Directed by Francine Parker
Featuring Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Rita Martinson, and others
Unrated
Runtime: 96 minutes
Available on Kino Lorber Blu-Ray May 4, also available digitally

by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, The Red Herring

Speaking as a Millenial, the Vietnam War has always been one of the hardest eras of American history to understand. Being born 15 or so years after the American military was pulled out of the conflict, it seems as distant to me as World War II or the Great Depression. But yet, it is recent  and controversial enough where all of the exposure I have to it is rooted in the biases and dug-in positions from the era itself. Combine that with the way the reaction to the war intersects with the struggles for civil rights at home, Red Scares, and other movements, and it just feels like a big Gordian knot. 

While F.T.A., the long lost documentary about Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland’s counter-USO tour, isn’t at all unbiased, the value it provides is showing an aspect of the antiwar movement as it was happening. As a primary source without the benefit of hindsight (except for an extended introduction by Fonda on this blu-ray release), it is invaluable. It has always seemed to me that there are more people who claim to have been against the Vietnam War than there actually were at the time–but the antiwar folks were on the right side of history–so it can be difficult to understand the risks and courage required in staging this tour. 

The F.T.A. Show (taking its name from the common troop expression “Fuck the Army”), was a scrappy production that toured near domestic U.S. Military bases, as well as those in Japan and the Philippines. The show seems to have functioned somewhere between a balm for the enlisted who were already anti-war and as potential recruitment. There were risk on both sides, as both the performers and the attendees could become political targets, and the military actively tried to subvert the tour’s reach. This extended to the documentary as well, as supposedly American International Pictures was told to pull the film’s release and scrap the prints by the White House a few days after the release.

Luckily, enough of it survived for this documentary to be restored and released by Kino Lorber. Most of the film is split between footage from the shows and interviews with antiwar G.I.s. Also included are segments featuring the antiwar movements in the countries the tour visited. All of this makes for a fascinating time capsule. The documentary is clearly meant as a condensed version of the vaudeville-style stage show in order to reach further than the tour itself, and as such, it works fairly well. 

The most impactful aspect is seeing the reaction of the audience, especially in one scene when pro-war types attempt to heckle Donald Sutherland. The crowd shouts them down and they are escorted out to a rapturous reaction. Even more than the show itself or the interview snippets, these crowd reactions help the viewer identify with these enlisted men. This outshines the sometimes hokey performances on stage and imbues them with even more meaning. Not far behind is seeing the diverse nature of the performers, and the way the skits and songs tie all of these civil rights movements together with the more direct anti-war message. The intersectionality of these issues–like using the draft to connect men to the idea of women’s bodily autonomy–is an aspect often missing from retellings of this era (looking at you, Mr. Sorkin). While the actual experience of watching F.T.A. isn’t too far removed from the concert film template, the meaning behind it gives it extra weight.