Donald Sutherland 1935-2024
In 1971, at the height of the Vietnam War, Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland toured an anti-war comedy show across Southeast Asia. Despite being highly controversial, it was a huge success among stationed soldiers.
A documentary crew directed by Francine Parker captured the show, which featured songs, comedy sketches, and dramatic readings, but a week after the documentary’s release, it disappeared and wasn’t seen again for nearly 50 years.
“Donald Sutherland and I were sitting in a room and Howard Levy came in and said “how about doing an anti-Bob Hope, anti-war tour for soldiers, and call it FTA, F**k the Army?” Jane Fonda told the HFPA in 2020. “Even though we called it Fun, Travel, and Adventure, or Free the Army. But there was a GI newspaper called FTA, F**k the Army. And so we really responded to Howard’s suggestion and a year later – off we went.”
Comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory, and folksinger and longtime activist Barbara Dane also feature.
FTA has since found a new life thanks to the restoration efforts of the Golden Globe Foundation (formerly Hollywood Foreign Press Association) and preservation group IndieCollect, who restored the negatives and fixed the color, sound and credits of the film.
The 4K restoration of the documentary is available from Kino Lorber: https://kinolorber.com/list/indiecollect-kino-lorber-promo-2021
The New York Times
“…the movie is a genuine, powerful and even stirring expression of the antipathy engendered by a war that — as the author Thomas Powers recently wrote — ‘refused to be won, or lost, or understood’ and scarred the psyches of those who lived through it.” — J. Hoberman
The Guardian
With 20/20 hindsight, we can see that it was specifically because [Fonda] and her comrades loved the country that they devoted their energies and risked their reputations to better it, their criticisms the ultimate act of patriotism. — Charles Bramesco
Movie Nation
“Funny, biting and tuneful, it takes you right back there if you lived through it, and might be an eye-opener for activist “Ok, Boomer” millennials.” — Roger Moore
Alliance of Women Film Journalists / Cinema Citizen
“This is a film that records history, and it is history. It’s very good that FTA can now be seen because history seems to be repeating itself.” — Jennifer Merin
WBUR’s The Artery
“F.T.A. becomes a fascinating time capsule …The people we meet are deeply disillusioned draftees in the midst of an incredibly unpopular war that just won’t seem to end no matter how many politicians say they want it over.”
