Word: fta
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Hope and his band of renown aren't the only ones who can put on a good show for and about the military. Jane Fonda, Don Sutherland and an anti-military troupe known as the FTA ("Fuck--free the Army") recently traveled to a number of U.S. bases in the Pacific to show that even if war can be funny, it is no laughing matter...
...audience, that the young military people and the young movie-goers will share its anti-military, anti-Vietnam position. Emile de Antonio's "In the Year of the Pig" presented a case against the war that must be considered even by those who might favor combat; in FTA the case is closed, with the laughter more of a reiteration than a recognition...
...another, obviously contrived phraseology provides a bit of harsh irony that says everything the FTA people might have wanted to say, but didn't. A few of the performers tour the museum at Hiroshima, looking at the photographs of the devastation to the people and the city as a taped American voice guides them. The voice has a removed, almost boastful tone of facts-and-figures, like the voice that accompanies one in the elevator to the top of the Washington Monument. Director Francine Parker chose to rush through the tour, eager to get back to the stage, but that...
Like most concert films, FTA is largely a record of a traveling show that is expected to reach more people as a film. We see little more of the performers than the soldiers did; almost all the "off-stage" sequences are clearly planned. Unless a viewer is completely unaware of the traditional as well as recent disgruntlement in the armed forces, it informs us of little and convinces us of less. With a little less politics and a little more flair, this could have been a film of Bob Hope's Christmas tour. But, then again, you might not believe...