Struck by the similarities and differences between the Vietnam and Iraq wars, Brett Morgen was inspired to create the mixed-media Chicago 10, a look at a watershed event of the ‘60s. All images © C7 Films Inc.

1968 was a hell of a year -- literally.

Anti-Vietnam war protests raged across the U.S., even as more American troops poured into the country... Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., both critics of the conflict, were assassinated... President Lyndon B. Johnson, rocked by the protests (“Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?”) and opposition in his own party, decided not to run for re-election.

And then there were the Chicago riots. Thousands of mostly young protestors descended on the city, determined to march on the Democratic National Convention, where the party would nominate its hoped-for successor to LBJ.

The Chicago police had other ideas and treated the protestors to a head-busting display of force -- a violent debacle that probably cost the Democrats the election. The next year the U.S. government (now under the command of a Republican named Nixon) decided to put the leaders of the protest on trial for a supposed conspiracy to incite the riots. It turned into the show trial of the century, but not the way the government intended...

Brett Morgen was in his mother’s womb back then, and “she was apolitical,” says the filmmaker. It was the similarities -- and differences -- between the Vietnam and Iraq conflicts that drove him to create Chicago 10, his mixed-media look back at the cultural collision that took place on that city’s streets and in one of its courtrooms.

“We were about to invade Afghanistan and no one was taking to the streets,” Morgen recalls. “I thought it was time to look back at the ‘60s and what it meant to take a stand against the government.” Rather than splicing together news footage and interviews with the surviving participants, Morgen wanted to create a “you are there” experience for young audiences whose presidential memories begin with Ronald Reagan.

Part of his solution was to skip a 1960s soundtrack in favor of a more contemporary sound, using, for example, Rage Against the Machine’s “Wake Up” instead of Graham Nash’s “Chicago.” The other part was to recreate the trial itself, a closed-to-cameras courtroom circus that pitted the uptight establishment against a collection of earnest, intellectual protest leaders, “Yippie” political tricksters Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, and for good measure, Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale.

A live-action re-enactment, using actors who might or might not resemble their real-life counterparts, held little appeal to Morgen. “Then one day I read a quote from Jerry Rubin where he described the trial as ‘a cartoon show.’”

Morgen knew he didn’t want to splice together news footage and interviews for the film, but it wasn’t until he read a Jerry Rubin quote comparing the trial to a cartoon that he hit on the approach to take.

Morgen studied the work of, and made a pilgrimage to visit, an animator whose films are redolent of the 1960s -- Ralph Bakshi. “Ralph was living atop a mountain in New Mexico -- visiting him was like a scene out of The Tempest. I asked Ralph for his advice and he said [here he imitates Bakshi’s gravelly Brooklyn accent to perfection]’make them animals.’”

Morgen decided to forego the funny animal route. The documentarian’s previous animation experience was as executive producer of Kid Notorious, a 2003 Comedy Central series inspired by his profile of Robert Evans, The Kid Stays in the Picture. “I first thought of using 2D Flash animation, like we had in Kid Notorious. In that we gradually built up a library of movements that we re-used in later episodes -- but we couldn’t do that in this movie.”

Morgen next contacted Bermuda Shorts, a London-based animation and design firm, after seeing work done by one of their then-staff directors. “There was an amazing animator there named Martyn Pick. His work is abstract, not narrative-based -- I loved his energy, he gave me great style frames.

“They spent six months working on character designs. When I went to England to see the first tests, everything had been done on fives and sixes. It all looked staccato, robotic. Within two seconds I told myself, this is not going to work. It was a very sad day. I’d already spent 15% of my animation budget on development; now I had less money, less time and I was starting from scratch.”