The Imagery Of Liberty

The Ohio Liberty Film Festival To Begin On Veteran's Day

“Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.”
~John Adams

The very definition of liberty is quite intangible, resting within every individual's interpretation of this almost undefinable concept. As Abraham Lincoln succinctly pointed out, “The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator. The wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.”

To this end, Jay Tiber, owner of the Dublin Pub, has selected a series of films that deal with different aspects of freedom and liberty, so that the viewer may reflect on their own personal definitions and maybe become aware of these intangibles that they might have taken for granted. Tieber's keynote film, The Birth of Freedom, utilizes documents like The Code of Hammurabi, the Magna Carta and John Locke's A Letter Concerning Toleration to paint a picture about how the concepts and applications of freedom and liberty took form and evolved over the ages. The documentary also points to the Judeo-Christian concept of human dignity, exemplified by the belief that man was created in God's image and therefore had the inalienable right to be free.

“There is a awareness of the importance of religion in this movie in the sense that they talk about how the people began to believe that the king and the royalty were not the ultimate authority: that there was a higher authority than the king.” Tieber related that, “The king derived his powers from God, therefore God was the ultimate authority. So, there's a sense of religion that played a role in the decision that man was inherently free and it was not a proper thing for government to make him not free.”

“With this movie, there's more than a little bit of depth there and you have to see it multiple times to get more out of it. They intersperse pictures and commentaries by university professors and historians and they say things that cause you to reflect on some deeper issues.”
The Ultimate Resource is another documentary depicting how economic prosperity goes hand in hand with liberty and freedom by giving ordinary people the tools necessary to improve their lives and, in turn, the lives of those around them.

“It's made by a group of people up in Erie, Pennsylvania called Free To Choose. It's a nice movie.” Tiber said. “They deal with the conditions in five countries: China, Bangladesh, Ghana, Peru and Estonia. They talk about how people exercise their freedom in those countries and their initiative to better their lives.”

The Mission follows the story of am 18th century Spanish missionary played by Jeremy Irons and a soldier seeking penance played by Robert De Niro as they try to convert, then protect the Guarani Indians living above the Iguazu Falls in South America.. With the threat of the natives being enslaved, the two main characters react in diametrically opposed ways to protect their freedom.

“So, how did they express this? Robert DeNiro's role was an ex-soldier who responded to the threat by taking up the sword and Jeremy Irons responded to the threat by leading his people in religious observation.” Tiber explained. “So that represented two different approaches to being taken by these Portuguese soldiers and turned into slaves.”

Papillon shows how the human spirit will always seek freedom, regardless of how much pain the body has to endure. The movie follows the incarceration of Louis Dega (Dustin Hoffman) and Henri “Papillon” Charrière (Steve McQueen) on French Guiana's most notorious penal colony, Devil's Island. Through years of brutal treatment, the pair never give up on attempts at escape until, when old and infirmed, Dustin Hoffman's character acquiesces to his imprisonment, yet Papillon tries yet one last effort, perhaps attaining an eternity of freedom.

Steven Spielberg's Academy Award winning movie Saving Private Ryan kicks off the Ohio Liberty Film Festival on Veteran's Day. This movie, with an all star cast led by Tom Hanks, shows not only the mind boggling sacrifices made within the first few hours of the D-Day invasion, but also the personal sacrifices and realizations made during a mission of compassion.

“Saving Private Ryan is a very compelling movie. What I like about that movie is when the guy goes to the cemetery in Normandy, and he looks at the tombstones and he reviews in his mind the events that took place when they came to rescue him, to take him out of battle, and he says to his wife, 'Tell me I was a good man...'. The fact that these other people made these sacrifices to save him...that to me is so powerful.” Tieber went on, quite passionately, saying, “I think that that is a question that all of us could ask, those of us that have benefited from what we have in this country: have we done what we could have done with our lives to justify the sacrifices that have been made for us.”

(This article appeared in the November 4th, 2009 issue of the Dayton City Paper. This is the article as it was originally written.)