Customer Reviews

Moving Midway

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Film critic Godfrey Cheshire goes behind the camera to capture an important chapter in his family history. It begins in 2004 when his cousin announces that their ancestral home, a plantation house in North Carolina, is going to be moved to a new location and the land sold to a shopping mall developer.

The massive effort that goes into separating a 150-year-old house from the land is just one of many interesting facets to this personal story that touches on the hot-button social issues of race and slavery that this country still grapples with, especially in the South. During the course of the film project documenting the move of the house, Cheshire reaches out to the African-American roots of his family tree, notably Dr. Robert Hinton, a professor at NYU whose grandfather was born into slavery at Midway Plantation. Hinton expresses very different feelings about the plantation house, the land it sits on, and what it means to separate the two.

Moving Midway successfully blends American social history, architecture and a thought-provoking musing on the mythology of the Southern plantation. Threaded throughout is the engaging story of Cheshire's discovery of his unexpected extended family.

While interesting to anyone interested in North Carolina family history, this is particulary so for anyone descended from the John Hintons of Wake County.

My family history research confirmed that my side of the HINTON family is connected to the MIDWAY PLANTATION!

Upon learning about the "Moving Midway" movie I promptly ordered it and thoroughly enjoyed the documentary.

Before watching this movie I could not imagine how a film-maker could make moving a house interesting or rise above the technical. However Moving Midway has plot, plot twists, drama, forward movement -- all of the elements that make for a good drama. The focus is on the human element, on a South that was and what the South has become. The film-makers intermix the moving of an historic structure from one site to to another with history, sociology, and discovery. This is a very interesting effort. The technical quality of this film is very good.

I don't remember how I came upon this film, where I learned of the title. Must have been a little bit of serendipity.

Though this is the story of one family's experiences, the themes are universal. Native southern myself, I recognized a lot of my heritage - some of it positive, and some not so much. Both the good and the bad were included in "Moving Midway," nothing hidden, nothing swept under the rug.

The way the past was woven in with the present may be the documentary's best quality. As such it works well for those of us who are familiar with the themes, yet it would also be of interest to those without a direct southern lineage. Historians and genealogists could glean much from this one family's experience, one which is not at all uncommon. Even someone with only a passing interest in the South and its history would come away with a greater understanding of this difficult chapter in our country's history.

Highly recommended.

I heard an interview of the creator of this DVD. His story was fasinating and I wanted to know more. Meeting via DVD his family and the families of former slaves of his family was amazing--like seeing history unfold before you. It made history come alive. Can't wait to view it with my grandsons.

The Old South, plantation life, and mixed-race genealogy meet engineering and fascinating characters in a beautifully produced and narrated story. We watched it twice to capture more details, then bought this copy on Amazon to send to friends.

This is an excellent documentary that touches on issues of heredity and family, blacks and whites, southerners and Yankees, myths versus reality, and the can do spirit of preservation. Urbanization is encroaching upon Midway, a southern plantation home; so the owners, descendants of the family who built the home during slavery, decide to relocate the house and a number of out buildings. The house has much character (as do the collateral family members) and a resident ghost. My only disappointment in the documentary is the lack of reference to the archeological activity that took place preliminary to the move.
I highly recommend this film to anyone who wishes to get a taste of current day sentiments for the romaticized southern plantation.

This is a very interesting movie whether you know the people or plantation house involved. It shows the connection between the white and african american side of a family meeting and sharing their histories around the moving of the planation house that their mutual ancestors built and lived in. It tells how yesterday is being preserved for today.
Not many homes nearly 200 years old have the original family still living in it and maintaining it so beautifully. Moving Midway

Length:: 0:30 Mins