A Strange Movie to Make in 1983 ::SPOLIER::

His redemption was achieved when he rebuilt a family (his parents, his sister, and his own marriage) that had been destroyed, and fulfilled his parent's legacy by walking in their footsteps (genuine generational activism).

The process of rebuilding his family necessitated that he go back in time and relearn the history of his family's political radicalism, and that led to him understanding that old radicalism, and rediscovering and embracing the 1960's radicalism, and rediscovering the meaning of activism gave his 1960's activism a richer, genuine, deeper meaning.

By linking together the activism of the 1930's with the 1960's, he was able to reconnect himself to his parents and their history of political activism, and he realized that their political activism, their fight for social justice, was a family legacy that was bequeathed to him and Susan, and was meant to be carried on by him and his own children. Just as his parents bonded with each other and their children over genuine political activism, so too Daniel rebonded with his wife and child through genuine political activism. Daniel learned that values and history are supposed to be passed from generation to generation, and are supposed to link together each generation.

Daniel's reorientation towards activism was the coda to the sum total redemption.

One of the many themes of the book and film is that the activist generation of the 1960's was an one-act/one-action generation.

The book and film were intentionally crafted to negatively criticise the activist generation of the 1960's. Doctorow and Lumet felt that the 1960's activists never bothered to learn about the activism of the 1930's, and as result, they lost their human connection to the past, which made their own activism linear, ahistorical, and self-destructive.

Susan was a product of the one-action self-destructive mindset. Even though she was an activist, we learn in the very beginning of the film that her activism was just a passing phase for her, like sex and drugs and religion. It was not something she lived and breathed. She ran right back home to her adoptive parents to brag about what she endured, which is something her parents and their friends never did. And when she was ridiculed and dismissed by Daniel, instead of dismissing him right back and returning to the trenches to fight for social justice, she tried to kill herself. Her heart was in the right place (using her family's money for social causes), but activism was just something she used to divert her attention from the pain and unhappiness in her head that she could never resolve, just like her grandmother.

Daniel's redemption created an entirely new product for the 1960's, a product that was built upon the history of the 1930's and 1960's, a product that bound together family with activism, a product that truly had the power to write history, and to bestow that history and power to the next generation.

For Susan, her parent's type of activism was long forgotten, and the 1960's activism she participated in would have been quickly forgotten for her had she lived.

For Daniel, the activism restored his family and himself back to life, reaffirmed the purpose of his life blood existence, and promised to be passed on to the next generation (his son).

The decade of the 1960's in all its aspects is hardly forgotten. Neither is the decade of the 30's.