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Sommersby
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Sommersby is a 1993 romantic drama film directed by Jon Amiel and starring Richard Gere, Jodie Foster, Bill Pullman and James Earl Jones. The music was created by Danny Elfman and praised for its dark themes of tragedy and romance.
Set in the Reconstruction period following the U.S. Civil War, the story is adapted from the historical account of 16th century French peasant Martin Guerre (previously filmed by Daniel Vigne as Le Retour de Martin Guerre in 1982).
Plot
John "Jack" Sommersby left his farm to fight in the American Civil War but has not returned home afterward, and is presumed dead.
Discussion
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Encyclopedia
Sommersby is a 1993 romantic drama film directed by Jon Amiel and starring Richard Gere, Jodie Foster, Bill Pullman and James Earl Jones. The music was created by Danny Elfman and praised for its dark themes of tragedy and romance.
Set in the Reconstruction period following the U.S. Civil War, the story is adapted from the historical account of 16th century French peasant Martin Guerre (previously filmed by Daniel Vigne as Le Retour de Martin Guerre in 1982).
Plot
John "Jack" Sommersby left his farm to fight in the American Civil War but has not returned home afterward, and is presumed dead. Despite the hardship of working their farm without him, his apparent widow Laurel (played by Foster) is quite content in his absence, as Jack was an unpleasant and abusive husband. She even makes remarriage plans with one of her neighbors, Orrin Meacham (Pullman), who despite his own hardships (such as a wooden foot, which he wears to replace one that was lost in the war) has been helping her and her young son with the farmwork.
One day, Jack (Gere) seemingly returns with a complete change of heart. He is now kind and loving to Laurel and their young son. In the evenings, he reads to them from Homer's Iliad, which the old Jack never would have done. He claims that the book was given to him by a man he met in prison, and that "War changes you; makes you appreciate things". Jack and Laurel rekindle their intimacy and Laurel soon becomes pregnant.
Displaced from his courtship of Laurel, Meacham immediately suspects this "new" Sommersby as an impostor. The town shoemaker also finds that this man's foot is two sizes smaller than the shoe template which had been made for Sommersby before the war.
In order to revive the local economy, Sommersby suggests Burley tobacco as a cash crop. He raises the (literal) seed money by selling parts of his own farm to people who will then work the land to grow tobacco. This raises further doubts in his old neighbors who believe that the "old" Jack would not be so hasty to give away his beloved father's land, as well as resentment among Confederate veterans about the inclusion of former slaves.
One black freedman living on Sommersby's land is brutally attacked and dropped at Sommersby's door, by men proclaiming themselves the Knights of the White Camellia (one of them is Meacham, distinguished by his wooden foot). Jack is threatened to exclude Black people from the landowning but he refuses, saying that they can "own what they pay for".
Upon taking the townspeople's money, he sets off to buy the tobacco seed claiming that the crops will raise enough funds to rebuild the town church. Great suspicion and skepticism falls upon him (and by association, Laurel and their son) when he does not return at the expected time. He does, however, return. All those that bought in on the deal set to work, transforming the dull and lifeless plantation into a breeding ground of promise and prosperity. Laurel gives birth to a daughter, Rachel.
Shortly after Rachel's baptism, two U.S. Marshals appear in town to arrest Jack Sommersby. He is charged with murder, which carries the death penalty if convicted. In an echo of the Hugenot status of Jean de Coras, the historical judge of the original Martin Guerre case (de Coras was eventually killed during the French Wars of Religion), the judge for Sommerby's trial is a black man, played by James Earl Jones.
Once the trial begins, Laurel's attempts to save her husband quickly focus on the question of his identity: whether this "Jack" is who he claims to be, or a look-a-like who met the "real" Sommersby whilst in prison for deserting the Confederate Army.
Laurel and Jack's lawyer agree to argue that her husband is an impostor, not the same man who left Laurel to fight in the war. This would save her husband (or supposed husband) from hanging for murder, although he would still be imprisoned for several years for fraud and desertion. Meacham devises this plan in exchange for Laurel promising to marry him upon "Sommersby's" imprisonment.
Sommersby fires the lawyer and sets about re-establishing himself as the "real" Sommersby. Several witnesses are brought up to discredit this Sommersby as a fraud, and is in fact one Horace Townsend, an English teacher from Virginia.
One witness says that the man currently posing as Jack defrauded his township of several thousands dollars after claiming he wanted to help rebuild the schoolhouse there. Sommersby quickly dismisses the man's testimony by identifying him as one of the Klansmen who had threatened him earlier. Jack also points out that Orrin Meacham was another of those men, and that this whole thing is a set-up to try and rob the new black farmers of the land they have bought and paid for. When the black judge confronts the witness on this charge, the witness snaps, "When the Yankees have all gone you'll be back in the field where you belong!" The judge silences him and sentences him to 30 days for contempt, increased to 60 days upon the man's protest.
As the drama unfolds, Jack asks Laurel to give the reason she knows he is not the "real" Jack Sommersby; she replies (after some berating) "…because I never loved him the way I love you!" With this her charade ends and she says that she believes the Jack before her to be her real husband.
The judge calls Jack to his bench to ask whether he wishes to be tried as Jack Sommersby even if it will certainly mean death by hanging. Jack glances at the freed blacks who have been farming his land, and then he glances at his wife and his daughter, who would be respectively condemned as an adulteress and a bastard child if he claimed the identity of Horace Townsend. He calmly states that he wants to be tried as John "Jack" Sommersby.
Jack is convicted of first degree murder and is sentenced to death by hanging. While awaiting death, he is asked by Laurel to tell the truth. She asks, "Are you John Sommersby?" Laurel mentions the book on Homer's works that he holds. Jack tells her the story of how he met a man who looked like him whilst in a prison and how he gave him this book. They traveled together until his friend died. He claims that he buried him under a pile of rocks on a hill top in Virginia. Laurel asks, "You mean you buried Jack?", to which Jack replies, "I mean I buried Horace."
Just then the jailers enter to transport Jack to the gallows. He asks Laurel to be amongst the crowds as he cannot "hang alone". She neither agrees nor disagrees to do this for him. As Jack Sommersby is fastened up ready to hang, a suspenseful moment arises where Laurel makes her way to the front of the crowd. Jack calls for her, claiming to the executioner that he "isn't ready". As the hood is about to be put over his head. She then calls back and the two see each other. The hood is pulled over and a trap door can be heard opening.
The closing scenes show Laurel walking up a hill with flowers. She then kneels by the grave of "Jack Sommersby" and lays the flowers down for him. In the end it is revealed that work is being done on the steeple of the village church, as Jack had wished.
Cast
Trivia
- The cow is named Clarice, the name of Jodie Foster's character in The Silence of the Lambs.
- Warner Brothers at first refused to buy the remake rights, but Sarah Kernochan, who was assigned to rewrite Nicholas Meyers' screenplay, insisted, as the story was obviously based on the French tale.
- Contrary to popular belief, this film is not the basis for the Simpsons episode in which the real Seymour Skinner returns from Vietnam to reveal that Principal Skinner is an impostor. The man believed to be Principal Skinner is actually named Arman Tanzarian. Similarly, the impostor accrues the sympathy of the audience. The commentary on Season 9 debunked the Sommersby reference, stating that the Tichborne case is the basis.
- The movie received great contributions from Charlotte County, Virginia. The trial was shot for the movie in the Court House building in Charlotte Court House, Virginia. Also, the director allowed many extras from the county to be in the court room; although, the entire court house was repainted and refurnished prior to the movie.
- The infant was actually two twins, Caleb and Caitlin Ryder, of Hot Springs, Virginia; because of child labor laws, one infant was not allowed to shoot longer than two hours. For some reason, Warner Brothers thought these two were the most identical in spite they were a boy and a girl.
- It is on the set of this movie that Jodie Foster met her FORMER partner Cydney Bernard.
Reaction
The film got a 57% on Rotten Tomatoes, marking it a close "Rotten". Critics praised the acting of the two leads Richard Gere and Jodie Foster, but panned the vague redemption of the imposter.
See also
Footnotes
External links
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