In the autumn of 1980 a handful of high‑profile anti‑nuclear activists — the so‑called Plowshares Eight, including Daniel and Philip Berrigan, Anne Montgomery and Molly Rush — walked into the Re‑Entry Division of the General Electric Space Technology Center in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and deliberately damaged nose cones destined for nuclear warheads. They were arrested and charged, and the act quickly became both a legal case and a moral touchstone for the anti‑nuclear movement. Filmmaker Emile de Antonio was approached by the Berrigans to document the trial; having worked with Daniel Berrigan before on In the Year of the Pig and been burned by the controversy surrounding his film Underground, de Antonio initially demurred because he did not share the defendants’ religious motivations. He reversed course shortly before the proceedings and staged an unusual hybrid: the activists themselves played their roles in a reconstructed courtroom, while hired actors took the parts of jurors, lawyers and police. Martin Sheen, a friend of de Antonio’s from the earlier controversies, appears as Judge Samuel Salus II, lending star recognition to what was essentially a piece of political theatre.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1980s
DIY Courtroom: The Plowshares Eight Reenact Their 1980 Anti‑Nuclear Raid in Emile de Antonio’s In the King of Prussia (1983)
In the King of Prussia / 1980s
In the autumn of 1980 a handful of high‑profile anti‑nuclear activists — the so‑called Plowshares Eight, including Daniel and Philip Berrigan, Anne Montgomery and Molly Rush — walked into the Re‑Entry Division of the General Electric Space Technology Center in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and deliberately damaged nose cones destined for nuclear warheads. They were arrested and charged, and the act quickly became both a legal case and a moral touchstone for the anti‑nuclear movement. Filmmaker Emile de Antonio was approached by the Berrigans to document the trial; having worked with Daniel Berrigan before on In the Year of the Pig and been burned by the controversy surrounding his film Underground, de Antonio initially demurred because he did not share the defendants’ religious motivations. He reversed course shortly before the proceedings and staged an unusual hybrid: the activists themselves played their roles in a reconstructed courtroom, while hired actors took the parts of jurors, lawyers and police. Martin Sheen, a friend of de Antonio’s from the earlier controversies, appears as Judge Samuel Salus II, lending star recognition to what was essentially a piece of political theatre.
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