On Wednesday 5th
October 2016 I experienced what I anticipate is one of the films which will
feature in the various international awards ceremonies including the Oscars and
the Baftas, the Free State of Jones. The
film has some historical basis with several academic studies in attempt to
establish fact from legend and myth. The film confronts a number of fundamental
issues which are at present once again to the fore of political and social on
both sides to the Atlantic. It is therefore not a film like to appeal to the
majority of people going to the pictures every weekend and on 2 for 1
Wednesdays.
From listening to the conversations
which people have on exiting a film theatre and cinema complex, and where it is
often possible to hear the reactions of those attending films you have not seen
or not about to see, I will assert that the majority go to be entertained, thrilled, shocked horror, see
their phantasies realised or imagine themselves in some of the roles portrayed.
Only a minority go to be inspired and made to think. Some now go to see if the
agree with the reviews of Dr Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo and also to see if
they can spot the Director’s deliberate reference to previous films or provide
their own.
The
story is of the Free State of Jones
told primarily through the experience of Newton Knight a small farmer in Jones
County in Mississippi. Wikipedia provides the relevant historical information
on Jones County past and present. The county is named after John Paul Jones the early
American Naval hero who rose from humble Scottish origin to military success
during the American Revolution.
The size of the county is huge given its population with
less than 70000 today covering 700 square miles compared say to Nottinghamshire
in England of 825 square miles and a population of over 750000. Part of the
reason is that the county has a large area of swamp lands which features in
story as the place where a mixture of deserters from the Confederate army,
oppressed small poor farmers and runaway slaves first hide out and then decided
to take control of their homelands. Only a small area of land was suitable for
cotton with the consequence that only 12% of the original population were
slaves and most of the farmers did not own slaves. This is one aspect of why
many of those drafted to fight in the confederate army were unenthusiastic
especially as back home their wives and children suffered as livestock and
crops were taken to feed the army and those used to in effect pillage and then
draft all the men and then the boys.
The story begins with the senseless way wars have been
conducted until recently with quickly trained infantry told to attack or defend
positions in solid ranks often against superior weapons of in fire power and
from cavalry, machine gun, tank, and rocket and in which large number were
expected to die, lose limbs and other life changing injuries.
The film centers on Newton Knight who although able to
shoot and kill was used as a field nurse (a fact) but deserts in order to
return the body of the young son of a relative in law who he attempts but fails
to protect. This is fiction and although
not a pacifist Jones is said to have argued that a man has the right to
determine what he lives and dies for. In fact, he is known to have enlisted twice,
returning home with permission in between to assist his ailing father. He is also
known to have married before the war commenced establishing a small farm with his
wife and children. When away in the war it is said that his sister’s husband
took over as head of both families and physically abused Newtons children, and in
the film his wife, and Newton on return kills his in law. Factually someone believed
to be the individual became a convicted murderer.
This sense of the right to control one’s life and be free
is a core aspect of the traditional independent USA citizen, anti-government
anti-gun control anti-paying taxes, to follow one’s religion and to make better
one’s life. However, this approach only applied to white people which involved
the taking of land from indigenous people, enslaving and exploiting all workers
and killing anyone who stood in the way of acquisition of land, wealth and
power for oneself and family. In fact, Jones was the grandson of one of the
biggest slave owners in the county, but is has been established that he was cut
from a different cloth in part because of a Baptist background and someone who
did not drink and treated women in particular with respect and all those who
found themselves in a similar position to himself. It would not be surprising
that he stood up for black people given his subsequent relationship with a black
woman which led to the birth of son.
One focus in the film and where there is said to be
evidence is that he and others were prepared to live in swamp as outlaws and
only commenced to retaliate in response to the violence and the thieving and
destruction of property by others. Newton was captured, imprisoned and tortured
because of his desertion.
What has been established to some extent is that Newton
came to lead a significant group of men supported by their families who
commenced to control Jones and other neighbouring counties by successfully preventing
the taking of food and taxes and so through the use of force in number of
recorded incidents described as skirmishes. There are different views whether
the group as far as declaring themselves a separate and free state and I do not
know if as in the film they were thwarted from this ambition by the failure of
the Unionists to provide horses and weapons. The success of the rebellion leads
to a force strong counter move and the execution of ten people including two
relatives of Newton. The film plays into the justified fears of all local
communities, regions and states that the price of joining into larger groupings
is always at the cost of losing individual and local collective rights. Interestingly
in terms of USA politics, Newton, the unionists and those anti-slaveries in the
south supported the Republican Party and former Confederates and slave owners
the Democratic Party,
The film is also about the belief that those of white
skin are superior to the others and that if one cannot own others as property
to used and discarded at will then everything is justified which attempts to
retain power and control by other means.
The covers the attempt after the Civil war ended to retain slavery a
form of low indentured labour, by preventing the right to register and then to
vote, and by intimidation and killings with the rise of Klu Klux Klan, burnings,
rapes, torture and killings.
The film also centers on his relations with two black
individuals one an escaped slave who has repeatedly run away after his wife and
child are resold separately take away to another state. After they are united
but the husband is hung by the Klan when he successfully begins to gather a number
of registration forms
The second is an abused female slave from the major local
plantation owner who is able to assist those living in the swamp with food and
with information. For me this role did not ring true in terms of the ability to
repeatedly travel back and forth and even less convincing although not say such
situations did not arise is the attempt to link the relationships between
Newtons first and second wives and that it is the first wife who brings up the white
looking son created by the second.
The film is interspersed with a legal case 85 years later
when the great great great grandson has married a white which considered
illegal in local community because he was classified as black although only of
one eighth blood. Under the local justice he is sentenced to five years after
refusing to disown the marriage but the sentenced is set aside on appeal as unconstitutional.
The reality is in some ways more interesting and
challenging. After the ending of the first marriage Newton did marry a former
slave, Rachel, owned by his grandfather and cross over between races and within
extended families continued in the next generation resulting in three interracial
marriages. Rachel Newton has several children by Newton who went onto live to
the age of 84 until 1924. One of his sons
published a book about his father, The Life and activities of Captain Newton
Knight. A great niece also published a book as - An American tale about the Governor
of the Free State of Jones. Academic studies were also published in 1984 and
more recently in 2003.
I enjoyed the film which was also thought provoking but
could not help feeling that many of the issues have been covered before with
greater impact and that those making the film were anxious to show they had
moved on from recent Oscar night when the lack of diversity in films and performance
was highlighted.
Without the monthly subscription I would have paid £7.36
going towards the £17.40 monthly subscription and thus a net saving of £2.72 to
date.
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