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Do IT this week: Layering
By Rich Heldenfels
Beacon Journal popular culture writer
POSTED: 02:28 p.m. EDT, Sep 10, 2009
Tears spatter Coal Country, the new documentary having its Ohio premiere Saturday in Akron's Civic Theatre.
The documentary is nominally about the coal industry, including the controversies surrounding how coal is mined (especially the controversial and devastating mountaintop-removal system).
But it is also about the breakdown in communities, whether because of the destruction of land and the health hazards affecting coal towns, or the personal divisions between people on different sides of the coal debate. And the tears flow from both sides.
''There was crying from the folks interviewed,'' said Akron's Mari-Lynn Evans, executive producer of the film, whose previous credits include the documentary The Appalachians. ''There was crying from the people on the crew. And there has been crying from the people who have seen the film. It is a deeply emotional film.''
Evans worked on the film with writer-director Phyllis Geller, who also collaborated on The Appalachians. ''My role was to raise the funds and to select the locations and stories,'' Evans said. ''Phyllis brought those stories to the screen.'' The aim was to show the personal impact of the coal debate; there is no narrator, Evans said, so ''the stories you see and hear are from the people who are living with this immense struggle.''
Coal Country has drawn the support of the Sierra Club and Progressive Democrats of Ohio, as well as celebrities including singer Kathy Mattea and actress Daryl Hannah. Mattea, who grew up in West Virginia and made a 2008 CD called Coal, is expected at the Akron premiere.
A companion book and CD (which also includes Mattea) are due for release in November, along with a DVD of the film. All those events will coincide with a telecast of Coal Country on Discovery's Planet Green channel.
Asked in an e-mail interview what makes the film so emotional for people, Evans said, ''I hear from so many people living in the coal fields that [mountaintop removal] is the genocide of Appalachia, that the coal industry is blowing up the mountains, poisoning their air and water, and making life in the hills to be uninhabitable. . . . Imagine if this was your life, if this happened in your community.''
But there are people who work in the coal industry and ''are concerned about their jobs, their abilities to feed their families,'' she said. ''On Labor Day, over 100,000 people were expected to attend a pro-coal/pro-America rally with Ted Nugent, Hank Williams Jr. and Don Blankenship, the CEO of [major coal company] Massey Energy.''
Massey was also a sponsor of the rally. Attendance was reportedly lower than expected but still estimated at 60,000 to 70,000.
Still, the documentary is most vivid in dealing with the environmental perils associated with coal; the book is subtitled Rising Up Against Mountaintop Removal Mining and proceeds from the CD will go to the Stop Mountaintop Removal campaign.
Asked what she was most looking forward to at the Akron premiere, Evans said, ''For those of us who left our homes in Appalachia, there seems always to be a yearning for that place we left behind. It's important to see what is happening now in those mountain communities. The Huffington Post review said, 'You will never again switch on a light without thinking of Coal Country.' I hope it's true.''
Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal, in the HeldenFiles Online blog at http://heldenfels.ohio.com, on Facebook and on Twitter. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 and rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.
Details
The premiere of Coal Country will be at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Akron Civic Theatre, 182 S. Main St. General admission seating is free, with no ticket required. Reserved seating is $25 or two for $40. Admission to a prescreening reception with special guests, which also includes reserved seating, is $100 or two for $150. Free parking is available in the county deck on High Street. For more information and tickets, call 330-957-6167 or e-mail pdaohio@gmail.com.
Tears spatter Coal Country, the new documentary having its Ohio premiere Saturday in Akron's Civic Theatre.
The documentary is nominally about the coal industry, including the controversies surrounding how coal is mined (especially the controversial and devastating mountaintop-removal system).
But it is also about the breakdown in communities, whether because of the destruction of land and the health hazards affecting coal towns, or the personal divisions between people on different sides of the coal debate. And the tears flow from both sides.
''There was crying from the folks interviewed,'' said Akron's Mari-Lynn Evans, executive producer of the film, whose previous credits include the documentary The Appalachians. ''There was crying from the people on the crew. And there has been crying from the people who have seen the film. It is a deeply emotional film.''
Evans worked on the film with writer-director Phyllis Geller, who also collaborated on The Appalachians. ''My role was to raise the funds and to select the locations and stories,'' Evans said. ''Phyllis brought those stories to the screen.'' The aim was to show the personal impact of the coal debate; there is no narrator, Evans said, so ''the stories you see and hear are from the people who are living with this immense struggle.''
Coal Country has drawn the support of the Sierra Club and Progressive Democrats of Ohio, as well as celebrities including singer Kathy Mattea and actress Daryl Hannah. Mattea, who grew up in West Virginia and made a 2008 CD called Coal, is expected at the Akron premiere.
A companion book and CD (which also includes Mattea) are due for release in November, along with a DVD of the film. All those events will coincide with a telecast of Coal Country on Discovery's Planet Green channel.
Asked in an e-mail interview what makes the film so emotional for people, Evans said, ''I hear from so many people living in the coal fields that [mountaintop removal] is the genocide of Appalachia, that the coal industry is blowing up the mountains, poisoning their air and water, and making life in the hills to be uninhabitable. . . . Imagine if this was your life, if this happened in your community.''
But there are people who work in the coal industry and ''are concerned about their jobs, their abilities to feed their families,'' she said. ''On Labor Day, over 100,000 people were expected to attend a pro-coal/pro-America rally with Ted Nugent, Hank Williams Jr. and Don Blankenship, the CEO of [major coal company] Massey Energy.''
Massey was also a sponsor of the rally. Attendance was reportedly lower than expected but still estimated at 60,000 to 70,000.
Still, the documentary is most vivid in dealing with the environmental perils associated with coal; the book is subtitled Rising Up Against Mountaintop Removal Mining and proceeds from the CD will go to the Stop Mountaintop Removal campaign.
Asked what she was most looking forward to at the Akron premiere, Evans said, ''For those of us who left our homes in Appalachia, there seems always to be a yearning for that place we left behind. It's important to see what is happening now in those mountain communities. The Huffington Post review said, 'You will never again switch on a light without thinking of Coal Country.' I hope it's true.''
Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal, in the HeldenFiles Online blog at http://heldenfels.ohio.com, on Facebook and on Twitter. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 and rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.
Details
The premiere of Coal Country will be at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Akron Civic Theatre, 182 S. Main St. General admission seating is free, with no ticket required. Reserved seating is $25 or two for $40. Admission to a prescreening reception with special guests, which also includes reserved seating, is $100 or two for $150. Free parking is available in the county deck on High Street. For more information and tickets, call 330-957-6167 or e-mail pdaohio@gmail.com.
Comments
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akron, oh
Posted 11:17 AM, 09/11/2009
'I hear from so many people living in the coal fields that [mountaintop removal] is the genocide of Appalachia' -- and yet 60,000 people attended a pro-coal/pro-America rally.
Spock: The needs of the many outweigh...
Kirk: ...the needs of the few
Coal Country has drawn the support of the Sierra Club and Progressive Democrats of Ohio -- what pray tell is their solution to this issue? Will Progressive Democrats support the replacement of coal power with nuclear power? Shall we build solar farms that destroy hectares of animal habitat? I bet the Sierra club will be all for that. How about wind farms as far as the eye can see on our coast line? Now that Ed Kennedy has passed, they might be able to build the wind farm he blocked for 15 years because it would ruin his view of the ocean.
The truth is coal is cheap and abundant and we like our refrigerated foods, heating/air conditioning, incandescent light bulbs and soon our electric cars. As much as this movie shows the horrible plight of the few, without any other solutions, it's better than the many consequences come with abandoning coal power.
Khan: [grabs Joachim in anger] FULL POWER! D@MN YOU!
naoma, wv
Posted 09:20 AM, 09/14/2009
To be clear, those of us that live beneath mountaintop removal sites are opposed to the destructive method of coal mining known as mountaintop removal, whereas entire mountaintops are blasted to rubble to extract thin seams of coal for max profit. The carcass of the mountain is dumped into head-water source valley streams. Boulders, fly-rock, and mudslides are but a few of the dangers this type of mining poses to those of us that live below, not to mention the ammonium nitrate, diesel mixture of explosives that hover over our communities along with the silica dust we are forced to breath. Mountaintop removal is cheap for coal companies, but expensive and unhealthy to nearby communities. It's also poisoning the water supply for much of the east coast and mid-atlantic states. The debate over the use of coal is one thing, but there should be no debate over the abuse of citizens rights to live in their homes without being terrorized by coal companies that blast 3 1/2 million pounds of explosives per day above peoples homes in southern WV. People like "unbelieveable" should educate themselves before spouting off about something they know little of.
