Based upon writer/director Gary Ross’ original screenplay, Free State of Jones tells the extraordinary story of a little known episode in American history. It concerns Newt Knight, a fearless Mississippi farmer, who led an unlikely band of poor white farmers and runaway slaves in an historic armed rebellion against the Confederacy at the height of the Civil War. Juxtaposing and complementing the narrative (in intermittent flash-forwards) is the 1948 trial of the State of Mississippi versus Davis Knight, the great-grandson of Newt Knight and his common law wife and former slave, Rachel.
So, to a bit more detail … it is 1863 and the Civil War is raging. In Mississippi, the second state to formally secede from the Union, Newt, a poor yeoman farmer from the Jones County region, is a medic in the Ambulance Corps of the Confederate Army. Knight does not own slaves and is morally opposed to secession as well as to slavery. Nevertheless, he enlisted rather than be conscripted, in part so that he’d be assured of serving in the same regiment as his kin and neighbours. As a medic, he tends to the sick and wounded rather than battle Union soldiers, whose political ideology concerning the war and slavery he agrees with more than those of the Confederacy. When Newt’s 14-year-old nephew, Daniel, is killed at his side in battle, Newt has had enough.
Demoralised by the carnage, and the numbing inequity of the Twenty Negro Law – sons of wealthy owners of twenty or more slaves are exempted from the military – Newt makes a fateful decision to take Daniel’s body back home to his family for burial, thus becoming a deserter. That is the starting point for the trouble and struggle that follow.
Soon after the release of Seabiscuit, Newt Knight’s story came to the filmmaker’s attention. There had only been a handful of books and one misrepresentative Hollywood film about Knight and his rebellion. “There’s a reason that more books have been written about the Civil War than any other period of American history,” Ross suggests. “And there’s a reason that more biographies have been written about Abraham Lincoln than anybody except for Christ. This is a gash in the American consciousness. This is a wound in our own history that’s almost inestimable. 600,000 people died.”
Gary Ross’ interpretation of Newt’s action is that he broke the American Civil War down to a moral struggle. He was a freedom fighter. Ever the leading man, Matthew McConaughey, presents a strong, clear persona as a champion of the people – an advocate for justice and equality, somebody not afraid to take matters into his own hands. He is a leader of men. Gugu Mbatha-Raw too is shown as a very sympathetic character. The horrors of war and the treachery of whites against blacks are deeply distressing, just as they should be.
The Free State of Jones is a history lesson with detail about which I wasn’t familiar. I was less comfortable with the depiction of the second story, that of Newt’s great-grandson. Suddenly that courtroom drama was introduced and then, almost it seems at random, revisited. As it made up very little of the overall script, it was difficult – no impossible – to build any empathy for that character and the circumstances he faced. While the intent may have been meritorious, I thought its execution was flawed, almost haphazard.
Overall, I felt Free State of Jones suffered from verbosity. Notwithstanding the magnitude of the story, some prudent pruning could have done wonders. Still, it is an important tale of a real life hero that scores a 6½ to 7 out of 10.
Director: Gary Ross
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Keri Russell, Gugu Mbatha-Raw
Release Date: 25 August 2016
Rating: M
Alex First
David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television