{"id":45871,"date":"2016-03-02T23:18:37","date_gmt":"2016-03-02T23:18:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=45871"},"modified":"2016-03-02T23:18:37","modified_gmt":"2016-03-02T23:18:37","slug":"the-free-state-of-jones-on-film-a-qa-with-victoria-bynum%ef%bb%bf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=45871","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Free State of Jones\u201d on Film: A Q&A with Victoria Bynum\ufeff"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Free State of Jones\u201d on Film: A Q&A with Victoria Bynum<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The Society of Civil War Historians<\/a>
\n2016-03-01<\/p>\n

Megan Kate Nelson<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This May, STX Entertainment will release the film Free State of Jones<\/em><\/a>, which tells the story of the Knight Company and the Jones County<\/a> rebellion, a Civil War<\/a> history first told by Victoria Bynum<\/a> in her 2001 book The Free State of Jones<\/em><\/a>. A few weeks ago, Bynum and I discussed her experiences working as a consultant on the film, and seeing her book come alive on the screen.<\/p>\n

MKN<\/strong>: Did you know at the time you were writing \u201cThe Free State of Jones\u201d that it had cinematic potential? And what is it about this story that makes it compelling for filmmakers?<\/p>\n

VB<\/strong>: As I researched and wrote The Free State of Jones<\/em>, I grew increasingly aware of its historical importance as an insurrection that combined elements of class, race, gender, and kinship that, for this story, had long been underestimated, misunderstood, distorted, or simply ignored.<\/p>\n

Although I did not write the book with a movie in mind, the story\u2019s vivid real-life characters, its oral and written first-hand accounts of fierce confrontations between Confederates<\/a> and deserters, the interracial romance between the band\u2019s leader, Newt Knight<\/a>, and his slave accomplice, Rachel Knight, and the Unionist core of the band itself, convinced me of the story\u2019s cinematic potential.<\/p>\n

On the standard author\u2019s questionnaire that I completed for the University of North Carolina Press, I advised the press to consider presenting the book \u201cto television and film companies as a potential docudrama or miniseries.\u201d At that point, however, I did not anticipate Hollywood\u2019s interest in the story…<\/p>\n

Read the entire interview here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Free State of Jones\u201d on Film: A Q&A with Victoria Bynum The Society of Civil War Historians 2016-03-01 Megan Kate Nelson This May, STX Entertainment will release the film Free State of Jones, which tells the story of the Knight Company and the Jones County rebellion, a Civil War history first told by Victoria […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,13743,8,1459,20],"tags":[23118,1457,1456,23120,23119,1453,1454],"class_list":["post-45871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-interviews","category-media-archive","category-mississippi","category-usa","tag-megan-kate-nelson","tag-newt-knight","tag-newton-knight","tag-society-of-civil-war-historians","tag-the-society-of-civil-war-historians","tag-victoria-bynum","tag-victoria-e-bynum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45871"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45872,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45871\/revisions\/45872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}