An Obscure Film Review: Katherine (dir by Jeremy Kagan)

One of the great things about being an online film critic is that you occasionally come across a good but obscure film that you can then let the rest of the world know about as well. Katherine is one such film.

I came across Katherine as part of a 3-film compilation DVD called Classic Films Of The 70s. The other two films on the DVD were The Harrad Experiment and Born To Win and both of those films were so bad that I nearly tossed the DVD to the side without watching Katherine. I’m glad I changed my mind because, while it may not have truly lived up to the promise of being a classic film of the 70s, Katherine was still a thousand times better than The Harrad Experiment.

Beginning with the idealism and hope of the early 60s and ending with a literal bang in the 70s, Katherine tells the story of how one woman is transformed from being a sheltered, upper class liberal to being a political revolutionary who is proud to embrace violence in order to bring about change. Katherine ( Sissy Spacek, before she was Carrie) starts out as a teacher before falling in love with a civil rights activist (played, in a nicely smarmy performance, by Henry Winkler). Against the backdrop of the Viet Nam War and the violence of the late 60s, Spacek and Winkler gradually become more and more radicalized until they eventually go underground and turn violent. The film is made up of interviews with people who knew Katherine and Katherine herself even pops up and tells us her own version of her story. Despite being forced to wear a horrid wig in the latter half of the film, Sissy Spacek gives a wonderfully empathetic and multi-layered performance as Katherine. Even if you don’t always like the self-righteous stridency of the character, you never doubt her sincerity.

After I watched Katherine, I did a little research on the IMDb and I discovered that Katherine was a made-for-TV movie that was originally broadcast in 1975. This did not surprise me because, even as I was watching it, it was very easy to imagine a remake of Katherine (starring, I decided after much debate, Leighton Meester) being broadcast on the Lifetime Movie Network. However, if Katherine felt like a Lifetime movie with a political subtext, that’s only because I happen to love Lifetime movies. Katherine is both an intelligent and interesting look at a very specific period of American history and a portrait of youthful idealism, disillusionment, and wanderlust. We have all had to deal with that moment when our beliefs run into the wall of reality and Katherine captures that experience perfectly.

I found myself thinking about Katherine earlier today as I watched the presidential inauguration in Washington D.C. Though the film might be close to 40 years old, its portrait of naive idealism, political stridency, and destructive activism still feels relevant. Katherine is a film that most people have never heard of but it’s also one that is worth tracking down.

I’m most likely one of the few people who HAS heard of the film “Katherine”.

And yes, I am desperate to see it.

The film was inspired by the life of Diana Oughton, a member of the infamous Weather Underground movement.

It’s not at all uncommon for “upper class liberals” to join some radical fringe political cause and even take their radicalism to dangerous extremes. A lot of them do it just to “belong”. It’s ironic that these immensely privileged kids find “belonging” in groups that are so disenfranchised, but there you have it.

I find it odd that teenage college kids who have never worked a day in their lives and have enough money to attend university in the first place (don’t let anybody tell you that it’s cheap) march down the streets chanting “The workers…united…will never be defeated!” All these kids were studying to work in information technology or for some other fancy white collar office job. The mere concept of manual labour was poisonous to them. They were all for “the workers” of the world, but seemed determined to hang in college as long as they could. “Well, I’m studying 16th century Gothic history, and after that, I’m doing a four-year course in 18th century French military history, then I plan on doing a semester in Ancient Turkish philosophy, and after that…”

Oh, for crying out loud, just go to the library and read some books.

A lot of the “Katherines” of the world join radical activist groups in their young years for whatever reason, end up leaving college, then find out that they can’t have their cake and eat it too.

If she’d stuck around long enough, the real Diana Oughton most likely would have turned into just another yoga-mat toting, crispy-orange-spray-tanned, Lululemon-Athletica-wearing, Beverly-Hills-butchered “soccer mom”. And so it goes.

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One response to “An Obscure Film Review: Katherine (dir by Jeremy Kagan)”

Mark V says:

January 22, 2013 at 23:21

I’m most likely one of the few people who HAS heard of the film “Katherine”.

And yes, I am desperate to see it.

The film was inspired by the life of Diana Oughton, a member of the infamous Weather Underground movement.

It’s not at all uncommon for “upper class liberals” to join some radical fringe political cause and even take their radicalism to dangerous extremes. A lot of them do it just to “belong”. It’s ironic that these immensely privileged kids find “belonging” in groups that are so disenfranchised, but there you have it.

I find it odd that teenage college kids who have never worked a day in their lives and have enough money to attend university in the first place (don’t let anybody tell you that it’s cheap) march down the streets chanting “The workers…united…will never be defeated!” All these kids were studying to work in information technology or for some other fancy white collar office job. The mere concept of manual labour was poisonous to them. They were all for “the workers” of the world, but seemed determined to hang in college as long as they could. “Well, I’m studying 16th century Gothic history, and after that, I’m doing a four-year course in 18th century French military history, then I plan on doing a semester in Ancient Turkish philosophy, and after that…”

Oh, for crying out loud, just go to the library and read some books.

A lot of the “Katherines” of the world join radical activist groups in their young years for whatever reason, end up leaving college, then find out that they can’t have their cake and eat it too.

If she’d stuck around long enough, the real Diana Oughton most likely would have turned into just another yoga-mat toting, crispy-orange-spray-tanned, Lululemon-Athletica-wearing, Beverly-Hills-butchered “soccer mom”. And so it goes.

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