The Sixties: The Years That Shaped A Generation
(PBS Home Video/Paramount)

Guerrilla: The Taking Of Patty Hearst
(Docurama)

Many years ago, PBS aired a six-part, 12-hour series on the Sixties that, from the perspective of someone who lived through those tumultuous years, was the most comprehensive exploration of the changes that reshaped the American dream. This recent production from Oregon Public Broadcasting may not be as long or detailed, but manages to touch upon most of the important issues that defined the ‘baby boomer’ generation. Drugs, the civil rights movement, political assassinations, the Black Panthers and the Vietnam War are just a few of the major topics that are peppered with interviews featuring such icons as Henry Kissinger, Ed Meese, Bobby Seale, Tom Hayden and Robert McNamara. It’s an excellent primer for the young’uns who might be curious about the events and idealism that broke down the doors of segregation, brought an end to the war and took down a corrupt President and his staff.

A few months before Tricky Dick bid farewell from the White House lawn, a mysterious band of armed rebels known as the Symbionese Liberation Army murdered a black public school superintendent in Oakland and declared their intention to wage war against the government. While the police scrambled to find out where this group came from, they kidnapped Patty Hearst (the daughter of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst) who had been attending school at UC Berkeley. In an elaborate extortion scheme, the SLA demanded that the Hearst family spend millions of dollars to set up food banks and feed the poor. After being held hostage for two months, Patti sent a message declaring that she had become sympathetic to the rebels and had joined their ranks willingly and was later captured on video assisting the SLA in a bank robbery. Filmmaker Robert Stone uses rare archival footage and interviews with former members Russ Little and Mike Bortin to trace the story of the SLA and the mindset that transformed the group from disgruntled anti-government activists, into murdering felons, most of whom were eventually wiped out in an assault on their safe house by Los Angeles police. This bizarre and fascinating tale is supplemented by footage of the Hiberna Bank robbery, the collected audio tapes that Patty Hearst sent to her family while being held hostage and scenes from a Sacramento courthouse in 2003, where former members that had gone into hiding were eventually sentenced for the murder of a woman during another bank robbery in 1975. A most compelling story.--David Bassin