On history, heroes, and a great new film by Jay Craven: Lost Nation

We had an interesting evening out yesterday. G and I went to the Colonial Theatre in Bethlehem to see Lost Nation, which was directed and written by Jay Craven. He was on hand to introduce the film and there was a Q/A after (we didn't stay). The film is set in Revolutionary War Vermont, and focuses on Ethan Allen as one of the two narrative threads. The other thread is the story of Lucy Terry Prince and her family; she is a freedwoman, as is her husband, but they don't have papers for their three children. They do, however, have a land grant from Governor Wentworth of New Hampshire, who, as it turns out, was granting land that New York also had a claim to-- the area that later became Vermont, once it was officially recognized. 

The complicated plot revolves around Allen's boisterous, combative attempts to harry and defeat various British outposts, his unsuccessful plot to take Montreal, and the aftermath of all of his blustering and aggressive work. Loyalists to the Crown were in control of Guildhall (VT) and they made it their business, under the leadership of one Noyes, to bully and browbeat any of Allen's supporters and those who just wanted to live peacefully on their contested land. Allen and his crew burned them out as well, and the controversy raged for years. In the meantime, the Princes just wanted to live without harm, though they were a particular target. 

The story goes onward, and there are no happy endings. Lucy Terry Prince was a spoken-word poet, and her one extant poem, "Bars Fight," recounts the massacre in Deerfield, MA, which she had witnessed. Her poem is considered the very first work of African American literature. The Princes ultimately give up their land and move away, although Lucy returned to Guildhall yearly until her death to visit her husband's grave. 

The film is a long time in the making; Craven did the initial research some fifty years ago while recovering from a bad injury, and the story percolated along for most of his very successful film career. He teaches a semester-long film creation class, and this is the most recent product. The film is his, but the work was done by dedicated college students and their industry mentors, with a professional cast. I really liked the film, and it provided me with a lot to think about. The film begins with a quote from the African American novelist Alice Walker: "All history is current." The rest of the quote says,

“All history is current; all injustice continues on some level, somewhere in the world.”

What did I take away from it? There are no heroes in history. Depending on who tells the story, we only know what we are told. For most people, Ethan Allen is a cultural icon of the American Revolution; historical research shows him to be a far more complicated person. The same goes for Noyes; while he was a bully, a liar, a cheat, and an overall nasty human, he was elected to serve in the Vermont legislature, and he did so for thirteen years. We need to recall that slavery was the law of the land, for example. That not everything legal is morally just. And not every "patriot" is a good person. 

Have a good day, and if you can see the film sometime, please do. 

C