Quiet Earth Review of the Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia

From www.quietearth.us: 

The White clan are West Virginia’s most psychotic, fun living, pill popping, gun toting and just plain dangerous family ever. “Boy, this is how we do it hillbilly style” says one of the clan as he blows stuff away with a rifle in the backyard. There are loads of people in the White clan, and I could barely understand their thick Appalachian accents, but I have to tell you, I love these people. A beautiful toxic tonic to the fake drivel that make up the Kardashians. An inspiration to anarchists everywhere, and also to people who think that Ozzy Osbourne turned into a giant pansy. The doc. was the brainchild of Johnny Knoxville of Jackass fame, and MTV stumped up the finance.

You might have already heard of Jesco White, son of the mountain dancing legend D. Ray White who was shot to death in 1985. Jesco carries on the tap dancing tradition and was the subject of the 1989 cult documentary The Dancing Outlaw. This time the spotlight is on the whole psychotic family. We get to follow them around for a year of hell raising, philosophy and tragedy. “Philosophy?” I hear you gasp. Yes, well Jesco is pretty damn smart. He ain’t had no schoolin or nuttin, but he’s a highly intelligent if somewhat moody chap. The scene where Jesco takes us on a tour of his family’s grave plot and muses on the vagaries of life is incredibly poignant and a total head-do. The cemetery is basically stacked full of his brothers, sisters and cousins most of whom died young from car crashes or shootings.

Right, well on a more up note, the music in this doc. is finger plucking brilliant. A treat of blue grass banjo foot stomping toe tapping tunes. Much of it was composed by Deke Dickerson. Jesco’s good mate Hank Williams III is in the mix too, and actually provides commentary as well as tunes that Jesco dances to. On another technical note, I liked the fast paced editing, MTV style, and the fact that at 88 minutes it wasn’t too long. I hate really long documentaries. The scenes and on the fly interviews with family members were intercut with set piece interviews with Members of Authority, who provide their own rueful and basically resigned view of the clan White’s behavior.

Read the full review

The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia on KnoxvilleFilms.com