I’ll play my new film, “Lost Nation,” at 7 p.m., Aug. 14 and 15 at the Bennington Museum, as a part of the film’s Vermont 50-Town Tour.
The film is a Revolutionary War-era action drama set in the early upstart Republic of Vermont. It features Vermont founding father and rebel schemer, Ethan Allen, who leads resistance to New Yorker land claims, launches an ill-fated attack on British forces in Montreal, and leads invasions by his Green Mountain Boys into Yorker strongholds of Guilford and Brattleboro. Several scenes are set in Bennington.
The film’s parallel and intersecting story features pioneering poet, Lucy Terry Prince, who was enslaved at the age of 3 in western Massachusetts and settled a Guilford, Vt., homestead with her family during this same time. Like Ethan Allen, the Princes found themselves caught up in turbulent times that threatened their prospects for the land and freedom they sought.
In those days, land was everything — a measure of status, standing and a chance for prosperity and community engagement.
Like Ethan Allen, Lucy Prince upset the status quo in her assertive use of early Vermont’s legal and political systems. Ethan did it to push back New York land claims to property in the Green Mountains. Lucy did it to defend her family and secure their homestead.
Our tour is still new; we’ll play 50 Vermont towns. We’ve been attracting solid crowds. And I had an encouraging sign while driving recently to southern New England to see Neil Young in concert. Near Amherst, Mass., I got a random call on my cell phone. I expected it to be a junk call but a gravelly voice on the other end of the call seemed real.
“Is this Jay?”
“It is,” I said, still expecting to be offered a new option for Medicare.
“My name’s Bob,” the man said, barely pausing for breath, “in St. Louis. And I never call people about this but I’m one of the pre-screeners for the St. Louis Film Festival and I watched your film, ‘Lost Nation,’ last night and it’s the best film I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“Wow,” I said. “Thanks a lot. And thanks for taking the time to call.”
“No problem,” he said. “I just love your film.”
“Can I use your quote on our poster?” I said, half-joking.
“‘The Best Film I’ve Ever Seen.’ — Bob from St. Louis.”
We both laughed.
We drew our film research from 162 books — I know because we recently donated them to the St. Johnsbury Academy library. But historical films are always fictional because, no matter how much research you do, you can never know the individual moments of a historical character’s life. Every historical character did and said things we’ll never know about — even the modern ones. When you go back 250 years, anything could have happened. That said, every dramatic beat in the film was measured against the research.
I was first drawn to the Ethan Allen story in 1974, after I broke my right arm bailing out of a runaway farm truck and spent winter afternoons at the Vermont Historical Society research room, scrawling handwritten notes on yellow legal pads. Now, 50 years later, I’m taking this long-imagined but newly produced film on the road.
With “Lost Nation,” I took what I learned from historical research to build a sometimes-surprising story. One revelation: just the amount of turbulence, strife and dramatic action during the late 18th century here, from whippings and land confiscations to fires set to settle political scores and Ethan Allen’s two invasions of southeastern Vermont towns. The wild west had nothing on what happened in Vermont during this time.
I hoped to capture an indelible moment that shows the complexity and power of an early version of the “American dream” — and the promise of the American Revolution.
This film was quite challenging to produce. It was filmed on more than three dozen Vermont and Massachusetts locations, needed to include battle scenes and includes 43 speaking parts for characters ranging from Seth Warner, Ira Allen, Thomas Chittenden and Ethan’s wives, Mary and Frances, to George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and more.
One fun fact: Boston patriot Samuel Adams is played in the film by his direct descendent, Samuel Adams.
Funding the project was also difficult, with extensive grassroots fundraising, including a $100,000 Kickstarter campaign and a very generous benefit concert performed for us in Burlington by Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Jackson Browne.
So, this was a very difficult project. The British playwright and film director, David Hare, stopped making films because he said his best experiences on a film set always meant the film would fail — and the most difficult times indicated surefire success.
I’ve got my fingers crossed.