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IMDb > The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachia (2002)

The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachia (2002)

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User Rating: 8.1/10 (88 votes)
IMDb Coverage of Comic-Con 2008

Overview

Director:
Jennifer Baichwal
Genre:
Documentary more
Plot:
The meaning of art itself comes into question in this documentary about Shelby Lee Adams' controversial photos of families in Appalachia. | add synopsis
User Comments:
Appalachia revisited more

Cast

 (Credited cast)
Shelby Lee Adams ... Himself

Walter Cronkite ... Himself (voice) (archive footage)
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Additional Details

Runtime:
75 min | Canada:75 min (Toronto International Film Festival)
Country:
Canada
Language:
English
Color:
Color
Filming Locations:
Kentucky, USA
MOVIEmeter: ?
V 30% since last week why?

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Movie Connections:
Features Deliverance (1972) more

FAQ

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3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful:-
Appalachia revisited, 14 October 2004
Author: Bob Taylor (bob998@sympatico.ca) from Canada

This film looks at the photographer Shelby Lee Adams and his Kentucky holler neighbors. The obvious comparison is to Walker Evans and the pictures he took for Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. There, the grinding poverty was clear and unambiguous; barefoot sharecroppers with only a broken-down bed and a couple of chairs that they had to make themselves. Evans was accused of manipulating his images, although how you can make dirt-poor look even poorer is beyond my understanding.

Shelby Adams is charged with stage-managing his scenes of mountain-gorge desperation. It is true that the hog-butchering scene was brought about by Adams's planning, but little else could have been arranged. Certainly the snake-handling is real; you see the man in hospital with his arm swelled up to watermelon size. The two dwarfs, both with mental handicaps, are probably the result of incest, but this theme is treated very gingerly indeed. If you want to meet the people who sat for great photos like Brothers Praying, Hooterville, Kentucky and The Kiss, this is a great opportunity.

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