American Anarchist

American Anarchist

Charlie Siskel directed “American Anarchist,” a film about an enraging person. It’s similar to Errol Morris’ “The Fog of War” in that it’s about one individual who essentially unleashed a weapon of mass destruction and then had to live with the consequences. But where former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara the subject of Morris’ film was candid and eloquent, staring into the camera (courtesy of Morris’ famous “Interrotron”) and essentially telling viewers they’re idiots for not asking these questions while he was alive, Siskel’s interviewee keeps looking away from his questioner, with more than just a hint of evasiveness in his eyes.

The subject is William Powell, who is not what one would expect the author of 1971’s The Anarchist Cookbook to look or sound like at age 65. He speaks in a British accent he acquired during his childhood in England, and looks more like an elderly professor than an aging hippie. When asked by Siskel about the infamous book he wrote when he was 19, Powell seems as puzzled as anyone else as to how it came to exist. It does not help that for such an articulate man, his answers are less evasive than muddy; he hems and haws more times than there are Warren Beatty performances in Dick Tracy.

Siskel was a field producer on Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine (briefly glimpsed here), and he shares his mentor’s goal of trying to get the subject to have some sort of epiphany about himself while the cameras are rolling; guiding him toward that moment by illuminating all those blind spots in Powell’s perspective creates friction between them, which at one point causes Powell to scold Siskel for being “deliberately provocative.” Which is what members of Black Lives Matter would call burning down convenience stores after police officers aren’t indicted for killing unarmed black teenagers a “strategic revolutionary act,” with the key word being that it’s unoccupied private property.

Powell’s book advances a much nastier message, expressed in lines like “People are helpless without a gun” and “Respect must be earned by the spilling of blood.” After Powell claims he hasn’t read his own book since writing it, Siskel gives him a copy and asks him to recite selected passages including those aforementioned ones he says are now “rubbish.”

Though the word “anarchist” is in the title of The Anarchist Cookbook, Powell stresses he wrote every page entirely on his own, without being influenced by any movement; he figured since the military and various radical groups already knew these things, why not let the general public know as well? He quotes Lincoln about how people have the right to overthrow their government if they feel like it.

People can’t be trusted, and that is why Powell’s conviction is tragic. What could be described as “America’s Dumbest Home Videos” shows a series of YouTube clips with kids using the book’s recipes to almost blow themselves up.

The Anarchist Cookbook was written by an idealistic mind who believed the public would take its instructions as a tool for fighting evil, rather than use them in such a way that people like Heath Ledger’s Joker or his real-life counterpart in Colorado who “just want to watch the world burn.” Powell died one year into filming this project, having spent thirty-five years living abroad with his wife Ochan and willfully ignorant of how catastrophic his book has been for every generation of Americans since.

Society has forgotten all about them; so they will too this shared belief fuels everyone from homicidal teenagers and abortion clinic bombers to ISIS members looking through their copies of our author’s work. He said he feels filled with remorse but notes it is something more akin to sorrow than regret when she says we all do stupid things but not everyone puts them down on paper like I did.”

The greatest irony in Mr.Powell’s life is that most of his teaching career was spent working with children who suffered from what he called “emotional problems,” just like him or at least so he thought. The move back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean during his childhood made Powell feel like an outcast wherever they went; which caused frustration at being powerless over such feelings later in life leading him into acts mentioned casually now by adult voices over images where we only see young faces saying words whose meanings escape us entirely; such as gently pushing some teacher’s car into a tree because she wouldn’t listen when told not to quit smoking around him anymore.

Siskel saves until after everything else about Lyle Stuart comes out: This guy apparently staged smoke bomb attacks during authors’ press conferences? $10k for rights? Bought it. Moved on with life, been trying to escape ever since but no anonymous groups would stop digging up copies each time he applied at different schools; so finally put statement on Amazon.com disavowing book then waited another thirteen years before publishing open piece in The Guardian expressing same sentiments again acts that make clear while well-intentioned, Mr. Powell did absolutely nothing (except maybe just about) to keep his book out of print once and for all. He emailed her office after Dianne Feinstein spoke out against the book got an “out of office” reply back from them which discouraged further correspondence

The documentary “American Anarchist” features a man who is convinced that he is living in the end of times and whose book ends up having an apocalyptic impact on civilization. Powell should get credit for trying to make amends when he got older, but it is absolutely mind-boggling and infuriating why he won’t do anything about the havoc he wreaked as a youth. Leaving America is akin to Shane leaving the farmhouse in George Stevens’ classic western, except that Shane would have left all of his guns in the valley.

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