regarding recording television

a doc worth searching for

I just finished watching a film by Jennifer Baichwal called THE TRUE MEANING OF PICTURES: SHELBY LEE ADAMS’ APPALACHIA. It was really good. It aired on Trio earlier this month. And it airs again Thursday night (3/25) at 9:30pm. I apologize for not mentioning this film sooner. I had no idea it was going to be so good.

The film is an amazing documentary that takes an in-depth look at Adams, his photographs, his subjects, his process and the critical reaction to his art. This is the kind of film that’s infinitely fascinating. The photographs of Shelby Lee Adams are powerful documents. They’re the kind of photographs that have you looking for details and meaning. His subjects tend to be the families he knows at the heads of hollows in Kentucky and other parts of Appalachia. He has befriended the families and photographed them over years, decades even. But what makes this documentary work (especially as an exploration of Appalachian culture) in a way that far supercedes Rory Kennedy’s AMERICAN HOLLOW is the critical response to Adams’ photography.

For the last thirty years Adams, who grew up in eastern Kentucky, has been photographing the people of the Appalachian region. His black and white photographs are gorgeous and rich with detail. He straddles the line between documentarian, portrait photographer and visual compositor, seeking out and creating a story within each image. The photographs record the faces of the people he knows, the people who have lived and continue to lead hard lives. Adams’ use of the flash is especially evocative in the way it gives his subjects an otherworldliness. As Mary Ellen Mark points out in the documentary, his handling of the 4x5 format is technically superb.

One aspect that makes THE TRUE MEANING OF PICTURES especially enriching is the use of archive video collected by Adams (mostly during 1990). This footage captures his gentle and loving interaction with his subjects. It also lets the viewer know how the photographs are created. They aren’t just snapshots of people he happened to come across. He collects images and gives them back to the people he photographs. They appreciate his work.

And this is where the documentary becomes interesting. The conversation between gallery owners, art critics and other photographers leads the viewer down a more critical line than “is he exploiting these people?” Your gut instinct is to say “yes.” But watching the behind the scenes footage forces you to question how you feel about his images. There’s a particularly interesting section of the film that examines his photograph of a family that’s slaughtered a hog. As a critic points out, there’s no way this is the way that family lived when the photo was taken; yet the image is presented as such. The archive footage from Adams and the voiceover from his interview confirm that he had the hog brought in. But he also suggests that this experience reminds him of growing up in Appalachia thirty years before the photo. When you know all that detail the photo takes on a more interesting tone. Yes, the composition is strong (Adams seems to love talking about triangles) and the faces are intriguing, but now there’s an entirely extra level of meaning that shifts the photo in tone. Scenes like this exist throughout the film, which is told through Adams’ interaction with three different families (a generation of Kentuckians at the end of a hollow, a group of Snake handlers and a family with three retarded children).

THE TRUE MEANING OF PICTURES is an incredibly deliberate film. There are no overtly loud moments of outrage, only quietly shocking moments expressed by critics and one or two people of Kentucky. The entire piece is level headed and would be an amazing conversation starter. This is the best film about a photographer I have ever seen. This is the kind of film that should be presented in photography, documentary and sociology classes. I wish there were more films as rich, insightful and intelligent as THE TRUE MEANING OF PICTURES.

A more comprehensive review of the film can be found on digitally obsessed.

The Stranger has a much more negative review of the film calling Baichwal’s style the “blustery indignation of a film-studies freshman.”

Either way, THE TRUE MEANING OF PICTURES is worth recording and watching.

**UPDATE**
Now that I've slept on it, the review in THE STRANGER is starting to sound better to me. I think the filmmaker doesn't question Adams' methods enough. I'm not sure if she makes it clear enough that he really is seeking out the strangest people he can find. It's mentioned once or twice in the film, but it doesn't come up enough. He really is going to the most out of he way families he can find. I would've like just a bit more exploration of the communities in which his subjects live. The viewer should be reminded that the majority of people in Appalachia are like the majority of people in the US. They shop at Wal-Mart. The men who have no each other for fifty years meet each other at Hardee's on weekday mornings for coffee. People look forward to their weekend free time when they can relax in their swimming pools, go to church and see their friends. Now that I think about it, I want a bit more of this in the film. Showcasing a photo or two that feature satellite dishes is not enough.