Talkback
Filmmakers Michael Chandler and Sheila Canavan say: "It was hard for us to find people who did not sympathize with Josh."
Do you think Josh's actions were justified? Why or why not? Share your response and your reactions to KNEE DEEP.
Tell us what you think >>
Submissions will be posted here regularly, so visit again to read more.
It would be nice if someone would setup a fund for Josh, so we can help raise funds so he can buy his own farm. If you do it via paypal, I will contribute, as I am sure many will to help this young man.
Lynn Strauch
I just finished watching "Knee Deep" and am really interested in knowing what has since happened to Josh and his sister that were in the documentary. Looking on in the internet mention is made of two sisters but the documentary only mentions one. Josh sounds like a decent young man who even after serving time did not give up on life and kept right on working. His mother evidently was not ready to be a mother and should have left the farm to him instead of being greedy. Who raised his sister or sisters? His father should have left a will. The mother deserted the whole family not caring about anyone but herself it seems. I hope Josh and his family are happy now!
Editors note:
An update on Josh can be found here:
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/kneedeep/film.html
I'm surprised no one seems to peg the real person to blame for this--the father. If the farm was to be the son's, why didn't he make that clear in his will? Instead, he just kept promising the farm to him, knowing full well that whether a property is held "commonly" or "jointly" is very important. The father was the kind of man who would not only allow but would encourage a son to leave school at sixth grade because education was a waste of time. The mother wanted to become a nurse...maybe part of her plan (originally) was to help out financially. When she saw that was impossible ("education is a waste of time") she realized that if she was going to salvage any life for herself, she had to leave. Who can blame her for that? Apparently, the entire population of rural Maine! Now Josh is leasing a farm and making a go of things....he'd have done that in the first place, if she'd sold the farm, without trying to kill her.
living and running a small farm in norway it was interesting to see the american farm life from "inside" its truly a hard life and its easy to have sympathy with josh. is seems the farming dream is similar all over the world. killing to get the famly farm is not new. there is a story here. (http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article257760.ece?service=print) But in this case, you will probably not feel any sympathy for the cold blooded murders..
Excellent work! An award winner for the the couple who made the film! Please run again and promote it!
Ted Wallace
I caught most of the film a few nights ago. Wow!
I am normally very critical of PBS programming being thinly-veiled progressive propaganda (if you disagree, check out tonight's Frontline); with that said, Indie Lens continues its mission of telling a story without liberal bias.
I think the filmmakers did an admirable job portraying "the other" Maine. I agree that it would have been difficult for a Franklin County jury to convict Josh.
Dan
Hartland, Maine
I turned on this show after flipping through the channels and stopped in my tracks when I heard cows mooing. I grew up on a farm that my parents still own and I felt like I was looking at my life and the life my father talked about while watching this movie. My dad went through a lot of the same heartbreak when his family farm was sold from underneath him in a lot of the same ways...but like Josh he continued his own dream and bought his own farm. Many people say how can they deprieve a kid of his childhood or his education, but sometimes you have no option. My brother did get to go to high school but remains on the farm, to carry on my dad's dream of having the "family farm" , so he couldn't go to college like I got to. This film really touched me and it goes to show everyone just how much work the people that put the food on your table do.
Where was the state when his parents took him out of school? Every child in America has a right to an education, and parents' rights cannot trump that. If home schooling was their answer, then how did the state hold them to that?
The state law mandates compulsory education from ages 7-17.
http://law.findlaw.com/state-laws/compulsory-education/maine/
I think the real tradgedy is not Josh loosing the farm, but a loveless family. Physical emotional abuse. A mother walking out on her own family. A father lost and unable to cope with life. Leaving his teenage son to run the farm. God family work there has to be balance and Josh has never had this. I do not believe the mother sold the farm out of greed alone. It is possible she wanted to stop the circle of abuse that would have continued on if she would have let Josh continue down the road he was headed. Josh's girlfriend would have been no kind of mother not to mention I think she is the one that shot Josh's Mom.
Independent Lens is an amazing program! Josh is really a memorable character. I think of him now with his herd and his leased farm and I wish him every success.
I am surprised by people's comments referring to the rural lifestyle as primitive and poverty ridden.
Josh's aunt let him live in the camp and stay near his home, obviously because she loves and cares about him. Does education and affluence confer humanity upon a person? I think not.
The developer's comments about how American entreprenuers have become great on the backs of the less astute was telling. The people who move into those homes will complain about the stinky, noisy farms that remain until they too disappear. That is happening all over America where housing replaces farms.
I was shocked by the behavior of Janette Osborne and am truly flummoxed by her wish to be a nurse. She abused and deserted her family, destroyed her husband and stripped her son of the only mother he ever had, Mother Earth. To whom does Janette wish to grant the benefit of her education and mercy? She will minister to strangers if they have the ging.
This was one of the saddest stories I have ever seen. The burning barn and home, the unknown fate of the family cows, and the fragmented lots with the big empty houses represent the universal tragedy of the death of the ancient culture of the family farm.
We live in our big houses being fed by "superfarms" delivered to us by "superstores" .... while we think we have progressed and become better than "rural hillbillies" who have provided our food until recent times. I wonder.
Well, we have great big TVs - in our great big houses on which ... and in which we can effect and watch our own demise. Josh and his ilk will continue to work and persevere, Janette will escape her family and land and will get the lifestyle she richly deserves.
Thank you for another window into our world.
I recently saw the documentary entitled, "Knee Deep". It was both sad and funny, mostly sad. It was sad how Josh had believed in what his dad had said to him and raised him to believe in the farm, with the idea that one day the farm "would be his". I really felt for this young man in a way, because all he knew was how to work on the farm. He was told by his dad that an "education was stupid and that there was no need for an education, because he would have the farm to work on and care for." It was a really eye opening documentary of how family can sometimes ruin you especially from childhood onward. I didn't agree with Josh's methods but I sort of understood how a person could be driven to commit such an act, especially when you put so much work into building something and have it taken away from you. I really enjoyed this documentary, it showed real life and emotion.
It certainly was captivating. I, too, wish there was a foundation set up for Josh, so that we could contribute to his purchasing his own farm. God Bless Josh. He really did come across as a very sincere young man. If there were really justice in this story, I would hope Josh could put a Lien on his mothers estate for all the hours of work with unpaid back wages he deserves. I'd like to see HER take out a $75,000.00 loan to repay him for his lost wages.
A shout out to the father of the developer who hesitated and then said "would it help you out"? when offering Josh the job of cutting the hay on the old farm. That really struck my heart, considering how Josh shed his blood sweat and tears on that land. It seemed he would have done it anyway, knowing how he loved the land. Thank you for this film.
My heart breaks for Josh and his sister. His father was a weak and selfish man and should have known what his wife was capable off...I feel like the victim here is Josh and his sister. How does his mother sleep at night? Yes, the shooting was wrong, wrong, wrong. Yet, Josh deserved that farm and it should be illegal for a child to quit school at such a young age while mommy dearest continues her education. And a nurse no less...Hopefully Josh will find happiness and continue to pursue his dream and God bless him and his sisters and extended family. As for his mother, she obviously is a greedy woman and poor excuse for a human being, mother or nurse. Stay in Colorado, no one wants you back in Maine.
Why didn't Josh get his part of the farm, or his part of the proceeds of its sale, a his father's inheritance? doesn't Josh (and his sister) have a right to it?
Dear Independent Lens,
I tuned in to your film "Knee Deep" somewhere in the middle and was immediately captivated by the story. I grew up on a dairy farm in New York and the social, political,and personal story was so artfully blended in your film that I continue to be haunted by it. I hope it will be aired again so that I can watch the beginning. A sad story and fascinating "whodunnit". Thank you for making this film.
WOW! What a powerful documentary. I watched this recovering from oral surgery on the 12th and cannot get it out of my head. How sad that it all came down to this. What a horrible mother she must have been. Apparently she understood nothing about her son. Raised only in the understanding that the farm was going to be his, removed from school in the sixth grade, working his heart out on that farm, and knowing pretty much only what his father taught him about farming, and then having his future yanked out from under him by greed, I can understand his desperation, although his solution (or his girlfriend's, according to whom you believe)only made the situation worse. The final scene where he is on the unfinished porch of a house being built on the old farm site can only be described as heart-wrenching. I hope that hard-working Josh ends up with the life that he deserves. I only I wish I knew how to help him.
I certainly enjoyed the documentary of the family in Maine on the dairy farm. Felt bad for Josh, felt worse when the farm was plowed under for a 'development'. I was raised on a farm. It is a living memorial to God. Brillantly produced and presented. I will look forward to your next edition on INDEPENDENT LENS.
It really sad to see the Osborne children, now in their adulthood, still cry when they recount how their mother physically abuse them. I just can't understand how a mother willinglly cause pain to her own children.
Yes, I think the punishment was just. I thought the last comment on the program about the boy dropped out school at 12 (I cannot believe they allow that in Maine!!) and the mother went back to school really the crux of the situation. She should be brought up on charges for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
I know things are tough up there but some things are not acceptable.
I hope the rest of Josh’s life makes up for all the dysfunction both of his parents dealt him and his sister. I can empathize with some of the struggles his mom must have been dealing with when she lived on the farm, but there is absolutely no excuse for the kind of mother she has (or has not) been. According to the daughter, their mother was physically abusive, and clearly emotionally abusive to both children.
The fact that Josh & his sister have avoided inheriting their mother's evil spirit is encouraging. I know Josh joked about killing his mom, but I don't believe he really has it in him. He was just verbally lashing out due to the hurt she's inflected on him by not being a mother. May God bless them them all.
Of course I don't know what all Josh's mother had been through.
But just the fact that she turned her back on her husband and son and left them, and the farm, to move to Colorado, makes me feel that she had no right to any part of it.
Josh had put in the time and work to keep it goin.
He left school with the intention that he was working on his inheritance and his father's welfare.
I think what she did was horrible.
Knee Deep illustrates how we have turned against the land. The deep irony in all this development gone wild is that it is antithetical to to the rural ethos that is the essence of Maine's identity and heritage. As we "live in the civilization our forefathers created, but within us the wilderness still lingers. What the dreamed we live, and what they lived, we dream." Maine's identity and heritage is quickly becoming unrecognizable as they pave over everything that made it unique.
This is a very sad story about what happens when you have a mother with no emotion for her own son. I find this story heartbreaking. I only hope josh goes on to a successful life which will require a lot of hard work, which he already proved he has.
I came across this documentary Sunday night and it drew me in. While I can understand how the mother would feel unfulfilled with the lifestyle and probably resentful as well but I found the part about her being devoid of any maternal instincts and the downright cruelty towards the sister very disturbing.
She seemed so fragile and I guess my male instinct to protect kicked in when I saw how much pain she still has and will to continue to shoulder for years to come.
Rob
Michael Chandler and Sheila Canavan, thank you for this haunting and moving film. I can not get Josh's face or fate out of my mind.
I really enjoyed the film. Its horrible that his mother sold the farm right under him like that its not right. but like others have said violence it not away of solving things.
Amy
Merrimack, NH
Thank you so much for this film. I know this area of Maine but only as an occasional visitor and not as a year-round resident, where making a living is a tough thing, indeed. I admire Mainers greatly for their incredible work ethic, ability to deal with tough situations, and the many skills they have to make a living. And I love Maine accents.
The most heartbreaking thing was watching the farm buildings get bulldozed and destroyed. There is no getting a farm back, at least not easily.
Josh is amazingly resolute and hardworking man. I hope he realizes his dream of owning is own farm.
Josh keep up the hard work. As long as you don't give up, one day you can buy back the farm and rebuild it. There are many people are with you!
What a profoundly moving film on many different layers. To see a family so isolated from the rest of the world that one would take the law into his own hands out of pure desperation. Still, by the end of the film, you almost can't blame him. It clearly shows how greed can destroy a family, and the fact that it came from his mother is almost as mortifying as her son attempting her murder.
The land is a sacred thing. To watch it destroyed forever by development is in itself witnessing violence.
The life skills and work ethic displayed by Josh are increasingly rare and precious. We will need that land and those skills in the near future.
Why is it that productive people are not given their fair share of the wealth they produce while parasitic middlemen and speculators profit?
The woman has a black heart
I just watched this film on our local PBS station and I really enjoyed it.I liked it because the people were definately real and it showed that life is not all about working in the tri state area. Rural Maine is really rural. And not to make fun of the characters they are truely New England Hillbillies.Great independant film.
I stumbled upon this film last night. I grew up in rural Maine until I was 19 not far from Farmington. I can complete relate to the way of life, the feeling of isolation and of all the hard work. While my family were not farmers themselves, many of the characters in the film could have been people I knew. I completely identify with the real Maine statement on this website. So often when I describe my experience of growing up in Maine, people imagine old pristine coastal towns or small quaint lakes with cottages. Although the beauty of Maine's interior cannot be matched there is so much more when you go deeper within. Mainers are a very special and unique folk and no matter how far you take them away, Maine still resides in their heart.
I have lived in Oregon for almost 15 years now and when I see my friends still working on farms, with the family business, or even going away to college and return I think- they are the true ones.
Sometimes learning about the world doesn't mean getting stamped in your passport or frequent flyer miles, it is about living in the moment and discovering new things about your world that is around you.
I wish Josh, his sister, and their mom all the best peace in the world. What happened, happened, and with like any other kind of disaster it takes a strong person to look forward, despite one's past.
Having lived in Maine, I was extremely interested in how the filmmakers would handle the men and women. I think that there was a bit of dishonesty in their intentions in that they problaby didn't sit the people down and ask them if they wanted the world to see their poverty and ignorance, which is how the locals were portrayed. But I also think that they handled Josh with empathy and understanding, which is what he deserved.
The shooting of his mother paled in comparison to her destruction of him. Sorry, but there is a certain truthfulness to how Josh sees the matter. While I suppose we can't go around shooting others, we can understand how one is brought to this by abuse and other misdeeds. It is time for the "law-abiding" criminals to be held accountable for their acts of destruction as much as we punish the people who act out. I hope that Josh gets his own farm someday, free from the evil that his mother and father heaped upon him.
Having grown up in rural Ohio I am impressed at this young man who wanted love, at least that's how I see it. He worked like crazy to please a demanding father who even left without saying goodbye, and never felt loved by the mother whose actions seem more than callous. Clearly isolated and naive, with little formal education, he's picked up by a woman of dubious background and accepts that "love" as best he can. He wants to be good-- and goodness equals hard work. This is at least the way I read it.
This film shows the compelling poignancy of his character, and the absent mother is even more compelling in her destruction of all he holds dear and her shadowy existence which wreaks havoc on his life. The most tear jerking moment of the film for me is the mailbox. I hope that he succeeds and is able to grow, personally I don't think he has much hatred in his soul, just a lot of strength of will and modeling of his father.
Having only seen about half of the film, I was drawn to Josh as someone who had been forced into a kind of Stoicism by what he suffered as a child. He calmly describes childhood stories that frankly scared the hell out me. I was a ADD child long before drs. knew what it was. I suffered also a has a rejected child.
And yet, the gun has never been an option for me. Lets be real. Josh was a famers and a farmers son. IF he had really wanted to shoot his mother, He would have accomplished exactly that. Her wounds were evidence enough for me. But...Josh is so calm when describing his pain. He hasn't reached that place by being crushed by his angst, That place just is and He lives there. I truly beleive as portrayed, that is the real Josh. There is no guile in those eyes.
Out.
This was very compelling. Maybe this publicity will end up helping Josh in some way-he certainly deserves it. For example, maybe a fund can be started for "Josh's Farm", or someone will give him money for a farm. In any case, his mother is not off the hook. Aside from her callousness toward Josh, she will "get hers" on her dying day-and she'll be dead a lot longer than she was alive. In any case, she has not lived honorably; causing a lot of trouble for innocent people-even though that does not justify what Josh did. If it had gone to a jury, I would have voted to acquit.
This film also shows why education is so important; times and circumstances change and you are better equipped to deal with it.
My own mother was like that, but I managed to forgive her and love her anyway. Of course I became the person who cleaned up and ran the house. It ruined my life. I am elderly now and still scarred from having a mother like this. Men should leave women like this. They're unfit.
Maybe we missed it, but what was the farm's acreage? What was the actual value per acre? How much is the developer selling the plots? We live in northern Illinois and have family in the dairy business, and I know their farm is worth a lot more than $1,000 an acre.
How I so do agree with the other comments written on this board. Violence is never an answer. Still looking at it she (the mother) created the situation with her own actions/ choices in life.
After watching the show twice, I have tried to see it from all angles even the mother's side. I can only come up with one conclusion is money/greed. You have a young man with a child's education on many topics yet has a Life Lived Masters Degree in running a farm and the simple knowledge land is gold and wealth. Now a mother who never showed emotions gets a strong taste of a "better life" with money flowing easily kind of the 'Oprah' life. She has a chance to go for it and does without concern of how it will effect others connected to the situation.
This documentary didn't just show the life he lead but also states to the horrors of greed and money in our lives as a nation.
Kero
Your teaser for the program, on the "Knee Deep" page preceding this, does not do justice to the complexity of the situation, or to the quality of the film. The matter was not, as that text might seem to imply, a matter of tawdry greed on the part of the son. The film deserves better.
I guess one of the problems I have is reading through some of the answers because I can only assume all the sympathy for Josh exists because the film didn't adequately cover his mother's side of the story and although I don't think there were any attempts by the filmmakers to romanticize Josh's situation it appears that some who watched have managed to romanticize it. There usually are two sides to a coin.
As much as I love my kids, if one of them attempted to murder me, I would disinherit them. Some of you may find that strange. Bleeding heart that I am, I would call it common sense.
As the granddaughter of a farmer who sat on the school board and whose farm is still in the family I was appalled at the life that Josh's father apparently planned for him. Whether you want to say that his mother did not care about him or whether she just wasn't strong enough to oppose Josh's father's dependency on Josh's labor, Josh should never have been allowed to drop out of school.
The ignorance and factual pride in Josh's statement that he was allowed to drop out because "you don't learn anything in school" was horrifying. Obviously his mother didn't think that since she went back to school so it could only have come from his father.
It is clear that Josh's mother didn't feel the same devotion for the farm that Josh did. You can't really blame her for that. After listening to the story, you can see a lot of reasons why she could have been quite unhappy in her marriage and stuck it out as long as she could. I think she did as well as she could in what must have been a very oppressive atmosphere.
In the beginning, she did make arrangements with Josh to buy the farm but I can easily imagine Josh adopting the pattern of behavior that his father showed toward Janette. Everything considered, a family tragedy that really began with the father.
After watching this film, I felt that Josh's sentence was unjust. While I do not condone violence, Jeanette Osborne deserved what happened to her in every way. I can not believe that someone so cold and heartless now works as a nurse. She is obviously an evil and selfish person, devoid of any compassion.
Thank you for making this film. It had such a moving and mythic quality that I have been thinking about it since I watched it. Both Josh and his mother seemed somehow tragic. The strength of Josh's spirit which allowed him to begin again with a leased farm was hopeful and suggested a creativity that could not be killed. The light touch of the filmmakers allowed the voices of those who are often unheard to be heard.
I was deeply moved by this story as well as the skill of the moviemakers. I felt the horror of Josh being forced into a corner of absolute despair. I am not a farmer, but have lived among them all of my life in rural Pennsylvania. There is no more difficult labor then that involved in dairy farming. They must have skills in agronomy, animal husbandry and veterinary medicine, accounting and marketing. I have watched families work from sunup till long after sundown, seven days a week, only to lose their farms after 3 generations.
I congratulate Michael and Sheila in their ability to capture the essence and heartbreak of farm life. The unveiling of Josh and getting deep into his psyche was the core of the film. I don't remember when I have ever been more affected by a film. Josh's anguish became mine to a point that I was completely exhausted by the final scene and Josh's last words.
Those words accurately summarized his tragic life. The sequence of the story was brilliant. Josh was fortunate to have had such talented people tell his poignant narrative. Thank you for sharing this treasure on PBS.
Dale Aulthouse
Wellsboro, PA
Josh's life was that farm! "It" raised him together with his father. In watching Knee Deep I thought of the term "Mother Earth" and in Josh's case this so aptly applies.
I found Josh's personality interesting in that it was very basic and rooted, literally, in farming. I've known people like this and I've admired their tenacity and amid all the uncertainty of losing his precious farm found no other way to deal.
When a mother tells a child how deficient they are and continuously degrades him, how could he be expected to deal with the threat she posed. I find this story compelling and unbelievably interesting.
Josh's story was heartbreaking because it showed the barren life one leads without a mother's love or education.
What was so depressing was we saw America has more serious problems than the economy.
It ws the scariest show I have seen in years. And what scared me the most was it was true.
I watched the film, and murder is not an answer--but I agree with a lot of what I heard. Especially they let him quit school at 11-12 years old-( a baby)-and she went to school then, from what I understand. If she is now a nurse--then she gave herself a much more financially secure career than her son. He was pretty much a baby--then and farm work is hard-satisfying but it never ends--it has to be in your blood--the love of the land--and it obviously was.
She basically robbed him of his birthright--and did not consider that he had no other skills--because she stole that from him as a child. You want your children to have it "better"--not steal from them! I know she worked on that farm also--but that was a family farm--and something special--you would think she could have tried to save it--she squandered a vanishing icon for her own greed-revenge--?
They do not tell all of her side--but she "stole" his life so I can understand why he wanted to "end" hers. I have a patch of land--nothing special-except to me, and in the winter-when I am wading in frozen water-unplugging a drainage pipe-freezing my butt off- in the pond thinking, "screw it--nothing is worth this much trouble, if I die--no one will find me for at least a day"! Then, on a day like today--I look out a window and a deer is under it--eating my flowers-(more work down the drain)--but I think--"This is Heaven on Earth, I'd rather cut off my arm that leave this place." It is an infection of the heart, the love of the land--one that is fatal and incurable--.
I couldn't sleep one night and found Knee Deep on. I throughly understand Josh's wanting to keep the family farm. My father's family farm has been in the family over 200 years. When my parents both passed away they deeded it to six children. Now two want bought out and I am trying somehow to acquire the farm. It is like living the film, one part one of the relatives said what took 100's of years to build is being destroyed in 2 days. It is so said to see a family farm somehow possibly be lost. I remember my mom and dad and us children working every day of the week on the farm. We all loved it and it was our life. I am praying somehow God will bring it to pass that the farm stays in our family which my grandchildren would be the 8th generation on the farm. It is true you just learn how to work hard on a farm. There is nothing else like it. Thanks for the film. I pray Josh is able to get a farm of his own.
Violence is never justified. Still, I found Josh's story heartbreaking.
Thank you for making this film. Even though whatever part he played his actions can never be condoned, I cried for Josh. So easy to imagine how he might have emerged with different encouragement.
I hope he knows how valuable he is; that farmers are the salt of the earth, an endangered species and that he has the determnation to continue is a gift to fellow humans.
Next I hope that sometime in the near fture he is befriended by some organic farmers who take additional pride in care of the land and sustainability. I suspect he is ready to find even greater worth in his hard life. Tell him I'll be rooting for him.,
Thank you again.
Ariadne
the National Endowment for the Arts