{"id":47861,"date":"2025-05-22T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T16:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=47861"},"modified":"2025-05-21T23:01:28","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T03:01:28","slug":"suburban-fury-siff2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/22\/suburban-fury-siff2025\/","title":{"rendered":"SUBURBAN FURY [SIFF2025]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Sara Jane Moore attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford outside of a hotel in 1975. Fifty years later, she tells her story in Seattle-based Robinson Devor\u2019s gripping documentary, Suburban Fury.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In 1975, in San Francisco, only seventeen days after Manson devotee Lynette \u201cSqueaky\u201d Fromme attempted to murder President Gerald R. Ford, another woman (the only two women to attempt to assassinate the President) also tried. Standing forty feet away from Ford, she raised her arm and fired two shots. One narrowly missed. The other hit a taxi driver (he lived) after a bystander forced the shooter\u2019s arm away. The shooter was Sara Jane Moore.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sara Jane Moore is an intriguing subject. In approaching the documentary, Moore demanded that she be the only interview subject. She is more than enough to drive the tale. She\u2019s loud. She\u2019s brash. She\u2019s committed to telling her story, her way. In a series of interviews in a station wagon overlooking San Francisco, and in the hotel ballroom she was interrogated in after the attempt, she unfolds the life that led to the attempted assassination\u2014or her version of it.\u00a0 I dare not delve into the details of said life, preferring to let Devor do it in his way, except to note it\u2019s intriguing and riveting.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t just Moore\u2019s story. To fully understand what led to the central action, and what happened after, Devor unfolds the political culture of the 1970s, effectively working as a primer of the ups and downs of American foreign and domestic culture, the landscape of espionage and subterfuge. Devor\u2019s use of historical sources, news programs, archival interviews, newspapers, and the like creates a portrait of the tumultuous time. A focus is placed on Patty Hearst and her whole deal with the Symbionese Liberation Army. Fitting, as Moore was obsessed with Patty Hearst, and connected via working as a bookkeeper for Randolph Hearst\u2019s People in Need fund, while also performing as an FBI informant. Yes, Moore wasn\u2019t just a random, but a secret government employee, meant to watch revolutionaries\u2026 but became one herself.<\/span><\/p>\n

Moore, who served 32 years in prison for the crime, and the culture around her actions combine into a delicious meal of truths, lies, and the area between them.\u00a0 She tries to control the narrative, restarting the stories, questioning Devor\u2019s questions as he prods her off-screen. She yells and gets annoyed with the title\u2019s suburban fury. \u00a0 Moore may insist on appearing as the only interviewee, but she\u2019s not the only subject, as mixed into her tale are the notes of her FBI handler, \u201cBertram Worthington,\u201d as read by the director. Worthington\u2019s wider appraisal of Moore creates a counter-narrative that questions her past, her actions for and against the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n

The questions of the truth of any of what we\u2019re told from Moore, Worthington, the government, or other sources give layers to the situation and the story. Who is Moore? There is little to know of her outside of her testimony and Worthington\u2019s words. What is her true past? As the demanded only talking head, no one else can speak to or about her and her life. Who was Worthington? Are his notes the truth, or shifts things to cover himself? Was she radicalized by the government or because of what she saw as an informant? How many shadowy figures lurk just off the informed narrative? Questions on questions, all mixed into Moore\u2019s fractured, cagey narrative.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Suburban Fury is an engaging portrait of a semi-forgotten public figure (Squiggy\u2019s Manson connections got all the press, though Moore is also featured in Sondheim\u2019s Assassins, a favorite musical of mine). Moore\u2019s complex, compelling, and inconsistent narrative, mixed with the history of the times, leads to a fantastic documentary of simmering rage and radicalization.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sara Jane Moore attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford outside of a hotel in 1975. Fifty years later, she tells her story in Seattle-based Robinson Devor\u2019s gripping documentary, Suburban Fury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1284],"tags":[292,356,3700],"class_list":["post-47861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-festivalsevents","tag-documentary","tag-film-festival","tag-siff2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47863,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47861\/revisions\/47863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}