The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachia

TAKE ONE, March-May, 2003 by Kathleen Cummins

2002 75m prod Mercury Films, p Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier, d Jennifer Baichwal, ph Nicholas de Pencier, ed David Wharnsby, s Jane Tattersall; with Shelby Lee Adams, the Childer family, the Nappier family, the Riddle family, Hort Collins, Dwight Billings, A.D. Coleman, Vicki Goldberg, Wendy Edward, Mary Ellen Mark.

"You photograph the natural life, but you also, by your juxtaposition of detail, create an interpretation of it." John Grierson

"I'm pushing you, the viewer, and challenging you. That's why I'm in there with the camera six inches away from Selena's face. I think you need to he confronted with that. By getting in there with the camera, by creating some distortions, I'm hoping to make everyone think. What is our job here as a human being? Stop making judgments and experience life. I'm experiencing this environment. I'm trying to share with you, in an intimate way, that experience." Shelby Lee Adams

Jennifer Baichwal's The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachia is an uncompromising exploration into the controversial work of enigmatic American photographer, Shelby Lee Adams, well known for his photographs of the people of Appalachia, Kentucky. However, by way of Baichwal's structural skills, the film manages to transcend the cliches of the biopic formula so that Adams emerges as a fascinating case study for issues central to the politics and ethics of ethnography. Essentially, Baichwal's film is an exploration into the process of the construction of point--of--view. This is achieved with subtlety, restraint and critical rigour.

Conventionally structured, True Meaning takes us through various landscapes, with Adams as our tour guide, his photographs and video archives as the main map. Baichwal's methods are traditional, presenting us with interviews and archival footage as she gathers together differing perspectives about Adams and his work, all the while leading us further into the most isolated of "hollows" hidden in behind the misty mountains of Kentucky. In this process, multiple representations of Appalachia emerge: the Appalachia in Adams's dramatic black--and--white photographs, the Appalachia in his video archives, the Appalachia in archival newsreel footage and Baichwal's Appalachia, although she wisely avoids documenting very much of Appalachia herself. This is her strategy; to present us constructions of Appalachia, rather then represent it. She is not the ethnographer here.

We initially learn that Adams, a native of Kentucky, has photographed "hollow dwellers" for over 30 years, most of whom live in extreme poverty and isolation. Adams makes a passionate case for the style and content of his work on the foundation that his photographs are his way of expressing himself artistically. He seems very earnest when he tells the camera that his subjects are his friends. Indeed, in his video archives we see Adams communing with the Nappiers, the Childers and the Riddles, Appalachian families he has photographed for many years; people he boldly refers to as "his people." In between photo setups in their small, cramped shanty-like homes, Adams partakes in community BBQs, family gatherings on the porch and even the controversial religious Serpent Handling rituals, all the time falling deeper into a noticeably thicker Kentucky drawl. Adams remarks: "It's far beyond documenting a family in Appalachia." Indeed.

However, even if Adams forgets he's the man behind the camera, Baichwal never does. She intercuts Adams's explanations and analysis with various differing and seemingly well--informed arguments. His supporters rally around the issue of his impressive artistry and craft as a photographer. His subjects argue Adams is only documenting the modern--day reality of Appalachia, a reality that is largely ignored by mainstream American culture. Adams's detractors have accused him of exploiting his disenfranchised subjects in his own personal staging of an Appalachian horror show, feeding into well--established negative stereotypes of the "hillbilly" as violent, uneducated and shiftless as seen in such films as John Boorman's Deliverance (1972). Local Kentucky natives are deeply offended, claiming his work denigrates Appalachia and the South. One critic refers to Adams's subjects as "people I really would not want to meet in a dark alley at night." Another critic notes: "Is this their inner life or Shelby's inner life b eing reflected here? If this is presented as Shelby Lee Adams's southern--gothic poetry of Appalachia, that's one thing, but if this is presented as documentation of Appalachia, then that's something else entirely."

Although Baichwal seemingly does not push Adams to make such a distinction--even though perhaps the distinction is extremely difficult to make--he is unable or perhaps unwilling to do so. Without ever placing Adams on trial, Baichwal allows intentions and meanings to slowly reveal themselves. (Baichwal's realm is the antithesis of the Michael Moore school of documentary filmmaking). In one telling moment, Adams reveals more about his problematic role in "documenting" Appalachia than any of his video archives or passionate declarations of cultural identification. Adams tells of how his father, as a doctor, would visit the most isolated families. "Although my father had prejudiced views, I came to know those people." Here is revealed the inner conflict in Adams, and within America in general. The distinction between "his people" and "those people" is not about regionalism or even his vocation as a photographer. It's about class.