Category: Movies

The documentary Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst (2004), now on DVD, tells the story of when the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst.  Although one might long for the movie to go deeper into the subject, it provides a good overview of the story and the time period, with some implied prophecies for our current times.

In February 1974, the nineteen-year-old granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst was kidnapped in Berkeley, California by a group calling themselves the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). What followed was a story that became stranger and stranger. After the SLA failed to negotiate a trade of Patty Hearst for other SLA members who were in prison, they then demanded that the Hearst family feed the poor, which the family tried to do with various degrees of success.  Two months after the kidnapping, in a recorded message, Patty Hearst announced that she had joined the SLA and was now named “Tania.”  A few weeks later the nation saw her holding a gun on a bank camera with other SLA members committing a robbery.

Guerilla takes us step-by-step through the months while Hearst was missing. It also briefly follows up through Pres. Carter granting her a commutation (Pres. Clinton later gave her a full pardon).  Near the very end, the movie includes brief footage from the 2003 trial of some of the SLA members.

Today, through our individual failing memories (or through no memory if you were not born yet), one might struggle to comprehend what was going on the minds of the members of the SLA, an organization created with a name basically out of thin air and with an almost equally non-defined practical strategy beyond bringing about “revolution” in American society.  Compounding our difficulty in understanding the movie is that 9/11 forever changed our our perspectives on terrorism, and the SLA’s acts in the pursuit of media attention are directly related to modern terrorism.

The movie does an excellent job of telling the story about the kidnapping through the arrest and trial of Hearst and other members of the SLA. It features interviews with some people involved in the events, including some insight from Russ Little, a founding member of the SLA who was in prison when the captors tried to trade Hearst for him. The one weakness is that there is very little from Hearst or the captors who were later caught, so the details of the captivity and Heart’s change are summarized and left to conjecture. The hole is not the fault of the producers, as many of the key players are now dead. 

Regarding Patty Hearst, the director explains on the DVD commentary that they deliberately chose not to interview her because the focus was on the surrounding events and not her ordeal.  The director also notes that Patty Hearst liked the movie and said it was better without her.  I disagree, and I am not sure why her perspective was less relevant to the director, than, say Mr. Little.  But the movie still tells a fascinating historical story about the time period and the events. And the movie does provide some new perspectives from some of the people involved at the time.

Conclusion? Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst is a compelling documentary that will tell you much about the events surrounding the kidnapping, and it is a great introduction or refresher for those who vaguely remember 1974, while providing some new depth for those who were there. The movie, however, will leave you with several questions. But a successful documentary will leave you with a desire to learn more and seek out additional information, such as this Larry King interview with Patty Hearst on YouTube.

Do you have memories of the period when Patty Hearst was kidnapped? Leave a comment.