Unfinished Symphony
description: Arizona International Film Festival program film description: Shot primarily over Memorial Day weekend in May of 1971, Unfinished Symphony is a study of a local conflict that reverberated nationally. While planned as a rally against the Vietnam War, Operation POW was a staged event meant to confront suburban residents; it retraced the ride of Paul Reve from Concord to Boston and culminated in huge demonstration on Boston Common. The protest became a watershed for discussions and considerations regarding the concept of dissent and its place within democratic society. This is a challenging documentary which raises both old and sometimes painful issues and new interpretations of the concept of civil disobedience. The setting for the event itself--at the doorstep of Walden Pond, with its echoes Thoreau's writing on Civil Disobedience an at the very cradle of American political idealism--helps give the material a special resonance. The film is scored with the haunting strains of Henryk Gorecki's 3rd Symphony, which becomes a principal aspect of the cinematic language explorin concerns of the conscience.
format: Video (VHS)
language: English
type: Documentary
identifier: FEST 2001 FILMS - BOX 2