Free State of Jones (film)


Free State of Jones is a 2016 American historical Western war film inspired by the life of Newton Knight and his armed revolt against the Confederacy in Jones County, Mississippi, throughout the American Civil War. Written and directed by Gary Ross, the film stars Matthew McConaughey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Mahershala Ali, and Keri Russell.
It was released in the United States by STXfilms on June 24, 2016. It received mixed reviews from critics and grossed only $25 million against its $65 million production budget.

Premise

The story is based on the history of Jones County, Mississippi, during the Civil War and the period immediately after it. The overall story follows the history of Jones County, and some of the events portrayed are true. The film is credited as being "based on the books The Free State of Jones by Victoria E. Bynum and The State of Jones by Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer."

Plot

After surviving the 1862 Battle of Corinth and being told of the Twenty Negro Law, Newton Knight, a poor farmer from Jones County serving as a battlefield nurse in the Confederate army, deserts and returns home to his farm and his wife, Serena, after seeing his nephew Daniel get shot and killed. While there, he befriends Rachel, an enslaved woman who has secretly learned to read.
Newton's disenchantment with the Confederacy grows after finding out that troops were taking crops and livestock for taxes. After helping one family resist such a raid, he is pursued by Confederate agents and bitten by an attack dog. With the help of abolitionist-oriented Aunt Sally and multiple slaves, he escapes to a swamp where some runaway slaves led by Moses Washington tend to his wounds.
After the Siege of Vicksburg, more rebel soldiers desert, and many of them end up at the swamp, where Newton becomes their captain. The ex-Confederates and runaway slaves form a revolt against the Confederacy. They raid Confederate convoys and capture a piece of southeast Mississippi, organising it as the "Free State of Jones." Despite getting little help from the Union, they manage to hold out until the end of the war.
Newton continues to fight racial inequality after the war. He helps free Moses' son from an "apprenticeship" to Rachel's former master. After Moses is lynched while registering freedmen to vote, Newton participates in a march of voters to the polls while they sing "John Brown's Body".
Newton and Rachel have a son, Jason. Since they are unable to legally marry, Newton arranges to deed a parcel of land to her.
Newton's great-grandson, Davis Knight, is arrested under Mississippi's miscegenation laws in 1948. Since he is possibly of one-eighth black descent, under Mississippi law at that time he is considered black, and therefore could not legally marry his long-time white sweetheart. He is sentenced to five years in prison, but his conviction is thrown out by the Mississippi Supreme Court in 1949, rather than risk the law being declared unconstitutional.

Cast

Development

The film was a passion project for Ross, who spent ten years developing it. He was initially drawn to make the movie out of a desire to examine the Reconstruction era south, an era that, according to him, is poorly represented in film, quoting Gone with the Wind and The Birth of a Nation as examples of "the last movies that did it". In preparation, Ross did a "tremendous amount of research", studying not only the Civil War but also the historiography of the war, the latter because he wanted "to debunk a lot of the myths" surrounding the events. Speaking to Slash Film about the research for the film, Ross remarked that " I don’t think I did anything but read for a couple of years"
Ross finished writing the film prior to working on The Hunger Games, although he struggled to find much in way of financing: he felt that working on The Hunger Games would help him, and thus declined to work on the sequels. Afterwards he still had trouble getting the movie made, which he attributes to the fact that "we're in a different kind of a popcorn universe now".
Matthew McConaughey's casting was announced in November 2014 with other casting announcements made in early 2015. Angelo Piazza III, Marksville, La. and Jack's Powder Keg Company participated in the production with their cannon and black powder.

Filming

began on February 23, and was scheduled to end on May 28. On March 9 Adam Fogelson, Chairman of STX Entertainment announced the start of the production in and around New Orleans, with the release of a first look photo. In May 2015 shooting was scheduled for Clinton, with East Feliciana Parish as a filming set. On May 25, 2015, some filming took place at Chicot State Park near Ville Platte, Louisiana.

Release

The film was pushed back from its original release date of March 11, 2016, to May 13 and finally June 24, 2016. The first trailer was released on January 9, 2016.

Reception

Box office

Free State of Jones grossed $20.8 million in North America and $4.2 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $25 million, against a production budget of $65 million.
The film was released in the United States and Canada on June 24, 2016, alongside and The Shallows and was projected to gross around $10 million in its opening weekend from 2,815 theaters. The film grossed $365,000 from its Thursday previews and $2.7 million on its first day. In its opening weekend the film grossed $7.6 million, finishing 6th at the box office behind Finding Dory, Independence Day: Resurgence, Central Intelligence, The Shallows and The Conjuring 2.

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, the film has an approval rating of 46% based on 184 reviews and an average rating of 5.5/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Free State of Jones has the noblest of intentions, but they aren't enough to make up for its stilted treatment of a fascinating real-life story."
On Metacritic, the film has a score of 53 out of 100 based on reviews from 38 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.
Film critic Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post said, " Ross has insisted that he didn't want 'Free State of Jones' to become another white savior movie, but that's precisely what it is, especially during scenes when the murderous injustice of slavery is refracted through Knight’s frustrated tears." Hornaday said the film could have avoided the trope by focusing more on Knight's alliance with a former slave or his relationships with his wife and an enslaved house servant. The Atlantics Vann R. Newkirk II said, "To say that McConaughey's portrayal of Newton Knight is a white savior perhaps undersells the trope... A better film would have muddled the clean white-savior narrative with an actual exploration of what the racial politics of a mixed-race insurgency in the South might have been like."
The New York Times selected it as a "critic's pick". Reviewer A. O. Scott called it "a neglected and fascinating chapter in American history" and said it used "the tools of Hollywood spectacle to restore a measure of clarity to our understanding of the war and its aftermath." Scott also said, "...while Mr. Ross's story makes Newton unambiguously heroic, this is not yet another film about a white savior sacrificing himself on behalf of the darker-skinned oppressed. Nor for that matter is it the story of a white sinner redeemed by the superhuman selflessness of black people. Free State of Jones is a rarer thing: a film that tries to strike sparks of political insight from a well-worn genre template."
The New Yorker film critic Richard Brody gave it a positive review, saying, "It's tempting to shunt Free State of Jones into the familiar genre of the white-savior tale, but Newton Knight appears as something else—not so much as a savior but as an avatar of a new South. By seeing his own interests clearly and considering the economic and social structure of his locale and his nation insightfully, he's able to transcend heritage and history and to forge a community, both during and after the war, that will be fair, inclusive, and—yes—post-racial."