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Davenport Offers A Fresh Take on Twice-Told Tales
Davenport Offers A Fresh Take on Twice-Told Tales
By Pat Reilly
Many of the folk tales collected by the brothers Grimm would be at home in the old-growth forests covering the Blue Ridge Mountains, with their knotty branches grabbing the air, gnarly tree roots hugging the banks of rocky streams and the enchanting blue mists. Some of those stories did find their way here with settlers from the “old countries” of Europe, who encased them in the new culture as they retold them.
Cinematic storyteller Tom Davenport envisioned a fresh take on these twicetold tales in the 1970s, when he came back to the family’s Delaplane farm after learning the filmmaking craft in New York City.
With a 16-mm camera, neighborly actors, photogenic venues and his wife, Mimi, designing the sets and costumes, the soon to be award-winning non-profit Folkstreams was born. One of the group’s early efforts was “Ashpet: An American Cinderella”.
If you missed the premiere in the 1980s, you have another chance to see it on the big screen at the Middleburg Community Center on Feb. 22 (snow date Feb. 23), when a Davenport double-feature will show as a fundraiser for his historic neighborhood church, Emmanuel Episcopal Delaplane. The other film is “Soldier Jack or The Man Who Caught Death in a Sack.” Davenport will introduce the films and follow them with a discussion on how they were made and were Americanized.
Doors will open at 4:30 p.m. with the show beginning at 5, and it’s expected to wrap in two hours. Davenport says folk tales are not just for children, but he ensures that these films are appropriate family fare. Tickets will be considered donations to the church and will support its operations, food bank and other community outreach programs. The suggested donation is $20 for adults and $10 for children. DVDs of Davenport films will be available for sale in the lobby.
The picturesque Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Delaplane has been on site on Maidstone Road since 1859. Davenport has done a film about it also.
After graduating from Yale, Davenport spent several years in Taiwan, studying Chinese language and culture. His first film, in 1969, was about the Chinese martial art t’ai chi. When he turned his lenses on American culture, the result was Folkstreams.
When the American Folklore Society conferred the first Archie Green Public Folklore Advocacy Award to Davenport in 2009, it recognized Folkstreams as “a visionary project at a time when streaming films on the web was just emerging.”
It called Folkstreams.net “an extraordinary democratic initiative in public folklore and education, exponentially increasing the visibility of the field, and giving grassroots communities across the U.S. access to their own traditions, folklore, and cultural history.”
Orchardist, cattleman, storyteller, filmmaker, investigative reporter, award-winning cinematographer, Tom Davenport is always looking for ways to entertain and educate us on our cultural heritage.
