Shouts from a Third Act

LUCE is a thriller, but not in the traditional sense. It’s not a film in which someone is stalked by a psycho/killer, although the tension throughout is such that it feels that way. Luce is about a 17-year-old high school student and his adoptive parents and the teacher who stirs things up by her suspicion that Luce may not be the perfect human being he appears to be.

The film opens with Luce on stage at the podium of his tony high school in Arlington, Virginia. He’s making a speech, something he’s very good at since he’s the star of the school’s debate team. It’s a speech that not too many kids could get away with and still retain the respect of their classmates. It’s heavy on how wonderful the teachers and the school and all their parents are, but Luce knows how to deliver. He’s charming and handsome and exceptionally bright. After the speech, Luce’s parents meet Ms. Wilson, Luce’s history teacher. To them she seems stern, to put it mildly, and in no time at all, she asks Luce’s mother to come in for a private conference. Ms. Wilson is concerned about a paper Luce has written, a class assignment in which she asked the students to write from the point of view of an historical figure. Luce chose Frantz Fanon, a 20th century black psychiatrist/philosopher (born in the French colony of Martinique), who believed that violence was often necessary to overthrow oppression. That paper and the bag of fireworks she’s found in his locker (yes, she’s gone into his locker and other lockers, too) are enough to convince her that Luce may be planning something harmful to the school. However, it’s already been established that the school’s track team athletes (Luce is a star there, too) often throw stuff in one another’s lockers when it’s convenient.

Luce’s parents are an affluent white couple who adopted him at age seven. Prior to that, he was the kind of boy most of us have only heard or read about: a child soldier in an African country. A loving home and years of therapy have helped make him the exemplary young man we see at the start of the film. But when doubt creeps into any relationship, trouble is sure to follow. What makes the story even more complex is that Ms. Wilson is black herself, a dedicated teacher, but a woman who clearly didn’t grow up on easy street. One would think she might cut Luce some slack. She does, in her own way, which only adds to the mounting tension that fuels the plot and draws other students (with troubles of their own) into the fiery mix.

LUCE is a concise but complex piece of storytelling with no spare parts. It clocks in at one hour fifty minutes. As the credits rolled, I learned it was based on a play by J.C. Lee, a play I definitely want to see if it’s ever performed at a theatre near me or one that I can get to without going broke. Some critics who’ve reviewed the film seem to think it could have benefited from a few spare parts. That’s because not all the questions that arise in the film are answered definitively. I’m pretty sure I figured out most of what happened, but there are a few loose threads that remain open to interpretation. I like that. Life is like that.

“I’m not interested in preaching to people. I’m not interested in trying to convince them that they’re wrong or that I’m right. I’m interested in having a conversation with people.” –J.C. Lee, the playwright who co-wrote the screenplay, in an on-line interview with nbcsandiego.com in May 2019

The lead actors need to be mentioned by name. All of them are deserving of consideration come Awards season: Kelvin Harrison, Jr. (Luce), Naomi Watts & Tim Roth (the parents) and Octavia Spencer (Ms. Wilson).

LUCE is a story about the difficulties of finding one’s way in today’s world. That’s true for the young man trying to manage all the expectations heaped on top of him as he tries to discover who he wants to be. That’s true for his parents, who want to protect the son they’ve nurtured through so much trauma. And it’s also true for the teacher. She wants her exceptional black student to be a credit to his race and to his school, but she also knows what can happen at any school–in the blink of an eye.

LUCE is also a story about race–a story that will have me–and you, too, I hope–thinking about this film for a long time to come.

Recently, during a summer trip, I toured Great Camp Sagamore in the Adirondacks in upstate N.Y., once a wilderness retreat for a branch of the Vanderbilt family and their many guests. Something the guide said prompted this piece, although not in the way I first imagined. Let me begin with a quote from Mark Twain, which is on prominent display in one of the Camp’s twenty-six buildings: “What is the chief end of man?–to get rich. In what way?–dishonestly if we can; honestly if we must.” It’s funny because it’s largely true (particularly when seeking to amass great fortunes) but it’s not what I want to talk about. Much to my surprise, I want to talk about the ecological complexities of making Art out of the Wilderness.

Ever hear of Shed Hunting? Not me, not until I read Items in Need of Protective Enclosure by Tea Obreht, one of the short stories chosen for the Best American Short Stories of 2018 anthology. To say the story did not disappoint is an understatement. The fact that I happened to read it while visiting the Adirondacks may be one reason why it stood tall among all the stand-outs in that collection.

The story opens with a phone call–out of the blue and out of Sylvia’s past. Suddenly she’s lost in memories of Wade, her unrequited first love of thirty years ago, and their long-ago adventures in a forest Preserve. Items is set in an unnamed western state where elk roam, and where it is illegal to hunt the antlers that are naturally shed by male elk after the mating season comes to an end. Wade has two jobs: one legit–selling Serenity Pods (a grow-your-own tree alternative to scattering or shelving one’s ashes) and one not. The legit one doesn’t pay much, but he’s really good at the other–finding shed antlers in the wild and selling them to a fence. By this point, my suspicion that the story is set in the future is confirmed because I know that elk aren’t extinct like they are in Wade’s and Sylvia’s time. At least it appears they’re extinct–it’s been a decade since one was spotted. What makes no sense to me, story-wise, is why it would be illegal to pick up antlers found in the wild, particularly when the elk are long dead. Why leave them in the woods to rot?

Meanwhile, in the real-life Adirondacks, the tour guide explains that Great Camp Sagamore was almost demolished forty years ago by the state of N.Y. Luckily a Preservation group intervened and found a way to save it. Very few of the Adirondack Great Camps, built circa 1880-1920, still exist, and the ones that do are privately owned. In part, that’s because of the “Forever Wild” provision in N.Y.’s constitution that’s been law since 1895: any land that N.Y. purchases from a private owner must be returned to its natural state. Great Camp Sagamore is the wilderness equivalent of a property like The Breakers in Newport, R.I. Tear it down? It’s not like the state was in danger of running out of forest. Nearly half of the six million acres in the Adirondack region were already publicly owned by the state. In the forty years Great Camp Sagamore has been open to the public, tens of thousands of people have visited. Education is the main purpose of the non-profit Institute that runs it. In addition to summer tours, individuals and groups are allowed to book rooms for limited periods to experience what life was like there back in the day. To me, “Forever Wild” seems extremist.

However, as with Shed Hunting, I don’t yet know the whole picture.

Shed Hunting, I learn, after doing some research, has become a big sport. It’s Trophy Hunting without the kill. While generally not illegal except in National Parks (each state has its own laws), it’s often restricted to early March and April, when male elk naturally shed their antlers. (Once the males have made it through the fall mating season, their hormone levels and antlers drop off, only to rise again.) Without controls in place, Shed Hunting could spook the elk out of their winter feeding grounds too early. Pregnant females usually give birth in late May through early June. If they’re accidentally pushed into high country snowpack, it could lead to devastating results for the herd.

Just as over-hunting could endanger an elk population, over-logging once threatened the Adirondack forests. In the late 1880s, many growing American cities relied on lumber from the Adirondacks. Clearcutting was rampant, and the logging companies left behind a devastated landscape. “Forever Wild” was born of necessity. “Forever Wild” prohibits removing a single tree from state-owned land.

High in the High Peaks of the Adirondacks (V.P. Teddy Roosevelt was famously climbing Mr. Marcy when he learned President McKinley had been shot), Lake Tear of the Clouds is the source of the Hudson, a river that provides drinking water to millions of people downstream. The forests bordering the Hudson filter some of the cleanest water on the planet, and they’re critical to the health of the watershed. Without forest protection, there’d be a real threat of flooding cycled with drought.

Near the end of Items in Need of Protective Enclosure, a living elk is spotted. They’re not all extinct! And that’s when I understand why Shed Hunting is illegal for the purposes of this story. To allow any remaining elk, if they do exist, to re-populate.

In the Adirondacks, Great Camp Sagamore was once part of over 1500 privately-owned acres. Today it lays claim to fewer than fourteen. But it doesn’t need more to complete its educational mission. Likewise, in the states where elk roam, laws are mostly in place to prevent over-hunting–to prevent this magnificent animal from becoming extinct.

Intelligent compromise can lead to good results. That’s what these two stories taught me. It’s a concept, I’d like to suggest, that all hard-line partisans–whatever their issues–need to consider for the health of this country.