Much like when Captain Jefferson Kidd in News of the World faces the truth in Wichita Falls that he is the only man who has either the will or ability to help the orphaned child Johanna, I am uncertain how my story will unfold. I watched this recently released film twice, first, because my daughter worked on the film as APOC/Travel Coordinator and, second, because the story unfolds with history and adventure. But with more selfish intent, I watched it to learn, to understand why I felt palpable familiarity, with ghosts who invited me inside the film to places where I must have walked before and toward people I must have known, not as a haunting but as memories. When Captain begins to educate Johanna in the English language, she shares the Kiowa belief that earth and sky are life and spirits who connect all. Their time of sharing while on the lonely road is more profound than memorization of words that identify objects; it shows how language itself describes beliefs and memories and reveals our human divisions and connectedness. Their journey continues. Johanna and the Captain revisit memories so that they can move forward.
The Captain's life is in its darkest period. Four years of war on which he fought the losing side while he longed everyday to be near his wife, the death by cholera of his wife while he is far away fighting for causes on which he himself does not stand, another five years after the total loss of his pre Civil War business in San Antonio while he searches for survival among friends and foe. He travels dangerous roads in circuitous fashion to fulfill basic income needs but also to do what he previously loved to do--before the war and all the losses--share the news of the world. The world beyond San Antonio. Beyond Texas. Beyond the horrors of life in 1860 Texas where white settlers pushed against Mexicans and Kiowa, against each other because we must never forget that among the white immigrants from southern states were thieves and rapists and men who thrived on slavery and child trafficking. Captain is a man who reads to learn; he is a man who understands that elements of stories are common to all people. So he travels the roads from town to town to read aloud for others. But Captain is at a place in his life in 1870 where old age is a physical hurt and a painful reminder of all that is lost.
The roads he travels are fraught with peril. From the Red River south toward San Antonio, 1870 Texas is in upheaval. Captain tries to avoid the roads where risks are greatest, such as the road to find Johanna's aunt and uncle in hill country. But all roads demand a toll. Kiowa fight for their buffalo and right to travel freely, and white settlers fight for their right to establish ownership and set boundaries. Thieves fight for survival, and good people fight for the surety of a secure and safe future. Black people and Mexicans fight for their places in a land where hard work is not enough, where skin color and heritage defines one's rights, where the promise of participation and ownership drips daily from the mouths of white leaders intent on protecting only the hierarchy. Captain collects dimes for traveling these roads in circuitous fashion, for reading the news of worlds that lie at the end of spokes whose center is this dangerous world and wobbling on a malfunctioning hub, on which another war is probable. While these dimes support the circuit-riding profession he leans on, they also show how humble and near defeat is Captain's existence in comparison to the prestigious life he lived in prewar Texas.
Even as Johanna, orphaned twice in her first ten years of life, understands that she must visit the ghosts of her past, her elderly benefactor struggles to accept its necessity. He prefers to forget, to store memories in silence and darkness. Johanna attempts three times to run away. Captain tells others to empathize with the child. Yet he not only runs from years of bloodshed and losses but, he also blames himself for all of it.
Johanna inhales the scent of each new object she finds among Captain's belongings; scent is her tool for measuring and understanding. Captain Kidd's weeks with the young girl mark a turn in his life. He has not inhaled goodness or forgiveness or hope in many years. That had been his choice. Then Captain visits his home, now empty of life and wife. He opens a jar of her skin powder and inhales an aroma that clearly identifies a person and a place in his life. This is what Johanna has shown him to do. Inside the rooms of their shared home are gloves and household items left behind. But these are not her, just as Johanna did not find parents or a baby sister among the ruins of their cabin. But their willingness, Captain and Johanna, to walk where loved ones' ghosts walk is forward thinking. They awaken memories and are now free to accept the truths left over from the memories .
Now awakened from years of sleeping through pain and running from truths, Captain visits his wife's grave and removes the wedding ring. The sleep running is undeniable; from the beginning of the story, we as audience are led to believe that Captain abandoned his wife, that she might be waiting for him to return. Why does the story withhold this vital information, except to emphasis that her absence and his absence are one and same. That the coursing hurt that permeates Captain's existence, denying him the ability to joyfully use his senses and realize the passing of time parallels the indelible suffering of the entire nation even five years after the war's end and the emancipation of slaves. Pain cannot be relieved by telling someone But now you have so much to hope for. The war broke the nation, and it broke good men like Captain Jefferson Kidd. Until he opens himself to her memory.
From across the flooded Red River, Kiowa walk slowly in near blinding rain away from Johanna's cries. From inside the blinding dust storm that threatens to separate the Captain and the girl, another group of Kiowa walk slowly away again. Except for the moment when Captain and Kiowa acknowledge each other, both scenes use storm, heavy rain and dirt, genuine worldly conditions, to hide the faces of Kiowa and give their passing-through an imaginary quality. If any two scenes have ever more indelibly shown the genocide exacted on America's native tribes, I do not recall. The face of the black man lynched while trying to return Johanna to her original home is not shown in the movie for the same reason that the faces of the Kiowa in two important scenes are not shown. Because they are not fully human; they are not real men and women. They are animals like the buffalo whose only use to the white settlers is the hide. Until we share the stories that put faces on people, we hide our shared humanity and kill the memories and truths we need to move forward together.
News of the World is worth seeing twice for all the qualities that make a good film. More important, the film reminds us to tell our stories so that we can move forward.