[V]ermont arts producer Jay Craven was musing about Northeast Kingdom novelist Howard Frank Mosher’s “Disappearances” three decades ago when a thought popped into his head.
“I was intrigued — who was this guy?” Craven recalls thinking of the author. “So I just called him out of the blue and said, ‘My dream coming here was to make films.’”
Mosher shared the name of his agent, who noted someone else held the movie rights to “Disappearances.” But perhaps Craven would consider another of the author’s books, the logging drama “Where the Rivers Flow North”?
So began a collaboration that begat not only Craven’s first feature a quarter-century ago but also three more Mosher novels-turned-movies: 1998’s “A Stranger in the Kingdom,” 2006’s “Disappearances” (which Craven finally snagged) and 2013’s “Northern Borders.”
“Howard was much more than a source for our film stories and characters,” Craven says today. “He was also a constant ally, a ready source of laughs, and a steadying influence.”
That support extended from the set to the statewide tours in which the two screened the films in New England town halls, churches and schools. So when Mosher died of cancer last winter at age 74, Craven recalled those travels when deciding to remember the author by hitting the road again.
Craven is set to visit 10 Vermont communities this summer to present a talk on “My Life, So Far, With Howard” alongside 25th anniversary showings of their first movie.
“Howard was such a supportive collaborator,” the filmmaker says. “No one was more generous with his time, and he responded so personally to people he met in every corner of the state.”
The Green Mountain State had made its way into movies before, be it silent-era star Lillian Gish imperiled on a White River Junction ice floe in 1920’s “Way Down East” or Alfred Hitchcock scaring up scenes in Barre, Craftsbury and Morrisville for 1955’s “The Trouble with Harry.”
Wrote The New York Times: “The real-life story behind ‘Where the Rivers Flow North’ is the stuff of independent film makers’ fantasies. A Vermonter named Jay Craven put together the money for his film from a variety of sources, ranging from foreign sales rights to local small investors, and made the kind of period piece that would be produced in Hollywood only as a fluke.”
And The Washington Post: “Its storyline — craggy, cantankerous log driver and his eccentric Native American mate struggle to hang on to long-held family land threatened by power company ‘progress’ — is aided immeasurably by the pungent, poignant performances of Rip Torn and Tantoo Cardinal, and by director Jay Craven, who invests it with admirable Yankee integrity and tangy frontier wit.”
Unreported at the time, however, was the role Mosher played behind the scenes — starting with cajoling the temperamental leading man to come out of his trailer.
“The one thing that kept Rip focused was he respected his character, and Howard created that,” Craven says. “Howard played a very important role in keeping him under control.”
Craven is set to share more memories Thursday at Putney’s Next Stage Arts Project, Friday at the Bennington Center for the Arts, July 30 at the Woodstock Town Hall Theatre and Middlebury Town Hall Theater, Aug. 5 at the Norwich Congregational Church, Aug. 6 at the Weston Playhouse, Aug. 10 at St. Johnsbury’s Catamount Arts, Aug. 12 at Manchester’s Northshire Bookstore, Aug. 16 at Greensboro’s Highland Center for the Arts and Aug. 22 at Montpelier’s Savoy Theater.
Tickets are $12 for adults and $5 for students, with times and other information available at Craven’s website.
Upon its premiere, “Where the Rivers Flow North” played more than 30 worldwide film festivals ranging from Sundance and Seattle to Vienna and Vancouver. In his coming program, Craven will bring it all home.
“I will tell a few tales that have not been publicly shared before because they capture a rarely seen side of Howard and his work,” Craven says. “My dream from day one was to make dramatic feature films rooted right here, so my collaboration with Howard was something you hope for.”
