'A Dreamer's Search': Filmmaker brings Alaskan bush to North Country

Apr. 6—PLATTSBURGH — In 2014, Reagan Monarch, a Peru resident and Willsboro Central School art teacher, went on a special visit to Alaska to see her cousin, Eric Downs.

"I said, 'Isn't there some guy named Rockwell Kent that came to Alaska way back when,'" Downs, an Alaskan native and construction manager turned filmmaker, said.

"(Monarch) said, 'Yeah, absolutely.' She want to SUNY Plattsburgh, so she knew all about him. Of course, I hadn't even looked at the guy's name. I had heard that story more than once. I said well, let's go on adventure and go check out the island."

Before the cousins set off on their Fox Island adventure, Downs heard there was an expert in Seward, the town just out from the island.

"So before our trip to the island, we met with Doug Capra, who's the foremost expert on Rockwell Kent's Alaskan adventure," Downs said.

"I was halfway interested before, but when Doug walked in with binders full of information under his arm and sat and explained the story to us for two or three hours, I was instantly captivated and hooked."

FOX ISLAND

That 2014 Fox Island excursion helped Downs reconnect with the wilderness and reconnect with his dream to become a filmmaker.

"It's kind of from that point on that I started learning the story," he said.

"Four years later, during the 100th year anniversary of Rockwell Kent's time in Alaska, Doug reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in putting together a documentary about Rockwell's Kent adventure in Alaska to coincide with the 100-year anniversary."

Downs brought a camera crew over and shot three or four hours worth of interview footage with Capra.

"We had B-roll, amazing scenery and drone footage, just an amazing shoot," he said.

"However, when I went to go to edit the footage together, I had a difficult time capturing the emotion, kind of those deep feelings that you feel when you're out there surrounded by that silence, when you're surrounded by that magnificence. So, it sat on the shelf. I just couldn't draw that out of the project along with the struggle that most artists go through of questioning if it's good enough."

Now his, "A Dreamer's Search" North Country premiere is this evening at "Creative Catalyst: Exploring Rockwell Kent's Alaskan Adventure," a mini symposium hosted by the Plattsburgh State Art Museum. (See Box).

Kent, a renowned artist, author, illustrator and political activist and builder of Asgaard Farm in Ausable Forks, went on a 1918 Alaskan adventure with his son, Rockie, which catapulted his career to national success. His journal from Fox Island became a bestselling book, "Wilderness."

Downs' film, "A Dreamer's Search," explores Kent's Fox Island sojourn.

COVID PIVOT

"It wasn't until COVID hit, March 2020, like most people I was faced with questioning that, if it all ends tomorrow, what are you going to look back on and regret?" he said.

"So I made a decision to really chase after that dream of becoming a filmmaker. I decided then that I would start all over from scratch and start writing the story as a narrative, as a fictional account of the true life events. "

Downs went out into the wilderness and spent six weeks writing a script.

"I had learned the story through approaching it as a documentary film," he said.

"I felt like I knew the story. First and foremost, I wanted to stay authentic to the theme and essence of the true life story. But also I thought the best way to get this Rockwell Kent story out there to a wider audience was to share it as a narrative, try to find those themes that everybody can connect with."

After putting together a script, Downs reached out to a group of local Alaskan filmmakers.

"We put a team of 15 people together, cast and crew. In August of 2020 in the height of Covid, we went out to the wilderness and shot the film, which also has a parallel with Rockwell Kent's story. When he came to Alaska in 1918, it was right during the heart of the Spanish flu pandemic and during World War I. The world was in the midst of chaos when he made his escape as well."

Downs' background is rooted in storytelling, and he used Final Draft Pro to write the script.

"Really the only challenge comes when you get the script to a point where you feel like you can't do anything more to it and you have to break down the walls and be vulnerable enough to share it with others and to start workshopping and getting feedback," he said.

"That's really the biggest challenge with writing a script because at that point of time, it's kind you cross the threshold and let the story take the lead. It's not what's best for me and my feelings. It's really how are we going to pay tribute to the story in order to bring out the best in the story, which is really essential to share the work with others and have them shine a light in areas that the writer just can't see.

"With filmmaking they always say that there's the story as it's told while you're writing it. There's the story when you're shooting it. Then, the story when you edit it. Those are all things that progress along the way. It's just fascinating."

FATHER-SON TALE

In the early stage of the process when Downs was workshopping the script, a newbie screenwriter's feedback was, "Yeah, this is great. This is a father-and-son film."

"I said to him, oh no," Downs said.

"There's no way. This isn't a father and son film. Rockwell Kent, he had too good of an ego for that. This is about him and his adventure and painting. But if I was letting the story take the lead, it absolutely became a father and son story. It was a father and son story. That's kind of the fun thing about the narrative, we weren't necessarily trying to tell the exact factual event. We were looking for the things that weren't captured in the journal or recorded in history. We were trying to find the things under the surface, the bigger themes for that adventure."

TAGLINE

Down's favorite, the biggest theme, is "the quietest places speak the loudest."

"Rockwell grew up in New York City, high society, Victorian high society," he said.

"He came from a wealthy family. He was always told that he was better than everyone. That kind of led to him having a pretty big ego. It's well documented. I feel like it took a pale like Alaska and this Fox Island where he was surrounded by this greatness and this silence. That it really allowed him to focus in on what meant the most to him in that true inner journey that he needed to take with no distractions."

Downs thinks it was fear that prompted Kent to take his son along.

"He tried to convince his wife to go," he said.

"They had went on a previous adventure to Newfoundland years prior that didn't turn out so well. At the time, they had already four children together. He wasn't able to to convince her to go. He did ask a few other people to go.

"I think really what it came down to is having his son there was a way to keep him grounded, but also having a companion that has that innocence and purity of being ready for anything really, really helped in a situations that involved a lot of real world risk.

"Being out in a small dory boat, rowing out to this island in the high seas of Resurrection Bay. Extremely dangerous. He didn't plan any of that, but as it turned out having his 9-year-old son as companion, it was the perfect outcome. Was it dangerous? Was it risky? Absolutely."

'DIG DOWN DEEP'

The film's second theme is destiny.

"I feel like all of us have a true calling inside, something that we are meant to do or meant to become," Downs said.

"And it takes a lot of courage for us to dig down deep and find that courage and chase after that dream or that calling. Rockwell Kent at the time, he was in his mid-30s. He had had some successful art shows, but his art wasn't selling. He was basically on the edge of failure as an artist. He was going to have to pack it in. He was always working as an architect in the city. He had a family of four to support, so his dream of becoming an artist was on the edge of failure. So, his trip to Alaska was his last ditch effort to create a body of work that would launch his career.

"I really think sometimes when we are chasing after that dream, it doesn't make sense on paper or when share it with your family. Some of those pursuits and those dreams, they just don't make sense as you are beginning them. They don't even makes sense to the person on the journey a lot of times, but they are so important because it's one of those things that if you don't take the risk and take the chance, you'll never know what was on the other side."

The film is an inspiration piece, and that's the message Downs, 46, is sharing through the festival circuit and at the mini symposium at Plattsburgh State.

"It's worth it to take that risk," he said.

"Find the courage and go on that pursuit and go after that chase. When COVID hit and I decided okay, I can't stand this narrative that I keep saying that I'm an aspiring filmmaker. I'm either going to give up on that dream or I'm going to go for it."

LIFE PARALLELS

It was natural for him to choose Kent for his first film because he felt there were parallels in their stories.

"When he left NYC, when he told his wife that I need to go to Alaska to do this," Downs said.

"I'm sure her reactions was 'Why don't you just go to Maine? You've already got a house in Maine. Why wouldn't you just go across the road here and paint some pictures?' There's a very similar feeling with me.

"I had a successful career as a construction manager running a lot of projects and all of a sudden here I'm going to make a film. It's not like I haven't done anything before in terms of shooting videos and stuff but this is a serious film. Again the people around you, sometimes those pursuits don't necessarily fit the narrative. Those were the major connections I have.

"That's what so important is for people to understand is chasing your dreams is absolutely not a midlife crisis. It's so important. It doesn't matter if you're 14, 24, 34, 64. There's a burning fire deep down inside you that's worth chasing."

Fox Island was another connection.

"It really changed me and helped me focus in on what does it all mean being out there in that silence," he said.

"I just reflected on my life and kind of asked myself if I wanted to be known as a guy that built a bunch of buildings in his life or share a bigger vision than that to inspire people to consider what they want."

PATERNAL TRIBUTE

The last connection was his late grandfather, Dan Downs, who passed away in 2013.

"A Dreamer's Search" is dedicated in his memory.

"I also had a very, very close relationship with him," Downs said.

"The reason why I dedicated to the film to him, he came from a five generations of farmers. His fourth great-grandfather immigrated from Ireland to northern New York in Saranac up on top of Burnt Hill in the mid-1850s and had a huge farm up there."

In his late 20s, Dan was next in line to become the farmer, inhabit the farmhouse, and live out his days as a farmer like all the other generations had done before him.

"He decided to go against the grain and go his own direction," Downs said.

"He moved down from Burnt Hill and moved into Keeseville and started his own business, a small engine shop repair. Then, he eventually became a home builder right there in Plattsburgh and built a couple of subdivisions.

"The takeaway for me was just because society or your family or your surroundings, environment are pushing you in a direction, that's where you really need to listen to your heart and chase your own dreams.

"That was really inspirational on my path to become a filmmaker, even though I've been a construction guy my whole life."

Email: rcaudell@pressrepublican.com

Twitter@RobinCaudell