Tag: Gary Ross

  • Based on historian Victoria Bynum’s acclaimed book The Free State of Jones: Mississippi’s Longest Civil War, this film marks an important shift in the popular depiction of America’s greatest conflict as it takes viewers inside the complex inner civil wars many Americans fought during this period.

  • Free State of Jones Capsizes Lost Cause Myths Process: A Blog For American History 2016-07-12 Matthew E. Stanley, Assistant Professor of History Albany State University, Albany, Georgia Reconstruction is perhaps the least understood period in American history, a distinction that has been both perpetuated by and reflected in popular culture since the late nineteenth century.…

  • The Real Rebels: A Review of Free State of Jones with Reflections on Lost Causes The Labor And Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA) 2016-07-12 Mark Lause, Professor of History University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio I can feel a certain sympathy for people who get hoodwinked into fighting for a Lost Cause that could never be worthy…

  • Crucifying the White Savior (Film) Shadow and Act 2016-06-29 Andre Seewood We no longer have to forgive them, for they know exactly what they are doing. The new film by Gary Ross, “The Free State of Jones” is uncontestably a White savior film. Laid bare, “The Free State of Jones” is a simplistically constructed tale…

  • The Faux-Enlightened Free State of Jones The Atlantic 2016-06-28 Vann R. Newkirk II STX Productions Matthew McConaughey’s new movie is a predictable but instructive journey of white saviorhood. “Somehow, some way, and some time, everybody is somebody else’s nigger,” is an actual quote that happens around midway through Free State of Jones. Uttered by Matthew…

  • Black and White in the Free State of Jones Process: A Blog For American History 2016-07-14 Nina Silber, Professor of History Boston University I’ll confess: I was fully prepared to be disappointed with the recently-released Free State of Jones. Not out of any disrespect toward the excellent historical scholarship behind the film, including Victoria Bynum’s…

  • An interview with Victoria Bynum, historian and author of The Free State of Jones—Part 1 World Socialist Web Site 2016-07-12 David Walsh and Joanne Laurier Victoria Bynum Free State of Jones, the film directed by Gary Ross, powerfully and movingly recounts a significant episode of the American Civil War, the insurrection against the Confederacy led…

  • “Free State of Jones” is the film Reconstruction historians have been waiting for. Reconstruction, which encompassed the decade following the Civil War, is perhaps the most overlooked era in American history. It is the only period that doesn’t have a National Park Service site commemorating it.

  • Free State of Jones: The Incredible True Story of Newton Knight and His Private Rebellion Against the Confederacy People Magazine 2016-06-24 Michael Miller Free State of Jones brings to life one of the Civil War’s most extraordinary and counterintuitive episodes, in which a Confederate deserter overthrew his former commanders and established a free “state” in…

  • Review: Matthew McConaughey Rebels Against Rebels in ‘Free State of Jones’ The New York Times 2016-06-23 A. O. Scott, Film Critic Matthew McConaughey, left, and Jacob Lofland in “Free State of Jones.” Credit Murray Close/STX Entertainment “Free State of Jones” begins on the battlefield, with a flurry of the kind of immersive combat action that…