The cast of ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’ revel in Aaron Sorkin’s script in new featurette
“Whenever I write something, whether it’s a play, a movie or an episode of television my goal is no more lofty than to entertain you as long as I’ve asked you for your attention”
Aaron Sorkin
On Wednesday, writer and director Aaron Sorkin received his eighth Golden Globe nomination for Best Screenplay for The Trial of the Chicago 7, for which he also received his first Best Director nomination.
No stranger to awards, Sorkin is a six-time Emmy nominee for his writing on Sports Night and The West Wing (winning for the episode “In Excelsis Deo” in season 1). He’s been nominated 14 times by the Writers Guild of America, winning twice. His screenplay adaptation for 2010’s The Social Network won him the Golden Globe, Writers Guild, BAFTA and Oscar. Sacha Baron Cohen minces no words, proclaiming “He is probably the greatest living screenwriter.”
While The Trial of the Chicago 7 is based on the events before, during and after the protests and police violence at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, Sorkin has said that it’s still “shockingly, chillingly relevant” to today and the climate of protests for equality and political and social unrest in 2020 with the Black Lives Matter movement protesting the killing of Black people by police in the United States. “We thought the film was plenty relevant last winter when we were making it. We didn’t need it to get more relevant, but it did,” Sorkin said in an interview I did with him for the SFFILM Awards where he received the org’s screenwriting honor.
“Aaron did a really good job of writing a story where the stakes remain high. In the courtroom it feels like life and death a lot of the time”
Yahya Abdul Mateen II
The genesis of the film began nearly 15 years ago with Steven Spielberg, who was originally going to make the film and wanted Sorkin to write it. Sorkin loved the idea but the film disappeared in development. The spark of interest came back a few years ago and Sorkin began pouring himself over the 21,000 page trial transcript to find his story, his angle. He had already made his mark early as a writer with the play and screenplay of A Few Good Men, a film by which most trial-based dramas are still judged by. “One of the amazing things Aaron does with such beauty and deftness is he takes a story that should be dense at a moment in history that not everyone knows about and makes it funny, and filled with characters that are so fully fledged. says star Eddie Redmayne.
“Aaron writes overwhelmingly human, intelligent, gripping dialogue.”
Frank Langella
In this new featurette, the cast of The Trial of the Chicago 7 talk about their experiences working with Sorkin and his composer-like process on set.
The Trial of the Chicago 7 is currently available to stream exclusively on Netflix.
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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