t expanded far beyond the nd its imposed limitations, ng, and often controversial tracked down members of the Weathermen (when allegedly the FBI couldn’t), including two of the group’s ‘leaders’, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. Through their interviews, the film surveys the rise of the Weathermen, their radicalization from the 60’s and 70’s, and their experience living underground in hiding from the US government. Indeed, the FBI later subpoenaed the filmmakers and demanded they turn over all of their footage for investigation (perhaps giving the film its famous tagline: “The FBI doesn’t want you to see… Underground”). “To work on Emile de Antonio’s film we had to undergo severe cloak and dagger and surveillance,” he recalled. “After the shooting and before anything broke, I lived in the Hollywood Hills and had helicopters follow me and my van. Two guys in suits changed a tire in front of my house all day long. FBI came to my door and gave a subpoena to my wife.”7 Throughout his life, he contemplated whether his involvement with the clandestine production of Underground was responsible for his mysterious ejection from the production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975). “I was devastated,” he remembered. “There’s only about a minute or two minutes in that film I didn’t shoot.”8 Still, the film won in five of the major categories at the Academy Awards that year. Wexler and Bill Butler were both credited for cinematography. The 1970’s were a peak decade for Wexler, a decade where he produced some of his best work and developed working relationships with his many future collaborators. In 1971 he photographed his first of many documentaries with American investigative journalist Saul Landau, Brazil: A Report on Torture, an investigation into
the torture techniques used by the country’s USbacked military dictatorship. The same year he worked on Landau’s documentary An Interview with President Allende, a filmed discussion with Popular Unity leader Salvador Allende, the democratically elected president of Chile who was overthrown by a CIA-sponsored coup two years later. A right-wing military dictator, Augusto Pinochet, was installed, who - with full Western support - oversaw the disappearance, torture, and execution of thousands of Chilean civilians. Landau later commented: “Although rumours of CIA activities in Chile abounded, and much news was coming out of Chile, none of the networks had interviewed Allende. They nevertheless rejected our documentary without looking at it.”9 Wexler made a number of other films with Landau, including The CIA Case Officer (1978; about former CIA officer and whistleblower John Stockwell), Land of Our Birth (1978; a campaign film for the popular Jamaican socialist leader Michael Manley), Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang (1979; about the Atomic Energy Agency’s misinformation regarding the effects of radiation on human health; winner of an Emmy award and the George Polk award), and Quest for Power: Sketches of the American New Right (1982) among others. Yet perhaps his most notable film with Landau is Target Nicaragua: Inside a Secret War (1983), which covers the effects of the death squads backed by the Reagan administration to destabilize the democratic socialist Sandinista government. Situated near the Honduran side of the border, they documented the effects of USsponsored violence by the contra rebels, including kidnapping, murder, and torture. Landau recalled Wexler’s courage during the production, and his 81