Ross Spears, founder of Agee Films, mailed me a review copy of his new four-part series called “Appalachia: A History of Mountains and People” that will air on WVPBS on Monday, April13th at 9 PM and the following three Mondays also at 9 PM . (Also on Saturdays, April 18th at 4 PM.) I have been looking forward to seeing it for about a year now since it had a premiere at the Shepherdstown American Conservation Film Festival.
Ross Spears
Ross Spears and Jamie Ross have been working on this project for more than a decade and are co-creators of the series. They started in 1998, even visiting with me and my colleagues at The West Virginia Library Commission around 2001. Spears talked to my fellow library consultants about what they felt was most important in telling the story of Appalachia. I suggested then, as I did recently, that Spears make a film about Davis Grubb and his novel, “The Night of the Hunter” that was turned into one of America’s greatest films. ( Spears is an expert on James Agee, the scriptwriter of the film, directed by Charles Laughton. According to books like “Heaven & Hell to Play With – The filming of The Night of the Hunter,” Laughton ended up using his own script. Who knows the actual ultimate truth? Spears directed the biographical film, “Agee,” which was nominated for an Oscar.)
I watched the last part first, “Part Four – Power and Place.”Since the National Science Foundation is one of the main funders of this series, it focuses quite a bit on the physical aspects of Appalachia, especially the vegitation and animals. I really enjoyed seeing the story of the Appalachian black bear and learned about the tragic fate of the American chestnut tree.
The early part of the film interviews E.O. Wilson, a famous Harvard biologist, and it explores the life of the first great conservationist, Gifford Pinochet, the first direct of the U.S. Forest Service. Teddy Roosevelt is given the credit he deserves for helping Pinnochet establish the first national park, The Great Smoky Mountains National Park. No punches are pulled during interviews with several experts who discuss the damage done to the Old Growth Forest by the 19th century clearcutters. One person says that it will take hundreds, if not a 1,000 years, to rebuild the forest. Luckily for us, the Davis family visited Yosemite in 1923, starting the move to conserve Appalachian forests. Also luckily for us, Pinochet helped establish the first school of forestry at the famous Biltmore Estate owned by the Vanderbilts in 1898.
The film covers a lot of territory in its last episode, unfortunately not having time to explore the famous labor events that took place in Appalachia during the 20th century, only mentioned some of them. Mother Jones makes a brief appearance, with an interesting story told by Mary Lee Settle whose mother allowed Jones to speak at her ball park in the Cabin Creek area. The Cabin Creek/Paint Creek Mine War, the Battle of Blair Mountain, and Harlan County are just mentioned as key labor events that led miners to finally gain the right to organize in Appalachia. Sissy Spacek, the narrator, mentions the “three decades of union wars.” There is a brief biography of John L. Lewis who was elected UMWA president in 1919.
The film also just has enough time to mention some of the writers of the Appalachian Renaissance of the 1920s including Thomas Wolfe, the Carter Family, and Jimmy Rogers. Thankfully, Mary Lee Settle and Denise Giardina are given enough time to present some of their views about the region.
Probably the main person interviewed on Appalachia is West Virginia native son Ron Eller who finally visits his family cemetary, reminding me of Larry Gibson’s famous family plot. He is the house expert on the overall history of the region.
Some other people who are well-known in WV that have extended parts in the series include Judy Bonds and Prof. Harvard Ayers. Bonds is well known for her work with Coal River Mountain Watch. I know Ayers as the archaelogist who recently did the required work to “prove” the value of Blair Mountain.
Spears spends a few minutes on the TVA, the subject of “The Electric Valley,” one of his many films. At the time, it was called “the greatest achievement in peacetime America.” People now watching the film may recall the recent TVA sludge disaster that happened in December 2008, causing one of the worst ecological disasters in history.
A few minutes are spent on the Buffalo Creek Disaster, certainly the most famous disaster ever in the history of Appalachia.
The final part of the story, bringing viewers up to the present, mentions that “the Great Depression never ended” in parts of Appalachia. Thankfully, it doesn’t show the ugly hollows that have been presented in so many other films including Rory Kennedy’s “American Hollow.” Tom Gish, one of the great editors of a newspaper in Appalachia and the subject of a future film by Mimi Pickering, talks about people literally starving to death in Appalachia. Author Gurney Norman talks about the “Appalachian diaspora” that drove millions of people out of Appalachia, moving to northern industrial towns a la “The Dollmaker.” Eller goes into great detail about his own personal memories of driving back “home” on narrow two-lane highways on a frequent basis, even driving all night to cover the hundreds of miles.
Giardina, of course, is the leading expert interviewed about stripmining and mountaintop removal mining. ( Why hasn’t anyone made a film about her – she’s interviewed in almost every film made about Appalachia?) Harry Caudill is given the credit he is due for writing his landmark book, “Night Comes to the Cumberland. JFK’s 1960 campaign and President Johnson’s War on Poverty are also mentioned.
The finale presents some information on some good things that have happened in Appalachia. New writers have been telling their stories, the Appalachian Regional Commission has been providing economic development to the region, and the Cherokee Indians, the original inhabitants of Appalachia, are shown restoring some of their rightful history.
But after these positive events, the grim reality is shown one last time. Caudill is quoted as calling mountaintop restoration after stripmining “lipstick on a corpse.” Giardina calls the spaces “deserts.” The effects of second homes built for people in neighboring cities, current clear cutting of forests, MTR and acid rain all put the future of the Appalachian mountains in question. Spacek tells us that 500 mountains have been destroyed, “each with their own names.” Teddy Roosevelt is quoted again for his statement about his dislike for ”people who skim the land.”
We learn that since the 1990s, many groups have created an uprising against MTR. Some of the chestnut trees are blooming, thanks to people creating hybrid versions that combine the Asian chestnut’s resistance to the disease that destroyed them earlier, with the American chestnut. Spacek asks the question, ” after Appalachia has provided for so many species including man, what will man do for Appalachia?”
The website for the series says it is “The First Environmental History Series ever made in America.” I cannot verify or deny that claim. What I can say is that this series does indeed focus not just on the people who have lived in Appalachia but all living creatures and the mountains themselves. As a pantheist, considering everything in the universe to be “divine,” I like this holistic attitude. I have often asked filmmakers who are exploring MTR to include the effects not only on people but also all of the living creatures are slaughtered by the 3 millions pounds of dynamite exploded daily in Appalachia.
Unfortunately, this new series will probably be discounted by Big Coal just as Mark Samels’ “West Virginia – A Film History” was in 1995 and Mari-Lynn Evans’ “The Appalalchians” was in 2006. But I am sure that millions of Americans including a large number of Appalachian will watch this series in April, buying the DVD set and related materials. Hopefully, just as “the people” did elect Obama president, “the people” can work together to save our Mother Appalachia from death.
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Lonesome Records, http://www.lonesomerecords.org, a non-profit record company from Big Stone Gap, Virginia, produced the companion music CD to “Appalachia: A History of Mountains and People”. To order your copy of “Appalachia: Music from Home” please visit http://www.lonesomerecords.org, or call 276-523-5064 ext 10. The price of the CD is $15.00 plus shipping.