Two Reviews: TIME TO CHOOSE and THE FREE STATE OF JONES

A mother in Beijing adjusts a protective mask on her daughter's face

TIME TO CHOOSE

Time to Choose, a documentary film by Charles Ferguson, narrated by Oscar Isaacs.

Charles Ferguson’s documentary Time to Choose should scare the bejesus out of you.  Unfortunately it will be seen only by climate change believers.  The trick is to get deniers to see it and hopefully change some minds.  That said, I doubt that the film will be shown anywhere else but in the liberal cities.  Too bad because Time to Choose makes it abundantly clear that if corporations promoting large-scale commercial farming and livestock production, and  fossil fuel mining and drilling operations and oil conglomerates (and the companies using them), do not cease their operations NOW, many coastal cities, if not countries (island states) will literally cease to be by mid-century, if not sooner.  Millions of people will be forced to migrate.  Politicians who deny the reality of climate change use fear tactics to ensure their continuation as well as their shareholders’ confidence.  What they fail to acknowledge are the facts-and there are plenty.  Alternative energy sources and the money they make, are on the rise.  Clips from the film illustrate former fossil fuel workers being trained in production and installation of wind turbines and solar panels.

Tom Randall of Bloomberg News wrote: “The shift occurred in 2013, when the world added 143 gigawatts of renewable electricity capacity, compared with 141 gigawatts in new plants that burn fossil fuels, according to an analysis presented Tuesday at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance annual summit in New York. The shift will continue to accelerate, and by 2030 more than four times as much renewable capacity will be added.  The race for renewable energy has passed a turning point. The world is now adding more capacity for renewable power each year than coal, natural gas, and oil combined. And there's no going back.”   Still, politicians and their constituents won’t listen.

Ghastly images of mountain top removal in the US by mining companies were shown, accompanied by devastating interviews with locals about how they were bamboozled by their reps into believing that there would be jobs, money for health and education.  Instead, they got polluted water and air, cancer, and general degradation of the entire area.  There were scenes of enormous “ponds” of livestock waste that leaches into the groundwater and soil; acres and acres  of feedlots for cattle and pigs fed corn and soy (greatly subsidized by the government), because of the growing worldwide demand for meat .  Not a blade of grass or a tree as far as one can see.
Other contributors to climate change like clear cutting of rainforests to grow oil palms and for cattle raising in Central and South America were illustrated, all of which cause increases in violent weather, widespread flooding, and extreme years-long drought, leading to a rise in wildfires throughout America’s south and west.  

The film stated that there is no denying that renewable energy production is fast out-pacing that of fossil fuel.  It’s time for governments to choose to invest in renewable energy now; if not, world populations can look forward to huge increases in floods, wild fires, extreme temperatures, droughts, food and water shortages; and pollution of the ocean and other life-sustaining water sources; continuing fossil fuel production will also lead to increases in deadly epidemics;  respiratory diseases, cancers, neurological illnesses, and more.  Millions of- not only people, but livestock, pets, and sea life- in other words, millions of all livings beings will die .  

FREE STATE OF JONES, directed by Gary Carr, starring Matthew McConaughey

Knight (McConaughey, center) with Moses (Mahershala Ali, left) leads the insurrectionists

The Free State of Jones is based on a true Civil War story, a little unknown story, because its subject matter is in a controversial gray area.  Here we have Newton Knight (a spot-on Matthew McConaughey at his scraggly, unkempt, bearded best) a Confederate soldier- a nurse, no less- who deserts.  Although married to Serena (Keri Russell in a thankless role) with a toddler, he comes to live with and eventually marry “in the eyes of the Lord” a black woman, Rachel (a believable Gugu Mbatha-Raw), a house slave and healer.  At one point, Knight is being chased as he runs through the wilderness by what one character tells him “nigger dogs”, dogs that slave catchers use to hunt down runaways. (The “N” word is used profusely throughout.)  He ends up hiding out in the swamp in an area occupied by runaway slaves who come to accept him. “Horses can’t handle the swamps,” Moses, the head of the hideout tells him.  Moses (Mahershala Ali) is a saintly man, aptly named, but whose life comes to a tragic end.  Knight reaches an epiphany when he realizes that poor men are fighting for the rich so that the rich can stay rich and the poor poor, which resonates today.  Men are men and all men should be free, so the Constitution promises. (though in it, Negros were degraded to 3/5th of a person. [Women were not even considered]).  Knight does something about it by leading poor white farmers and slaves, in an extraordinary armed rebellion against the Confederacy. In effect, launching an uprising that led Jones County, Mississippi to secede from the Confederacy, creating a Free State of Jones. Knight continued his struggle into Reconstruction, distinguishing him as a compelling, if controversial, figure of defiance.

Carr created an interesting, but whip-lashing change of scene by suddenly cutting away from the action early into the film, and fast-forwarding to a Mississippi courtroom 85 years later, where his very white-looking grandson, Davis Knight  (Brian Lee Franklin)  is being tried for miscegenation as he is married to a “pure” white woman.  Court records had revealed that he is the son of Knight and Rachel’s offspring.  The law was not repealed until 1967.

This is a compelling, suspenseful, well-acted, beautifully shot film about a little known-history and of one man’s futuristic vision regarding human beings and their ability to live together freely and peacefully.    
This double review can be read in an adapted form in Socialist Action: www.SocialistAction.org