so heinous they couldn’t possibly gain sympathy.
He defended accused cop killers, the bombers in the 1993 World Trade Center terrorist act and mob man John Gotti.
His family and friends were bewildered when he took on a defendant in the notorious Central Park “wilding” case, yet his convicted client was eventually exonerated because of new evidence.
The guy was around for quite a bit of 20th-century history, so the movie is exceptionally watchable for a lot of reasons. It must be politely noted, however, that a family-made documentary can’t be considered the final word.
“William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe” ½
An account of the life and career of William Kunstler, one of the most famous attorneys of the counterculture era and the man who defended the Chicago Seven. The film is made by his daughters, so objectivity isn’t the point, although the film does question Kunstler’s devotion to extremely unpopular clients. The movie is carried by how much late-20th-century history it covers.
Rated: Not rated; probably PG-13 for language, subject matter
Showing: Varsity
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