4 Shots of 4 Celebrities is just what it says it is, 4 shots of 4 of my favorite celebrities connected to the state I’m vacationing in. Where am I?!!
This week I’ll be getting some much needed R & R as I spend time away from work and exclusively with family and friends. My last post for the next nine days just happens to be coming from the state with strong connections to each of these unique performers. Y’all have a wonderful week and I’ll be back soon!
Last year I reviewed the 2009 documentary, THE WILD AND WONDERFUL WHITES OF WEST VIRGINIA, which focused on Jesco White and the out of control White family from Boone County, West Virginia. Today, I’m going back to the original 1991 documentary, DANCING OUTLAW that first introduced us to Jesco and his family. Directed by Jacob Young and premiering as part of the PBS “Different Drummer” documentary series, this program would go on to win a 1992 Emmy Award, as well as a 1993 American Film Institute Award for “Best Documentary.” It would also turn Jesco into a celebrity and pop culture figure in West Virginia. This amazing documentary is currently available on YOUTUBE, and I highly recommend it to any person who’s interested in seeing what poverty and unchecked drug and alcohol abuse will do to the human brain.
DANCING OUTLAW is where we first meet Jesco White, an amazingly talented mountain tap dancer, who has multiple personalities and a never ending love and respect for his dad, who gave him his talent and his dancing shoes, if not necessarily an outspoken love. The documentary is smart enough to show us Jesco performing on multiple occasions, thus establishing that Jesco is a truly talented and unique dancer. The multiple personalities seem to come from years of huffing gasoline and lighter fluid that has destroyed his brain. Despite his talent, we are able to observe that Jesco is completely lost as a human being, based on his own words that he willingly shares with us, as well as what we learn from others.
We meet Jesco’s mom Bertie Mae White, the miracle woman, for the first time in DANCING OUTLAW. One of the more emotional parts of THE WILD AND WONDERFUL WHITES OF WEST VIRGINIA was the fact that Bertie Mae passed away during the year the film was made. Here, however, we meet Bertie Mae almost 20 years earlier and get a better feel for what she was like as a younger, healthier woman. We find out how proud she is of her husband Donald “D.” Ray White. We also see that she’s fiercely protective of her kids, and that they love her, even if she can’t control them. I’ve said before that I can see some of my own Grandma Crain in Bertie Mae.
We also meet Jesco’s wife, Norma Jean White. This is not a match made in heaven, as they fight non-stop, with Jesco usually threatening to kill her at some point. Bertie Mae makes it clear that nobody in their family wanted them to get married, yet here they are anyway… married, divorced, married again. Norma Jean tells us some interesting stuff about Jesco, mainly filling us in on his three distinct personalities:
I think there’s something to West Virginians and multiple personalities. My wife is from West Virginia, has the last name of White, and often references her different personalities. Luckily, the ones I’ve met so far are pretty nice! On a side note, I’m not sure what became of Norma Jean because she’s never referenced in THE WILD AND WONDERFUL WHITES OF WEST VIRGINIA. Based on all of their arguing, I’m hoping they just got divorced, and I pray that she’s not buried somewhere out there in a holler! (Author update – Jesco was married to Norma Jean up until her death in 2009).
One of the more interesting parts of the documentary is when Jesco, Norma Jean, and Jesco’s brother Dorsey tell us about the night their dad, D. Ray White, was killed. Prior to telling us the events that led to his death, we’re treated to some video footage of D. Ray singing and performing his 52 mountain tap dancing steps. He was a truly amazing performer, and you can’t help but think that Jesco will never be quite as good as his dad. However, the events that led to his death can easily be summed up as follows: all kinds of people were partying together, which means abusing alcohol and drugs, when a fight started, and a person out of their right mind blew him away. It’s a sad waste, but it’s also a natural result of a family and community that’s deep into poverty, drugs and alcohol. Not only do we see how profoundly this affects Bertie Mae, Jesco and the rest of the family in this documentary, but we can also see the aftermath of his death, and the unbroken circles of drug use and violence again in THE WILD AND WONDERFUL WHITES OF WEST VIRGINIA. It’s ultimately both sad and pathetic.
In DANCING OUTLAW, we first meet Jesco’s sister Mamie, as well as his brothers Poney and Dorsey. The only thing I want to say about these three is that we’re updated on each of them in THE WILD AND WONDERFUL WHITES OF WEST VIRGINIA. The passage of time hasn’t been real kind to Mamie, as she’s gone from a pretty, wild, fun-loving woman to a scary, unstable woman who will do anything, including illegal things, to make money. Dorsey is dead from an accidental shooting, and Poney has proven to be the smartest of the bunch by taking his kids and moving to Minnesota for a fresh start. At least there’s one success story since he was able to get away.
At the end of the day, the documentary just kind of ends where it began, with Jesco and Norma Jean sitting at their trailer and arguing. There really is no “happy” way to end a movie about people like Jesco White and his family. I follow a lot of Jesco’s family members on social media, and I think the notoriety they have received from these documentaries has done nothing but make things worse for them. They are almost all struggling with the effects of poverty and drug abuse to this day. In some ways, these people don’t seem real, but the truth is that they are real, and that we know people like them in our own lives. Heck, we may be people like them. Our issues may not be the same, but our lives often contain unbroken cycles of making the same mistakes over and over again and then wondering why we can’t be happy. If nothing else, watching the slow-motion train wreck of another person’s life can hopefully inspire us to get our own shit together!
I’ve included the YouTube link to the DANCING OUTLAW below if you want to see for yourself!
My wife was born and raised in the great state of West Virginia. It’s one of the most beautiful states in the country. I’ve enjoyed visiting awesome places like the New River Gorge Bridge, Kanawha Falls, the Greenbrier Resort, the Mothman museum, Reddish Knob, Seneca Rocks, and Hillbilly Hot Dogs over the years! Five or six years ago, I was browsing through the movies available on Amazon Prime and I came across this documentary called THE WILD AND WONDERFUL WHITES OF WEST VIRGINIA. Being a fan of my wife and fascinated by the state, I thought I’d check it out.
But first, a little back story…. in 1991, Jacob Young, a director and producer for two seasons of a PBS documentary series called DIFFERENT DRUMMER, made a documentary short for the series entitled DANCING OUTLAW. The subject of the documentary is a man from Boone County, WV named Jesco White. Jesco is a talented “mountain tap dancer,” a skill that was passed down to him from his father D. Ray White. Jesco is also a hard-living, hellraising, gas-huffing law breaker! The documentary would go on to win a 1992 Emmy Award, as well as a 1993 American Film Institute Award for “Best Documentary.” It would also make Jesco a celebrity and pop culture figure in the state.
Now, back to THE WILD AND WONDERFUL WHITES OF WEST VIRGINIA. This 2009 documentary, directed by Julian Nitzberg and executive produced by Johnny Knoxville, takes us back to Boone County to revisit Jesco White, as well as to introduce us to a whole bunch of his extended family. I’ll just say up front that I was fascinated by this family, but I would never in a million years trust a single one of them. Jesco is in the new documentary, but there isn’t a lot of time spent with him. He did perform some of his special mountain tap-dancing as Hank Williams III sang his song “Straight to Hell” during the opening credits. I enjoyed seeing his special talent prior to the movie turning into the documentation of a slow-motion, extended family train wreck. Here are a few of the people we spend time with:
We meet many more of the Whites, but I think you can see where this is going. This is a family in distress, and we see extreme examples of a culture of horrific decisions that continue to yield horrific results. With that said, I also saw bits and pieces of my own family in the Whites, and while I won’t condone a single one of their bad decisions, I won’t pass judgment on them either. During the year that the filmmakers hung out with the Whites, the matriarch of the family, Bertie Mae White, turned 85 years old. Based on some of the things she said, as well as some of her mannerisms, she reminded me a little bit of my own Grandma Crain from the Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas. We see the family as they celebrate Bertie Mae on her 85th birthday. They love their mother, but they do drugs and smoke pot at her party even though she clearly doesn’t want any of that “stuff” around her. A sad section of the film is Bertie May’s passing while the documentary was being made. I know of instances where drug and alcohol abuse have wreaked havoc inside of my own family. There have been instances where extended family members have committed acts of violence that have sent them to prison. I think the fact that I can see certain characteristics of my own family through the craziness of the Whites is what fascinated me the most when I was watching. These are real people, and because of that, we know people like them, with some of them being our own family members if not ourselves. I’m not qualified to speak on how certain socio-economic factors affect any of this kind of behavior, so I won’t even try.
Back in 2020, my wife and I visited the courthouse in Madison, WV, which is the county seat of Boone County, and a place that is shown multiple times throughout the documentary. I’ve included a picture below. We ate at a local grocery store in town that served a nice bologna sandwich for lunch. This is a very normal town and county, yet this is also where almost all of the action in the wild and wonderful Whites takes place. One of my takeaways from THE WILD AND WONDERFUL WHITES OF WEST VIRGINIA is my continued amazement of the types of things us “normal” people are capable of.
I’m not gonna lie. I really have no idea what they were going for by simply by watching the music video. I spot the reference to Django (1966). The coffin moving on its own reminds me of Vampyr (1932). A lot of the religious imagery makes me think of Dreyer. That, and the holiday–Day of the Dead. I’m also pretty sure Beck is wearing a Saturday Night Fever (1977) outfit at one point.
According to Wikipedia, director Steve Hanft was inspired by Stan Brakhage, Maya Deren, and 1920’s surrealist films for the moving coffin. Beck apparently said they were “fucking around” when they made the video. That sounds about right. According to IMDb, the line “I’m a driver. I’m a winner. Things are gonna change. I can feel it” was sampled from Steve Hanft’s own film called Kill the Moonlight (1994). They also used clips from the film.
Also according to Wikipedia, there is one clip in the video that was not shot by Steve Hanft. It’s the one where Jesco White dances on a bench in a white satin shirt. It is also the one part of the music video that was shot on video rather than film. It was shot by Julian Nitzberg.
There’s some more background information on the music video over on Wikipedia.
Director Steve Hanft appears to have done somewhere between 50 to 60 music videos along with other films.
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens 