Product Details

• Actors: Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland
• Directors: Francine Parker
• Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), American Sign Language (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: DOCURAMA
• DVD Release Date: February 24, 2009
• Run Time: 97 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001HBVE7Y
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #127,584 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "FTA" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The FTA is a now-fascinating 1972 documentary capturing actors Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland in a then-infamous traveling troupe of political theatre protesting both the Vietnam war and the presence of American military bases in Okinawa, the Philippines, Japan, and elsewhere along the Pacific Rim. A kind of anti-USO show, "FTA" (i.e., "F**K the Army") featured Fonda, Sutherland, folk musician Len Chandler, singer-songwriters Holly Near and Rita Martinson, and comedian Paul Mooney in a sketch-and-tune performance for dissident soldiers and sailors. The show itself doesn't leap out as particularly dynamic all these decades later, but it's the context that matters. Early on, Sutherland describes an assault by U.S. forces on a Vietnamese village as if he were calling a baseball game--a macabre but effective satire that rouses the audience. Fonda participates in a sketch about the way families of officers are treated far better by the American government than the families of ordinary grunts. Much of the film is dedicated to the comments and testimony of servicemen who had seen and done what most of us will never know about Vietnam. Black soldiers define and describe the role of racism in the war, and much is said about racist policies toward the native peoples of the countries where American bases were allegedly so unwelcome. Throughout, Fonda takes any opportunity to declare, in the most general terms, that U.S. troops don’t want to be in whatever country "FTA" is visiting, but again that kind of hyperbole was a then-part of everyone's life and times. --Tom Keogh

Product Description

FTA - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Invaluable Historical Document, May 31, 2010

By 

Keith D. Danner - See all my reviews
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This review is from: FTA (DVD)

This is exactly the corrective to the view out there that the anti-war movement and the army were somehow different during the Vietnam era. The army, like US society, was split. To see the number of soldiers who attended these shows, and their laughter at the skits that mock the idiocy of their commanding officers, is to see that the movement against the war was inside and outside the army. Is the content of the skits hilarious or inventive? Not particularly. But I would rather see this concrete evidence of solidarity with the soldiers from the anti-war movement than Bob Hope's silly jingoistic USO shows any day. The "F" in the title, by the way, stands not for "Free" the Army, but for a rather more forceful verb.

The film also shows, incidentally, the not insignificant sexism in the subsequent vilification of Fonda from the right. Why was there never the same level of vilification (which I would also have disagreed with) of Sutherland? Sexism.

If you are interested in completing your view of the war and of the movement against it, this is a good place to go. Also useful: The American War (book) For more on the Tet Offensive and its impact, see Tet: The Turning Point in the Vietnam War, by Don Oberdorfer, plus the collection of essays in Vietnam and America: The Most Comprehensive Documented History of the Vietnam War, edited by Marvin Gettleman, Jane Franklin, Marilyn Young and H. Bruce Franklin.

Gerald Nicosia's Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans' Movement is a history based on hundreds of interviews with men who fought in Vietnam and then came home to be active in the antiwar movement. The War Within: America's Battle Over Vietnam by Tom Wells is a comprehensive history of the antiwar movement, from its earliest days to the end of the war in 1975.

For an excellent history that focuses specifically on the GI rebellion during the war, read David Cortright's Soldiers in Revolt, republished by Haymarket Books.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Hearts were in the right place, February 15, 2009

By 

HH (Sherman Oaks, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: FTA (DVD)

I'm thrilled this is out FINALLY, it's an interesting movie, certainly the original demonstration wouldn't have gone so smoothly had Sutherland and Fonda not been involved, but as far as entertainment value, it's forced and mixed to say the least. Maybe if Abbie Hoffman, Lenny Bruce or the Smothers Brothers Variety writers had been involved at this point, it would have been a wittier, more clever show. As it stands, it has the subtlety of an axe through a forehead. Since a similar high profile show with "stars" wasn't done to protest our last ten years of administration, I think FTA shows how much more guts people had then to fight for something they believed in, without fear of unpopularity or jail time.

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars FTA, December 19, 2009

By 

John F. Wachter (surprise, az usa) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: FTA (DVD)

This was a typical anti-vietnam war movie with Jane Fonda. I was curious as to its anti 1970's content. Watched the whole thing but to me it is not worth sharing with anyone.