FTA - (aka "F*k the Army" or "Free the Army") - a lost film that should be brought back!

[cascadiance]

http://www.doxafestival.ca/festival/fta

FTA
Banned by the military! Hounded by the FBI! Despised by Richard Nixon! The film that mysteriously disappeared 36 years ago is back, starring Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Michael Alaimo, Len Chandler and Holly Near and a cast of thousands of anti-war soldiers.

It was 1971, two years after Richard Nixon had promised to end the Vietnam War, and American troops were still fighting and American warplanes were still bombing North Vietnam relentlessly.

A massive GI movement to end the war was sweeping through the troops, wreaking havoc on the U.S. military. Into that mix came The F.T.A. (F*** the Army) Show, a caustic, electrifying, sharply anti-war comedy revue led by Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland. As they toured outside military bases from Guam to the Philippines, over 60,000 soldiers cheered and joined the show’s call to end the war. It was an explosive, historical moment never seen before or since.

FTA, Francine Parker’s powerful documentary of the tour, opened in U.S. theatres in 1972, as the Nixon administration was still escalating the war and fighting for its political life at home. After only one week, the film mysteriously disappeared—never to be seen again.

Until now. Perfect timing.

I just saw this "recovered" copy of this film last on Friday night at the DOXA Film Festival. Some of this film was also put in the recently put out on DVD film "Sir No Sir!", but this is a film we should all be able to see, on DVD or elsewhere! It is so timely and amazing to see the parallels of what happened then and what happens now...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY15hPweaRw

It was also cool to see folks like Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda starring in this too with their heart-given views on the war. Anyone that doubts the Sutherland's family being against the torturous regime we have now (with Keifer's role in 24) should see the film right up to the end where Donald Sutherland gives a speech that is so revolutionary that even Che Guevarra would have been proud giving it!

What was amazing to see in this film, that I would have missed had I not seen it, is how deep some of these parallels go. Many of us assume that the sayings of "we fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here." is a unique one in this so-called "war on terror" that lead us into Iraq. But pro-war disruptors at one of the FTA concerts shown in the film were saying in effect the same goddamned thing then about "the commies" in Vietnam! A real page from Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine it would appear.

[Whoa_Nelly]

1. "We truly believed what stopped that war was when the soldiers stopped fighting"

Sir, No Sir! (trailer)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv7-ZdkZuFg&feature=related

Thanks for the FTA link, calipendence! :hi:

[cascadiance]

2. Here's an even better trailer link...

That has a portion of Sutherland's final speech in it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niKHH8GBBHE&feature=user

[Whoa_Nelly]

5. Thanks!

IDFA...great site!

[kentuck]

3. I remember FTA on a lot of helmets in Vietnam..

including my own. :-)

[Generic Other]

4. I actually attended way back in the 70s when the show was at Ft Lewis

Country Joe McDonald was also there. A lot of soldiers showed up for that event. And those celebs did those shows for free. The NOT-Bob Hope USO tour for sure.

[jmowreader]

6. The saying FTA brings back a lot of memories...

In the 1970s and early 1980s and probably even before that, there was a tradition in the 101st Airborne that the night before the Division Review happened, someone would climb the water tower that overlooked the division parade field and paint FTA on the tank in two-foot-high letters. It wasn't exactly a huge act of bravery--there was a spiral staircase leading up to the tank. There was a metal door at the top that was locked closed with a Series 200 padlock, but the PX closest to the division parade field sold bolt cutters right next to the spray paint the week of the division review, knowhutimeanvern? Anyway, someone would paint FTA on the water tank and the corps commander would stand on the reviewing stand and look at it.

In 1983, the new division commander decided This Would Not Happen On His Watch. He ordered the 101st Military Police Company commander to send two MPs armed with loaded rifles to the water tower to guard it and make sure no one painted FTA on the water tower. The division commander was an asshole and no one liked him, so the MP commander fixed his ass: he sent two MPs who were one week short to guard the tower, and THEY painted FTA on it.

I swear, if Fat Jack Mackmull thought he could have gotten away with rolling on the ground laughing when he saw that he would have done it. God, that man loved soldiers and soldiers loved him.

Unfortunately, the division commander gave the Rock Award (granted to the worst-looking unit at the review) to the 101st MP Company.