NACDL

Sacco and Vanzetti

A film by Peter Miller
First Run Features (2007)
Reviewed by Jon A. Umarov

The Peter Miller documentary Sacco and Vanzetti is about the murder trial of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian immigrants who arrived in the United States in 1908 in search of a better life. The Sacco and Vanzetti case, probably the most controversial and notorious political case in American history, raised fundamental questions about civil liberties and immigrant rights.

After their arrival, both Sacco and Vanzetti soon realized that life in America for Italian immigrants was not easy. Sacco witnessed the horrendous exploitation of people and came to dislike capitalism. Vanzetti firmly believed that economic resources should be owned by people and everyone should benefit from them.

The underlying events unfolded during the “Red Scare” era when authorities feared that because of the Russian revolution, a similar social revolution and retaliatory violence threatened American society. It