Aiming for Accuracy: Free State of Jones, Contingency, and the Meaning of Freedom
Early in Free State of Jones a Confederate soldier proclaims he is not fighting for slavery but rather “for honor.” His comrades, including poor Mississippi farmer Newton Knight (Matthew McConaughey), needle him. Considering the "Twenty Negro Law,” Conscription Act, and tax-in-kind law, they point out that their blood only helps ...
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Coming Soon to a Theater Near You: The Civil War Era
As scholarship on the Civil War era expands, Hollywood, too, has cast a wider gaze at the conflict and its roots. This year, with movies like “Free State of Jones” and “Birth of a Nation,” filmmakers continue to explore the struggles beyond the battlefield but still central to the war ...
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Hateful and Forgetful: Tarantino’s Latest Chooses Gore over Racial Commentary
Is Minnie's Haberdashery, the one room stagecoach stop in which all but a few scenes of Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight take place, the director's version of hell? If so, hell is a cold place of contradictions, unexpected alliances, violence, vulgarity, and truly bad coffee. Stuck in Wyoming blizzard with ...
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