Editor Alan Baumgarten on
The Trial of the Chicago 7

From the first frame of Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7, viewers are told this film is an examination of time, character and viewpoint. In a seven-minute prologue that sets the scene in 1968 — “a nation coming off the rails,” as the director has assessed it — backdrops of political and global conflict are established and the players are introduced. Archival footage combines with rat-a-tat Sorkinesque pacing to start a rhythm and flow, as Oscar-nominated film editor (American Hustle) Alan Baumgarten’s work takes center stage.

“The central challenge of this film is that there is not a clear, singular point of view,” Baumgarten says. “We’re not seeing it through any specific character’s eyes from the beginning, and points of view shift throughout because we basically have multiple narrators. That’s a challenge because then you get into the question of unreliable narrators. Who are you listening to? Who is giving you the ‘right’ perspective? And who are you meant to follow?” The answer? Everyone.

There are really three stories being told in The Trial of the Chicago 7, which only added to the stack for Baumgarten in the editing room. First is a trial, during which the defendants faced trumped-up federal charges of conspiracy to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Then there is the story of how that riot and other tensions evolved and exploded that August. Finally, there is the more interpersonal story of two ideologically aligned revolutionaries, Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne) and Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen), with profoundly different approaches.

“The interesting thing is there are also different time frames, and that contributes to a lot of shifting emphasis and point of view,” says Baumgarten. “The present of the film is the trial, which lasted around six months, and we’re doing that in two hours. But also in that present time period, we have other locations happening, and we launch off to flashbacks from there as well. So we’re launching off from the present day to the past from different places with different narrators.”

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