Judge Julius Hoffman and Me
A review of "The Trial of the Chicago 7" from the perspective of a 78 year old retired psychiatrist
My son David asked me if I had seen “The Trial of the Chicago 7” and what I thought of the ‘cultural tumult’ of the time. I had not seen the movie but I recalled there had been riots before the opening of the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968. I knew there had been arrests and a very famous political trial. But the truth was, back then, I had just graduated medical school and was in the midst of my first formal year of being a doctor, with responsibility, and I didn’t pay much attention to the Chicago 7. I had a certain degree of sympathy with their goals but mainly I dismissed them at the time as a bunch of attention-seeking hippies or Yippies or whatever.
As significant, I had just met Sondra, the woman who I would marry 3 years in the future, and I was preoccupied with the excitement of love and the sometimes contentious nature of relationships. Last Saturday night, I saw the movie, (with Sondra), streamed via Prime Video. It provoked a lot of thought. I decided to write a review of the movie, not from the standpoint of the 25 year old intern I was at the time, but from the perspective of a 78 year old retired psychiatrist who I am now. I have entitled this post, “Judge Julius Hoffman and Me”. It is part essay, part movie review.
By a third of the way through the movie, “The Trial of the Chicago 7”, the character of the presiding judge, Julius Hoffman, had been well introduced. He was an elderly, white haired jurist, who was rigid, unfair and biased against the defense. This was clear and amply depicted. Furthermore, a number of scenes had passed by, played for their humorous and ironic effects, showing Judge Hoffman having difficulty remembering a name, mixing up or mispronouncing (more than once) the names of the trial’s defendants or other participants. At one point, now 40 minutes into the movie, Mark Rylance playing William Kunstler the defense attorney, is informed that Judge Hoffman is planning to sequester the jury, much to the disadvantage of the defense. His associates are shown busy with their tasks, while he muses out loud, really, to us, his audience, “I want an expert in geriatric psychiatry sitting in the gallery for a few days… I want a medical evaluation of this… this judge…”
This little plot footnote, only hinted at and passing by quickly, did nonetheless catch my attention. I am not a formal specialist in geriatric psychiatry, although I could hardly be expected not to have had a great deal of experience and knowledge in this area. Much of my practice has always been geriatric. Through the years, I have examined and treated many hundreds of elderly patients — both in the hospital and in my office. Thus I watched the movie both as a geriatric psychiatrist desired by the Kunstler character (qualified by experience) and as a retired elderly (or geriatric) psychiatrist. On both counts, I was interested and involved in this plot device and I continued to watch from my seat in the ‘gallery’.
There was another, more personal reason, for my interest. All my life, I had difficulty remembering a name, even if I had been introduced to someone a mere 60 seconds earlier, or if it was someone I had known always. I remember discussing this difficulty with one of my supervisors while in my psychoanalytic training decades ago. He opined that this problem must have been the result of something in my “development” and therefore I should try, in the course of my ongoing personal analysis, to fix it. I considered his interpretation (and proposed remedy) seriously but ultimately rejected it. It made more sense to me to view my ‘problem with names’ as hardwired, a form of dyslexia, rather than a software issue. It was always mild and more a hindrance socially than professionally. In my psychiatric practice, there was always an easy reliable visual workaround. I merely had to glance at the tab on the chart in front of me. Compared to gauging the time, this was always easier and less detectable than trying to sneak a peek at my watch. But it always was a problem as it continued through the years. It reached a crowning moment when I blocked on the name of my office manager/receptionist at a holiday dinner with my adult children and their families. Like all my patients (and family), I loved Annette. She had left my office 5 years before to pursue a degree in social work, much more in line with her abilities and warmth. It was painful to hear a family member joke that I was beginning to suffer dementia. And now, here I was, sitting in the gallery, trying to judge this judge with similar difficulties with names.
At the age of 78, this possibility of dementia can never be rejected out of hand. It always has to be considered, soberly, calmly and realistically. The outcome at the end of life is certain for everyone — it will always be dementia, unless mercifully, death comes earlier. No one escapes one or the other, ultimately. Therefore, I always find myself, almost unconsciously, testing myself for any indication of its approach. And of course, this watchfulness comes with a built in quandary: what if the instrument I am using to test myself, is itself declining, becoming suspect and unusable. After all, am I any different then an alkaline battery sold with the built-in meter on its side? Can I really test whether the battery remains good, if the meter is a part of the underlying battery being tested?
My solution to this quandary has been to divide my cognitive functioning into two general realms or divisions. Metaphorically, I divide my ‘mental machine’ into two general sections. As if it were a watch on my wrist, some components are cheaply made, coming from China or SE Asia, while others are finely made, hand crafted from Switzerland. (I will not attempt to give evidence for the metaphors I use for something so complex as mental functioning. There are solid underlying scientific indications for this informal division, but I leave them aside for the purpose of this little essay.)
Most prominent among my cheap components is my short-term memory (STM). I view the decline of STM as a time-sensitive imperative, it is simply going to occur. It is much like the loss of the ability to read small print (or the need to use reading glasses) that comes to everyone in their mid or late 40’s. The failures of STM become more noticeable as you become older. Thus I try not to become alarmed when I walk into the bedroom (for the second time), forgetting why I wanted to go. These are life’s ‘senior moments’ that pile up with age. Like reading glasses, there are workarounds for them also. The real challenge is to use them.
On the other hand, there are many more quality, reliable components, built to last, much more impervious to rapid decline. These are what we may term (more metaphorically than anatomically) our “frontal lobe” aspects (FLA). (No pun intended for a favorite geriatric destination.) Among these FLA’s might be our ability to deal with ideas, logic and concepts, to plan, to organize, to create and innovate. These are the components I try to use while testing with my built in battery meter. (This essay is also part of that self-test.) In addition, these healthier and more resilient components can be called upon to construct workarounds for what is going bad, like STM. But that is another topic altogether.
So having seen the movie, (which I thoroughly enjoyed and strongly recommend), this geriatric critic (also a retired psychiatrist) is ready to produce his review. The movie amply demonstrated that Judge Hoffman was wanting in qualities that would make him a worthy judge in the case. He was biased, small-minded, literal, humorless and unimaginative. However, the addition of the throw-away line, needing an “expert in geriatric psychiatry” sitting in the gallery was a cheap shot, a set-up. I saw no evidence that Judge Hoffman’s real problems and absolute failures as a judge had anything to do with him being elderly or geriatric. His defects had nothing to do with impaired mental faculties and his age. In short, albeit to a much less degree, the movie ended up being unfair to Judge Hoffman in the same manner that he was unfair to the defendants.
But as a movie it was gripping and well-done.