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Reviewed by Elliot V. Kotek
(World Premiere at Cinequest 2010)

Directed by: Paul Crowder
Written by: Mark Monroe
Starring: Gordon E. Moore, Michael Malone, Julius Blank, Jay Last; voiceovers by John Lithgow and Ron Livingston

Written by Mark Monroe, the winner of this year’s WGA Documentary Screenplay Award for Oscar fave “The Cove,” “The Real Revolutionaries” precisely fulfills Cinequest’s promise as a Silicon Valley film festival. Telling the story of technology’s “Traitorous Eight,” aka “The Fairchild Eight” – eight men who broke from Nobel prize-winning physicist William Shockley to father a multitude of companies including the mega microprocessor manufacturer Intel – the feature finds its roots in Shockley’s critical mind and the charismatic creative vision of Robert Noyce, co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957 and Intel in 1968.

Tracing the history of the area from apricot orchards in what was called “The Valley of Heart’s Delight” to an orchard-free zone filled progressively with transistors, microchips, integrated circuits and microprocessors, “Revolutionaries” reveals insight into the personalities who pioneered the ideas and built the foundations for the way the wired world now works.

Covering nothing less than the scientific and anthropological history of the technological revolution, the film’s high ambitions are well realized, leaving the viewer in awe of the inspired individuals who envisioned the future in which we now reside, while retaining an awareness of the global context (Sputnik, Vietnam, Kent State, the moon landing, Japanese competition) in which these men of science (and, apparently, drinking, smoking and womanizing) first operated.

While there were an abundance of fellow techies who’d met the mavericks in attendance at the Cinequest screening, the “Traitorous Eight” remain largely unknown outside of Silicon Valley. “The Real Revolutionaries,” replete with its stories of back-room dealings and polarizing personalities, may well make rock stars yet out of Robert Noyce and his colleagues. There’s a narrative feature in here somewhere.

 Photo: ”The Real Revolutionaries,” courtesy Cinequest.