REVOLUTIONARY WAR FILM FESTIVAL 7/4/21

First off here is the list:

Drums Along the Mohawk - Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert

1776

Revolution

Johnny Tremain

Scarlet Coat

April Morning

All For Liberty

Beyond the Mask

Filicity

Today, to celebrate the 4th of July, I deided to wear my red white and blue T-shirt, and watch a film festival beginning with Drums Along the Mohawk, which I haven't seen in many years and really didn't remember. In fact, I was under the impression it starred Randolph Scott, but I think that was because in my foggy memory, it got mixed up with the early version of The Last of the Mohicans, but I cc ould be wrong about that as well.

Drums Along the Mohawk was interesting to me in so many many ways, watching it from this year 2021! First, I realized how it set me taste for early American furnishings, for my love of log cabins, and for my eventual interest in the Revolution War in later life when I became a docent for the James and Ann Whitall House at Red Bank Battlefield. Watching it now, I couldn't avoid the critical eye born of my understanding of European expansion and the annihilation of the Indigenous people along with the expropriation of their land and means of survival. Also, when Henry Fonda slapped Claudette Colbert in the face because she couldn't control her hysteria at the sight of a friendly Mohawk man, his claim "I didn't want to do it, Lana, I had to," carried all kinds of implications as did the presentation to Henry by that same Mohawk man of a wife whipping stick to help turn her into a "fine woman." All that aside, and there is a lot of it - not even going into the nearly silent Daisy, the Afrian American servant of the well-to-do widow and all her presence indicates in regard to the enslavement of Africans, still there was a lot to understand in a new way having a broader understanding of history as an adult. As a child, naturally, I bought into the heroic settler narrative without any of the associated questions and qualms I have today. However, there is a lot to be learned from these old movies and they do bring up a host of interesting points of view including the futile attempts on the part of the Indigenous tribes to figure out which side to ally with and have the best outcome - as we know now, there was NO BEST outcome for them, only decimation through disease and genocidal politics.

It was clear to me evn now, however that the settlers, the colonists, couldn't comprehend the wider scope of the process of which they were a component part. All they knew was that they were here and they had to survive. I have been watching a lot of movies and documentaries about the migration of European tribes the Barbarian Migration, the Celtic Migration, the Roman Expansion, the British Empire. And the crime that was our founding in America was just a chapter in that worldwide and millennial history of tribes expanding into other people's lands and settling there through force and integration as well as importation as slaves.

It was interesting to see the German militia officer trying his best to shape up the wild frontier men who were jokers and drunks and had no concept of discipline as a German military immigrant would have understood it. And it was also a familiar narrative to see the wild frontier man marrying the unsuspecting city girl and transporting her to a cabin far from everyone and everything where she then had to learn to survive, and give birth to children, and help them survive. Personally, I think I would have gone back home, but, I am old and not young or in love and those women, whether going North or West, really couldn't get back home anyway. They were stuck.

I think my next choice will be Revolution. Although it is a contest with 1776. I don't want to watch Patriot, so that goes to the bottom of the list and the bottom six films on my list I have never seen and never heard of, so probably won't be watching them. I have just recently watching all the episodes of TURN which I thought was excellent, once I could watch it on my laptop and not on tv where it was too dark and I couldn't understand what they were saying. As I get older and my sight and hearing begin to dimish, very dark shows and shows with too much ambient sound, or actors who don't speak distinctly and clearly are difficult for me. No problem there with Drums Along the Mohawk! Clear lighting and clear diction!

Happy 4th of July, if you want to talk to me about the movies, e-mail me because comments on blogspot is a MESS! wrightj45@7ahoo.com

Happy Trails, Jo Ann