United States Army

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRewind‘F.T.A.’: When Jane Fonda Rocked the U.S. ArmyA newly exhumed documentary delves into the actress’s anti-Vietnam vaudeville tour of American military bases in 1972.Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda in the 1972 documentary “F.T.A.,” which stood for something ruder than Free the Army.Credit…Kino LorberMarch 4, 2021, 11:52 a.m. ET“F.T.A.,” an agitprop rockumentary that ran for a week in July 1972, reappears as an exhumed relic, recording the joyfully scurrilous anti-Vietnam War vaudeville led by Jane Fonda that toured the towns outside American military bases in Hawaii, the Philippines and Japan.The movie, directed by Francine Parker, who produced it along with Fonda and Donald Sutherland, opened the same day that Fonda’s trip to North Vietnam made news. The film, greeted with outrage and consigned to oblivion, has been restored by IndieCollect, and is enjoying a belated second (virtual) run.The F.T.A. show was conceived as an alternative to Bob Hope’s gung-ho, blithely sexist U.S.O. tours; its initials stood for something ruder than “Free the Army.” The skits, evocative of the guerrilla street theater, ridiculed generals, mocked male chauvinism and celebrated insubordination. The show was hardly subtle, but, as documented in the movie, opinions expressed by various servicemen were no less blunt.In interviews, Black marines characterized Vietnam as “a racist and genocidal war of aggression” and even white soldiers criticized the “imperialistic American government.” Half a century after it appeared, “F.T.A.” is a reminder of how deeply unpopular the Vietnam War was and how important disillusioned GIs were to the antiwar movement. “I was ‘silent majority’ until tonight,” one tells the camera after a performance.Fonda may be the designated spokeswoman, but the show was largely devoid of star-ism. A shaggy-looking Sutherland, who had recently appeared with her in “Klute,” gets at least as much screen time. Two relative unknowns, the singer Rita Martinson and the poet (and proto-rapper) Pamela Donegan, have memorable solos performing their own material.The hardest working individual was the Greenwich Village folk singer and civil rights activist Len Chandler, who assumed the Pete Seeger role of prompting the audience to sing along with compositions like “My Ass is Mine” and “I Will Not Bow Down to Genocide.” A younger folkie, Holly Near, was also on hand, hamming along with Fonda in a parody of “Carolina Morning” that began, “Nothing could be finer than to be in Indochina …”Context is crucial. Vivian Gornick, who covered the tour for the Village Voice, reported that “the F.T.A. was surrounded, wherever it went, by agents of the C.I.D., the O.S.I., the C.I.A., the local police.” After military authorities became frightened, “‘riot conditions’ were declared.” Indeed, “F.T.A.” documents antiwar demonstrations staged by civilians in Okinawa and at Subic Bay in the Philippines. The latter was singled out in the New York Times critic Roger Greenspun’s review as the movie’s high point.Greenspun thought “F.T.A.” failed to capture the spirit of the stage shows. Perhaps, but however chaotic and self-righteous, the movie is a genuine, powerful and even stirring expression of the antipathy engendered by a war that — as the author Thomas Powers recently wrote — “refused to be won, or lost, or understood” and scarred the psyches of those who lived through it.F.T.A.Opens in virtual cinemas through Kino Marquee starting March 5.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More