Thumbed tax
Praise for An Act of Conscience
Do you remember that stirring American lit-class anecdote concerning Ralph
Waldo Emerson? It seems the Concord-based poet peered into the local clink one
day and found his pal Thoreau newly jailed for refusing to pay taxes to support
the Mexican War.
"Hey, Henry David," the Self-Reliance author queried, "what are you
doing in there?"
"The question is, Ralph Waldo," retorted the incarcerated Walden
scrivener, "what are you doing out there?"
I had a friend, a bit of a cad, who would tell that story on a second date to
prove that he had integrity. Well, telling and having are quite different
things. For genuine principles, check out Robbie Leppzer's An Act of
Conscience (at the MFA January 21 through February 6), a moving,
years-in-the-making documentary witness to the valorous lives of resistance of
a Western Massachusetts couple.
Beginning in 1977, Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner stopped paying federal taxes
because they objected that much of their money was going to the American
military. Each April since, Kehler and Corner have taken the dough expected by
Uncle Sam and dispersed it to local and international charities.
This Robin Hood-like civil disobedience proved too much for the IRS, which, in
1991, seized Kehler and Corner's idyllic country house and put it up at auction
as a way to collect back taxes. The $120,000 home sold for $5100 to a
working-class couple, Danny Franklin and Terry Chamesky. Although sheepish
about the circumstances of their purchase, the hard-up young marrieds
rationalized that they'd never have such an opportunity again: a spot in the
country to raise their newborn baby.
At this point in the film, An Act of Conscience really gets
fascinating, because the two couples -- one leftist, one conservative -- seem
almost doppelgängers.
It takes real fortitude for Kehler and Corner to stand up for so long to the
federal government (Kehler, a lifetime pacifist, already had spent two years in
jail for refusing to go to Vietnam); and their actions bring incredible stress
upon their friends and family, all of whom are pledged to their cause. When
Kehler and Corner are actually locked out of their home by the feds, neighbors
picket and sit in, and many are arrested.
At the same time, Franklin and Chamesky occupy the house, fill it up with
their friends, and bolt the door. They do this before a court order
allows them to take over. Outside, Kehler shakes his head at the irony, noting
that his adversaries also have committed an act of civil disobedience! And no
matter how heinous is their assuming ownership of the house, Franklin and
Chamesky have been undeniably gutsy in standing up to the hostile crowds
awaiting them.
Besides, Franklin and Chamesky have followed their consciences also, believing
that the American thing to do is to pay your taxes. If you don't pay them, you
must accept the penalty of the law. That's what happened, they believe, and
rightly, to the now-homeless Kehler and Corner.
It's to videomaker Leppzer's credit that, though championing Kehler and
Corner, he gives Franklin and Chamesky their time before the camera. We
understand their justifications even if we can't quite approve. (Scabs!) But
don't worry: there's a fairly upbeat ending for An Act of Conscience,
plus guest visits from activists Father Daniel Berrigan and Pete Seeger. What's
nicest: Kehler and Corner never compromise, and they maintain their humanity
and humility, coming up roses for the five years covered by the movie. (And
beyond: it's 1999, and the US government still hasn't seen a cent from them.)
There's a far more self-conscious film about doubles, Mr. Klein,
the 1977 French-language feature by the fine British-based director Joseph
Losey, which is playing January 21 and 22 at the French Library. Alain Delon
stars as Robert Klein, an amoral art dealer in France 1942 who buys out the
collections of about-to-be-deported Jews at cut-rate prices. Then up pops up a
second Mr. Klein, a Jewish one, and Delon scurries off to the police to insist
that there's been a mix-up involving the two Kleins. He immediately becomes the
object of suspicion and is followed by two detectives as if he were Josef K.
Losey films Occupied Paris as a meeting point of Vichy gendarmes and native
anti-Semites: there's not a charming, twinkle-eyed Resistance fighter in sight.
As for Delon's Klein, he never learns, even as he's rounded up and stuffed on a
boxcar train for the East. One unsentimental movie!
As Boston goes, so goeth the nation. That's the lesson from the National
Society of Film Critics, which gathered at the Algonquin Hotel in New York on
January 4 to pick the best films of 1998. The four Boston critics who attended
(James Verniere from the Herald, Jay Carr from the Globe, Peter
Keough and yours truly from the Phoenix) certainly influenced the
balloting. Taste of Cherry and Out of Sight, voted Best Foreign
Film and Best Picture by the Boston Society of Film Critics in December,
repeated those victories in New York. Out of Sight's NSFC victory
was a particular surprise: it nipped the mightily favored Saving Private
Ryan.