Something More Than Love

By J. C.

Carry It On, a gentle documentary about draft resistance, surprises with the subtle force of its argument and stuns through the sincerity of its two leading figures, Singer Joan Baez and her husband, the nonviolent activist David Harris. Shot in cinema verite format over a period of four months last summer, Carry It On revolves around Harris' arrest in July for noncooperation with the draft.

The film begins with scenes of Harris addressing a rally of California high school students and being arrested. It shows his wife meeting him on his release from jail, and moves on to fleeting glimpses of their home life, which is suddenly shattered when David is taken off to begin his three-year prison term. Then the cameras go on the road with Mrs. Harris, show her in concert and in conference, talking politics and counseling nonviolent resistance.

The film is directed with great sympathy by three young film makers working out of Cambridge, Mass.: Christopher G. Knight, Robert Jones and James Coyne. Their work is at its straightforward best in depicting the relationship between the Harrises. When Joan meets David at the jail after the high school rally, there is a scene of extraordinary intimacy. David comes smiling out of the station door; Joan and some friends crowd around him. She takes his arm, smiles back at him, and they walk away together. That is all; yet the sequence and her simple gesture express a strong and lasting bond.

Carry It On is not only a love story. The Harrises give the film considerable ideological intensity. Even those who violently disagree with them will find their conversation refreshingly free of cant and full of infectious urgency. The movie may not convert doubters, but it may well make them turn their doubt, however briefly, upon themselves.

qedJ.C.

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