bavatuesdays

Paul Bond and I collaborated on a fun segment for the first episode of the True Crime class video we’re working on. I’ll be polishing off and tightening up the final version of episode one this week, but I figured I’d share the rough cut lest I start believing this blog is about finished products.

Paul Bond was the genius behind this one. He had the idea for creating a boxing match-themed highlighting the Gallows confessions we read from the colonial period. You see, during the first two weeks of class we focused on Puritan execution narratives from the late 17th and early 18th century New England. Fact is, Gallows literature was a bonafide genre during that time featuring repenting criminals providing a litany of their perfidious crimes. The format was pretty consistent: list your sins, ask for grace, and then be hanged. It’s a pretty trippy genre because in the world of the Puritans God’s grace was never a given, so there would be an endless sense of uncertainty regarding whether you were to receive God’s grace or not. What I love about the Puritans is that despite how wicked or pious you were, who God grants the convenant of grace was unknowable in this world. While such a reality gives everyone hope no matter their lot, it also makes for the ultimate in existential uncertainty. And when you wrap all this up in a neat confession naarative delivered on the gallows immediately before one’s death, it packs a punch.

So, the idea was to setup two of the more intense execution narratives from the colonial period, for our pursposes those of Patience Boston and Esther Rodgers—what Paul terms “Lady’s Night” on the Gallows Poll. These two capital criminals go head-to-head to determine “Who’s more heinous?” Which of these women was more sinful? Whose confession was more steadfast and strong? [The consistency and lack of emotional vicissitudes were often telling for the Puritans because wavering was seen as a sign that God’s grace was not present.] Paul’s wife read from Esther Rodgers’s narrative and Martha Burtis read from Patience Boston’s narrative. We framed both readings with the playful, semi-personas “Pillory” Paul Bond and Jim “Gallows” Groom providing commentary and analysis. It was a blast.

Funny enough, after the students were so high on their own trailers and various segments they talked a certain amount of shit on Paul and I, suggesting it was too long and somewhat boring. Damn milennials! Fact is, we actually dealt with the literature and tried to wrap a fairly focused reading and analysis into a playful frame, they just ran around with pillows under their dresses and polka dot onesies. That is not scholarship in the same way the Gallows Poll is, we are professionals—there’s no real comparison. It’s like lumping Federico Felinni and Michael Bay in the same class of director. Amateurs! The full episode is coming soon, you be the judge!

Two weeks ago the True Crime students finished their video segments for the first episode of the “America’s Most Wanted” series we’re creating as part of the class. I’ve been digging out from last week’s conferences and playing catch up, but I’m finally getting around to creating a cohesive episode out of the various segements the students created. And while I still have a bit of work ahead of me,  I wanted to share two of the trailer videos one of groups did that basically re-imagine two early American true crime stories as contemporary film trailers. They’re fun as hell to watch, and what’s kinda cool is that they deal with relatively obscure texts.

The first is based on Benjamin Franklin’s 1734 article in The Pennsylvania Gazette titled “Murder of a Daughter.”  The gist of the article is that these two negligient parents effectively murdered their daughter by turning her out. Some of the details are shocking, for example Franklin claims they fed the young girl her own excrement after she returned home deathly ill from exposure. One of the themes in this article is the ramifications of alcohol abuse, as Franklin notes, “But this is not the only Instance the present Age has afforded, of the incomprehensible Insensibility Dram-drinking is capable of producing.”

The original article by Franklin is less than a page long, but Katie Koth, Demi Fulcher, Chelsea Irizarry, Shelby Jones, and Bridget Johnson did an awesome job making it a compelling trailer for a film I would pay to see. Too fun. Note that you made need to adjust the volume levels a bit, the still have to be normalized for the final cut of the episode.

This group also decided to make a trailer of another reading we did that was also relatively obscure, focusing on George Swearingen’s murder of his wife in 1823. The murder happened here in Virginia, and it’s odd because Swearingen was an atypical criminal. He was a wealthy, successful lawyer who soon after marrying, took a mistress and then repeatedly plotted to kill his wife. You can find his entire confession online here. The narrative seems particularly contemporary, reading almost like James M. Caine’s Double Indemnity or The Postman Always Rings Twice. You can find a good synopsis of this crime on the Murder by Gaslight site. I love this trailer as well because it focuses on what a bastard Swearingen was, cheating on his wife, having his mistress move in the house, and then plotting her demise. Once again, I would pay to see this film. Full disclosure, I have a cameo or two 😉

Suffice it to say, we’re having some fun with the whole video production thing in the True Crime course , and I have yet to blog the masterpiece Paul and I created. That’s my next post.