[COUNTER-CRITIQUE] FREE STATE OF JONES

To read also, our analysis of the FREE STATE OF JONES, focused on the scope of the socio-politico-economic and beyond the theme of slavery

Movies on slavery, racial segregation and the american Civil war, there has been. A good number of elsewhere. Frank successes or more mixed marched recently on our screens. FREE STATE OF JONES belongs, no doubt, to the latter category, and blended with fumbling the genre of the drama-biopic while dotting the tips of documentary.

Refusing to settle among the beam of the directions taken in the construction of its staging, melodrama, historical cafouilleux intends to trace the history of a life, with an incredible destiny. Newton Knight, camped out by the inevitable Matthew McConaughey, a farmer from the State of Mississippi (Southern, pro-slavery), finding himself in spite of himself in the middle of a bloody war. He decides, after a shock, to desert and abandon the struggle in which it does not recognize the legitimacy. It is by the force of things that he will find himself propelled leader of the rebellion progressive, in the heart of a territory resolutely decided not to see his model of societal collapse.

Past exposure longuette, FREE STATE OF JONES seeks to tell the indefatigable insurgency of men, self-proclaimed free, the face of the resistant Southerners, without much panache. Gary Ross, to the orders of the overwhelming first Hunger Games, had the ambition to describe the cruelty of this conflict, we enjoy the bravery of its heroes, and, above all, to contextualize the story within a story. Therefore, it builds its realization in a triptych drama / biopic / documentary ARTE. The first of these components remains very classic, adapting the point of view of Newton Knight through the years, and ellipses. The dramatic scenes are interspersed with segments bellicose strong, successful, recognize, still falls far short of the shock of empathy. Where a formalized 12 Years a Slave managed to release emotions, FREE STATE OF JONES’ plays, on the other hand, awkwardly on the unfortunate events, little helped by a mounting unreadable.

Of course, Gary Ross puts all his story in a passive american making, necessarily, an act of resonance to a story of increasingly anxiety-provoking. It is thus that the great advances in time are regularly accompanied by archive images, photographs and explanatory texts. The feature film boasts therefore an educational aspect, of course, interesting, but hardly contextualizing. Also, the genealogy of the Knight is used in a narrative parallel, taking us back in the US of the 1940s. In a dramatic trial, we discover the offspring of Newton, nailed to the bench of the accused, witness to history, the vivid and lasting wound left by this conflict. This last facet story thus constitutes the extension in time of a country torn from the depths of his humanity. This being the case it does not bring anything more convincing, or even meaningful to the FREE STATE OF JONES, except length, as if we needed more, to a film already almost river.

“Unfortunately, the film is swallowed up by the omnipresent Matthew McConaughey poorly led,and scattering in an architecture that is multi-faceted, devoid of its salient glitter.”

Gary Ross adult Matthew McConaughey, it is a no-brainer. This latter is largely the space on those two hours and nineteen minutes. His game, now recognizable among a thousand, is approaching pointedly of the inspector Cole (True Detective, season 1). The nonchalance to which we are accustomed to, leaving it hanging out the phrases and words in length, does not conjure up therefore nothing new. Therefore, it is the entirety of the secondary characters that goes to the hatch. Amputees of any development of substantial, reduced to the sad status of tenure. Not far from disappoint, FREE STATE OF JONES dreamed big, was the ambition to mystify the fight respectable of Newton Knight. Unfortunately, the film is swallowed up by the omnipresent Matthew McConaughey poorly led,and scattering in an architecture that is multi-faceted, devoid of its salient glitter.

Sofiane

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