I don't know if I've mentioned how much I love the doc Sacco and Vanzetti.
Thank you so much, Cillaliz!
And (most of) the critics agree:
"Peter Miller's labor-of-love docu does a superb job of condensing an overwhelming mass of documentation, archival imagery and artistic representation into a concise yet passionate history lesson whose relevance could not be timelier." - Variety
"The case of two Italian-born anarchists, executed for a murder they almost surely didn't commit, remains the definitive, scary myth of the promise of America snuffed by fear and loathing. It's cleansing to see the facts laid out with intimacy and rigor, and the film earns the comparison it makes to the squelching of due process for some of today's terror suspects. The difference is that Americans during the '20s took to the streets to protest the railroading of two innocent men. Would that happen now?" - Entertainment Weekly (grade "A")
"Absolutely engrossing. This riveting new film by director Miller masterfully revives the past. Miller's obvious passion and dedication shine throughout." - Chicago Tribune
“Excellent…this compelling and powerful production can serve as a graceful elegy to the doomed men who were murdered by their adopted homeland.” -Film Threat
“Packed with information…It scarcely needs to be said how much this case has to do with contempt for foreigners, legal injustice, and xenophobic terror.” -Village Voice
“Talking heads ranging from Arlo Guthrie to Howard Zinn, eloquent paintings by Ben Shahn, and archival film footage bolster the film's airtight case against the prosecutors, making them seem persecutors, shaming the America they claimed to be defending. SACCO AND VANZETTI is trenchant, impassioned advocacy.” – AM New York
"Peter Miller sets out to show that the infamous murder trial of Sacco and Vanzetti was one of the most alarming and shameful incidents of social and political injustice in America’s history, and he succeeds admirably. SACCO AND VANZETTI should be requisite viewing anyone who might be unfamiliar with the case and its place in American history." – New York Press
"A wonderful film, as timeless as the struggle for human justice, as relevant as today's headlines." – Ken Burns
"Miller realizes that the political passions fueled by Sacco and Vanzetti in the 1920s are supremely pertinent to our own era's democratic crises. Anti-immigrant paranoia, threats to civil liberties, and rigged courtrooms are far from new. The film reminds a new generation that these inequities became catalysts for an international mass movement in the early part of the twentieth century." – Cineaste
"Essential and disturbingly of-the-moment. A passionate and moving case for the men's innocence and inspiring dignity." – Newsday
“It shocks in two ways: it shows us how recently, relatively speaking, racial and political prejudices were openly allowed to smirch justice, and it makes us take a look at the vitality of liberalism today...Peter Miller brings into new being a story that it is still healthfully discomfiting to remember.” – The New Republic
“Miller makes his film soar by keeping our attention focused on the defendants. For Sacco and Vanzetti were extraordinary men. Sacco and Vanzetti ... force us to recommit ourselves to the struggle for human liberation. For if their agony was their triumph, it can and must be ours as well. SACCO AND VANZETTI is a must see.” – Monthly Review
"Masterfully recreating the era in which the "crime" and trial took place, while at the same time showing parallels to our current milieu, Sacco and Vanzetti is a thought-provoking and surprisingly emotional experience." - Jeffrey Kauffman, DVD Talk
"it wasn't as painful as a colostomy." - der Brucer
