Opinion: What does Martin Scorses's new film give back to the Osage Nation?

Filming on the set of Killers of the Flower Moon
(Photo courtesy of Shannon Shaw Duty, Osage News via ICJ)

The story of Oklahoma's Osage Nation is one of prosperity, greed, conspiracy, murder and loss. Its retelling in Martin Scorsese's new film Killers of the Flower Moon gives voice to that past. But even as audiences flock to the theaters, what does the Osage Nation have to show for their willingness to share their story of a people murdered for their land? 

Dennis McAuliffe Jr., an Osage tribal member and Washington Post Opinions copy editor, shares his answer to that question in his Opinion essay condensed here. His thoughts are penned from Fairfax, Oklahoma.

"Joe Conner, my cousin and closest friend, created a memorial to victims of the 'Osage Reign of Terror' about two years ago. In 10 panels illustrated with archival and family pictures, he described what came before and after the murders of possibly hundreds of Osages after one of the largest oil deposits in the United States was found on their land. Because each tribal member, including children, received an equal share of royalties, the Osage had become the richest people per capita in the world.

"Joe installed the posters in the storefront of the long-abandoned Tall Chief Theater in Fairfax, the reservation town where most of the murders took place. The potential viewers he had in mind included Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and a crew of hundreds who were there to film scenes for 'Killers of the Flower Moon' — an Apple Original movie about the killings based on David Grann’s book of the same name.

"Joe, a PhD psychologist, health researcher, local newspaper publisher and co-director of the Fairfax Community Foundation, hoped his posters would engage visitors in his mission to 'rebuild Fairfax and restore hope to our left-behind community … [which] today languishes in neglect and dereliction. . . . The restored theater would become a performing arts and event center; an adjoining former bank building would house a museum, restaurant, gift shop, art gallery, studio and, as Joe put it, a memorial 'that not only would honor what happened but serve as a venue for healing.'

"All it would take, architects told him, was $8 million, and work would begin with replacing the theater roof, four stories above the stage, which had been blown off by a tornado in 2018. . . . Enter Apple, Scorsese and the rest of the crew: Between April and October of 2021, they spent weeks filming around Fairfax, including a location not 50 yards from the Tall Chief. . . . Theater people would certainly take an interest in saving a historic theater — and could afford to. Combined, the cast and crew stood to make tens of millions of dollars. (DiCaprio was reportedly paid $25 million to $30 million.) Surely there was an angel investor in their midst.

"But what do moviemakers owe a community that they use and profit from? Not specific individuals but the community as a whole? Fairfax, which provided the tragic story without which no movie would have been made, was about to find out. . . . As the Hollywood crew finished filming, Joe wrote: 'It seems the movie will be another example of outsiders, even if well-intentioned, taking something from the Osage people for personal gain and leaving the community with nothing but movie images.'

McAuliffe Jr. has a personal connection to this story. Read the entire piece here.

For more on the Osage Nation's story and its broader impact on U.S. law enforcement, read Erin Blakemore's story in National Geographic here.

For more insight on the film, go to ICJ's review. ICJ is an independent, nonprofit news enterprise from IndiJ Public Media that honors their ancestors and future generations through stories that make Indigenous peoples come alive.

Ken Burns says his 'American Buffalo,' premiering Monday on PBS, is mainly a tragedy but one that offers hope

Ken Burns (Los Angeles Times photo by Mark Sommerfield) and his subject (photo by Craig Mellieu via L.A. Times)

“The American Buffalo,” a two-part, four-hour documentary by Ken Burns, premieres Monday on PBS. Burns says the story is “mostly a tragedy . . . about disconnecting a whole group of people from an animal that they felt in kinship with over thousands of years. And it’s the story of another group of people who see themselves as superior, as the dominant species with permission to do anything they want to do” and almost exerminate a species that numbered in the tens of millions.

But it is also a story that offers hope. After what Burns calls “the largest killing of wildlife in the history of the world,” some who took part in the killing helped preseve the species, Michael Ordoña reports for the Los Angeles Times. He says the documentary “contains inspiring accounts of oneness with nature, chilling stories of sadism and bloodshed in a mad rush for profit (and worse motives) — and a message of hope rooted in the potential for transformation within human beings.”

Burns told Ordoña that for 30 years he wanted "to do a biography of an animal, to complement or contrast with all the other specific biographies or big-topic stuff that we’ve done. We’d intersected with that story in 'The West' in the mid-’90s, again in the late ’90s with 'Lewis and Clark,' and then in the aughts with 'The National Parks.' I’m glad that we waited, because it gave us time. Scholarship improved. It also gave us the possibility to develop a narrative that wasn’t just going to pay lip service to other points of view in some paternalistic or even patronizing way, like allowing other points of view, but seeding the film with them. . . . It allowed us to tell a much more complicated, a much more nuanced story and one that is not really complete. I think by the time we finished it, we realized our two parts were the first two acts of a three-act play. The third act is, 'What are we going to do now?' Yes, the buffalo is saved. So our early ideas that this was a parable of de-extinction are true, but it’s so much more than that. Will they just be standing fenced in, in corrals or feedlots or whatever, sustainable, not going to go extinct, but can they roam wild and free the way they used to?"

'Radically Rural' N.H. summit including journalism sessions announces panels and new, affordable pricing scheme

Radically Rural, the two-day national summit that features sessions on community journalism, is offering a big program and a new pricing scheme that allows journalists to determine their admission price, based on their ability to afford attendance, for as little as no charge up to the full price of $175. There are a limited number of free tickets to the event Sept. 27-28 in Keene, N.H.

With a theme of “How did they do that?” two journalism sessions will focus on news organizations that have built sustainability in various ways, including philanthropy, custom publishing, digital readership and membership. A third will look at some great journalism produced by rural newsrooms.

Terrence Williams

“We want to make this is as affordable as possible for journalists to attend, particularly those stressed by the challenging revenue markets facing their organizations and the cost of travel,” said organizer Terrence L. Williams, senior adviser for audience and community development for The Keene Sentinel. The locally owned daily newspaper partners with the local Hannah Grimes Center for Entrepreneurship for Radically Rural, which features solutions-based sessions for small communities on seven tracks: community journalism, land use, downtowns, health care, entrepreneurship, arts and culture, and clean energy. Here's the community journalism program:

Sept. 27, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.: Building sustainability. The demise of local journalism in rural America has received national attention, but many small news organizations are thriving. Panelists: Joey Young, majority owner, Kansas Publishing Ventures; Chris Baker, publisher, Taos News; and Tristan Scott, managing editor, The Flathead Beacon, Kalispell, Mont. Moderator: Terry Williams.

Sept. 27, 12:30-1:30 p.m.: The Fourth Estate. Jeremiah Ariaz, an art professor at Louisiana State University, spent months in Kansas documenting in photography the state of more than 100 rural newspapers. In a moving, nostalgic presentation, he presents the fears and hopes for democracy in communities left without a paper or clinging to what they have. Lunch provided.

Sept. 27, 2-3:30 p.m.: Generating audience revenue. Successful rural news organizations, for-profit and not, are building revenue through fundraising, membership and paid readership. Panelists: Arik Ligeti, director of audience, The Narwhal, online nonprofit, Victoria, B.C.; Christiaan Mader, founder/editor, The Current, Lafayette, La. Moderator: Shay Totten, newsroom success manager, American Press Institute.

Thursday, Sept. 28, 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.: Groundbreaking journalism. A deep dive into how three newsrooms reported powerful stories that have deeply impacted the rural communities they cover. Panelists: Victoria Bouloubasis, journalist and filmmaker, Durham, N.C.; Adam Ganucheau, editor-in-chief, Mississippi Today; Samantha Hogan, investigative reporter, The Maine Monitor. Moderator: Jack Rooney, managing editor, audience development, The Keene Sentinel.

To register to attend or learn more about the programming, go to www.radicallyrural.org

Cormac McCarthy, whose novels drew from the landscapes of Southern Appalachia and the Southwest, dies at 89

Cormac McCarthy (Photo by Dawn Jones, Professor Productions)

Cormac McCarthy, dubbed by The New York Times' Dwight Garner as “the formidable and reclusive writer of Appalachia and the American Southwest,” died Tuesday at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was 89. The Times says McCarthy had a “powerful and intuitive sense of the American landscape” and notes that his first editor was William Faulkner’s last. The University of Kentucky's Guy Davenport (later a MacArthur fellow, as was McCarthy) wrote in 1968 that McCarthy's second novel, Outer Dark, was “compounded of Appalachian phrases as plain and as functional as an ax.”

McCarthy grew up in an Irish Catholic family in Knoxville, where his father, a Yale graduate, was a lawyer for the Tennessee Valley Authority. “Often set in the backwoods of Tennessee or the great wide open of the Old West, McCarthy’s novels took violence to a nearly hallucinogenic level as he spooled out stories of murderous bounty hunters, drug deals gone fatally wrong and life in a post-apocalyptic netherworld,” writes Steve Marble of the Los Angeles Times. “During the course of his career, he won virtually every meaningful award, including a Pulitzer Prize.”

McCarthy's books included All the Pretty Horses (1992, his breakout novel and first set in the Southwest) and No Country for Old Men (2005), both adapted into movies; Child of God (1973); and Blood Meridian (1985), which "is regarded as McCarthy’s masterpiece," Marble writes. "Some critics hailed it as one of the great American novels."

Singer-songwirter Jason Isbell said McCarthy had "immeasurable" influence on him and other writers, but some didn't like his unusual style. “McCarthy had a strong aversion to punctuation, and often stripped his books of quotation marks, commas and hyphens,” Marble notes. “While some purists complained, many critics found his writing so seductive and self-propelled that readers would instinctively know what was a quote or when a sentence came to an end.”

UPDATE, June 14: The Washington Post has a guide to McCarthy and his books, including this: "Scholars Dianne C. Luce and Zachary Turpin made headlines when they unearthed at least 10 interviews McCarthy gave to local papers in Kentucky and Tennessee between 1968 and 1980. He told the Maryville-Alcoa Times in 1971: “My ideal would be to be completely independent. If I could, I’d have a small mill to generate our electricity. But you have to compromise.” In looking for more old clips, we found a review of The Ochard Keeper by Tennessee Appalachian author Wilma Dykeman in the Knoxville News Sentinel, which concluded: "He may become a coterie writer, refining his keen and original sensibilities into ever mor elegant and abstruse prose; or he may become a richly endowed observe of the human scene, with much to tell us about ourselves."

Chance meeting of immigrants and Neil Armstrong in his small hometown in Ohio is the subject of a new short film

The parents of Neil Armstrong pose with the
Abraham family. (One Small Visit Film Ltd.)

On a road trip in 1969, a family of Indian immigrants spied a roadside sign announcing the small town of Wapakoneta, Ohio, as the home of Neil Armstrong, who had recently become the first man to set foot on the moon. To pay their respects, they knocked on the Armstrong family's door. The cross-cultural encounter is the subject of "One Small Visit," a short film that's already been shown at NASA's D.C. headquarters and will be soon at the National Air and Space Museum, writes Theresa Vargas, a columnist for The Washington Post. 

"Ultimately, it’s a story between two very different families finding connection and a shared humanity; a testament to taking leaps of faith and small acts of openness and kindness that make a difference," Jo Chim, the writer of the film, told Vargas. Chim found out about the visit from Anisha Abraham who, as a one-month-old, accompanied her mother, grandmother and father on the road trip. Abraham, now a pediatrician in D.C., said she grew up hearing the stories of the visit from her family. 

Abraham described the "the stares and whispers her mother, Nirmala Abraham, and grandmother, Elizabeth George, drew as they walked through the town in their flowing saris and how her father grew nervous when her grandmother suggested they knock on the door of Armstrong’s parents’ home to pay their respect," Vargas writes. The Armstrong family invited the Abrahams inside to talk and connect. Chim wrote the film after seeing divisions deepen globally during the pandemic and sees the story as a way of "issues of race, identity and belonging," Vargas reports.

"In the film, Neil Armstrong talks about how looking at Earth from space made him feel small and the planet look fragile," Vargas writes. "He describes the view as allowing a person to see that borders between countries don’t exist." A notable photo from the visit shows the Abraham family standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the astronaut's parents. Neil Armstrong is not in the photo. He was holding the camera and taking the picture. He just happened to be visiting his parents at the time, when Wapakoneta had just over 7,000 people. It now has about 10,000. Armstrong died in 2012.

'Dopesick' movie wins a Peabody; author of book says her next one, about solutions to opioid crisis, will be out Aug. 15

"Dopesick" co-writers Ben Rubin, left, and Eoghan O’Donnell,
right, with star Michael Keaton and book author Beth Macy

"Dopesick," the streaming-video series starring Michael Keaton and based on the novel by Beth Macy of Roanoke, won the first Peabody Award announced this week the University of Georgia.

In accepting, Keaton said “Tackling such an important issue as the opioid crisis in America was not only daunting but well worth it. “To address the devastation that has been brought on by the Sackler family and big Pharma, and still honor the people in Appalachia, which in this case is what we chose as the location, and still show enormous respect for these people, all this is really gratifying for me.”

Meanwhile, Macy tells her readers via email, "My fourth book, Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis, will publish on Aug. 16, and it’s available for pre-order now. . . . If Dopesick was about the origins of the overdose crisis, Raising Lazarus is about the solutions—some of them quite surprising. The book features a fascinating chorus, from gritty activists willing to risk arrest to creative treatment providers, harm reductionists and peer specialists who are flat-out miracle workers. "

'Dopesick,' from book about Appalachia's opioid epidemic, makes TV debut tomorrow as eight-part Hulu miniseries

"Dopesick" premieres on Hulu Oct. 13

Former Roanoke Times reporter Beth Macy took a deep dive into Appalachia's opioid epidemic with her best-seller Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America. Now the story is making its television debut, as the first episode of premieres on Hulu tomorrow. 

The eight-part series, which stars award-winning actors such as Michael Keaton [the executive producer], Rosario Dawson and Peter Sarsgaard, "takes viewers to the epicenter of America's struggle with opioid addiction, from the boardrooms of [OxyContin makers] Purdue Pharma, to a distressed Virginia mining community, to the hallways of the Drug Enforcement Agency," according to IMDB.

The series premieres less than a month after a jury found the Sackler family of Purdue Pharma culpable for their role in perpetuating the opioid epidemic. Though the evidence presented was enough to force the Sacklers to give up ownership of the firm and pay $4.3 billion, Eric Eyre of Mountain State Spotlight notes that a federal judge blocked even more damning evidence from being included in the trial: a bipartisan 2018 congressional report that condemned major opioid distributors for dumping pills in West Virginia. Eyre, formerly of the Charleston Gazette-Mail, wrote his own account of the opioid crisis in the state in Death in Mud Lick.

The book was published in 2018.

Danny Strong, executive producer and writer of the Hulu series, said he wanted "to give Purdue and the Sacklers the trial that they never got . . . to show the crimes of this company that was micromanaged by [members of] this family," he told The Guardian's David Smith. "When people see the rampant criminal behavior, which is so egregious, so shocking, they will understand how this happened and then simultaneously that the institutions of government that are supposed to protect the public from a flagrantly criminal company like this failed. And they didn’t fail by accident."

Macy, also an executive producer on the series, hopes it will keep attention on a problem that has gotten worse during the pandemic. "We still have so much work to do," she told NPR's Michel Martin. Macy was the keynote speaker at "Covering Substance Abuse and Recovery," sponsored by Oak Ridge Associated Universities and the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, publisher of The Rural Blog, in November 2019.

Larry McMurtry, novelist who shaped Texas' view of itself, and America's view of Texas and the Old West, dies at 84

Larry McMurtry posed for Dallas Morning News photographer David Woo in 2012 as he disposed of two-thirds his collection of half a million books, which filled several store buildings in his hometown of Archer City, Texas.

Larry McMurtry, "whose novels about small-town life and the cowboy era of the American West chiseled him into the folklore of his native Texas," died Thursday night at 84, the Dallas Morning News reports.

"McMurtry shaped Texas’ view of itself far more than any contemporary writer," writes Michael Granberry. "None achieved his level of critical acclaim or rivaled his Hollywood success, as he simultaneously shattered and celebrated the mythology of his native state."

Lonesome Dove, which Granberry calls "an elegiac study of the Old West," won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. He wrote 45 other books, including The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment and Brokeback Mountain, novels that became Oscar-winning movies. He shared an Oscar for adapted screenplay for Brokeback. with Diana Ossana, his partner in writing and much of his life.

Google map

McMurtry grew up the son of a rancher in Archer City, which became the setting for The Last Picture Show. His first novel, Horseman, Pass By, was reworked to become the multiple-Oscar-winning movie Hud, starring Paul Newman and Patricia Neal.

“Larry is someone who took on the stereotypes and busted them. He was willing to say that the cowboy myth was just that,” his friend, retired University of North Texas writer-in-residence George Getschow, told the Morning News. “He wrote about things that disturbed and challenged convention in a way that was piercing, indelicate and right on.”

The New York Times' Dwight Garner notes, "For two years in the early 1990s he was American president of PEN, the august literary and human rights organization. He was a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, where he often wrote on topics relating to the American West. . . . There was a comic brio in his best books, alongside an ever-present melancholy. He was praised for his ability to create memorable and credible female characters. . . . McMurtry had reportedly completed a draft of a memoir titled 62 Women, about some of the women he knew and admired. He had an unusual arrangement in the last years of his life. In 2011 he married Norma Faye Kesey, Ken Kesey’s widow, and she moved in with Mr. McMurtry and Ms. Ossana. “I went up and drug Faye out of Oregon,” he told Grantland.com. “I think I had seen Faye a total of four times over 51 years, and I married her. We never had a date or a conversation. Ken would never let me have conversations with her.”" He also leaves a son, James, "a well-regarded singer and songwriter."

Dave Seaton, exemplary owner-editor in Kansas, dies at 80

Dave Seaton

Dave Seaton of Winfield, Kansas, a community newspaper editor and owner who exemplified "what every town in America needs," as the well-known editor of the nearest metro daily editor said, died Saturday. He was 80.

"His health had been failing and he underwent major heart surgery a year ago, but his death was unexpected," Judith Zaccaria writes for the Cowley CourierTraveler, Seaton's paper. "He had written Saturday’s editorial ... about the coronavirus."

From 1978 to 2009, Seaton was editor and publisher of the Winfield Courier, which his family bought in the 1940s. He bought the Arkansas City Traveler, in Cowley County's largest town, and the Newkirk Herald Journal in Oklahoma, then helped oversee the 2016 merger of the Courier and Traveler.

"Over Dave’s career he earned a reputation as an editor devoted to the communities the newspaper served," Zaccaria writes. 'Buzz Merritt, former long-time editor of the Wichita Eagle, said Dave Seaton was what every town in America needs:"

“An editor of a local newspaper who has the necessary journalistic tools and instincts — including the hammers-and-nails parts — to produce an honest picture of the town’s strengths and weaknesses, but who combines those with the carriage, character, kindness, education and intelligence of a renaissance gentleman,” Merritt told Zaccaria. “Such people are rare.”

His son, David Allen Seaton, told The Associated Press, “He saw his role . . . as one of advocacy and community leadership, in the tradition of William Allen White,” the famous editor from Emporia, 100 miles to the northeast. Perhaps his last big project was a documentary about White. Doug Instate, former executive director of the Kansas Press Association, praised Seaton's work on that and said he “always stood out as one of the top editorial writers in Kansas.”

Seaton earned degrees at Harvard University and the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. He and his wife Callie served in Brazil with the Peace Corps. A moderate Republican, he worked for U.S. Sen. Jim Pearson before becoming publisher. The family is planning a small graveside service with a larger memorial service that will be announced later.

Howard to do film on Camp Fire, promises cautionary tale; Netflix has $45 million for his adaptation of Hillbilly Elegy

Ron Howard

Director Ron Howard will make a documentary film about the catastrophic fire that nearly obliterated the Northern California town of Paradise in November, reports Gregg Kilday of The Hollywood Reporter.

The film will follow the rebuilding efforts of the Sierra Nevada foothills community, where Howard's mother-in-law and 26,000 other people once lived. He "has relatives in nearby Redding, visited the town in December, viewing the destruction caused by the Nov. 8 Camp Fire," Kilday writes. Howard told the Paradise Post then, "You have to see it to really believe it. And you have to talk to the people to really feel the level of both the inspiration and, also, the struggle."

The film, tentatively titled "Rebuilding Paradise," promises "a microcosmic look at the growing global repercussions of climate change through a community destroyed by one of the deadliest and most destructive wildfires in U.S. history," Kilday reports.

Paradise in Butte County (Wikipedia)

"The people of Paradise lost everything in the blink of an eye," Howard said in a release from National Geographic Documentary Films. "The way in which the citizens are coming together to rebuild is beautiful and hopeful — but no one should have to live through this. Theirs is a cautionary tale about the impending effects of climate change and what it takes to restore the communities ravaged by it. Paradise could be any of us."

Meanwhile, Netflix won the "fierce bidding war' for Howard's film adaptation of Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance's "critically revered account of growing up in the Rust Belt and a personal analysis of the white underclass, race and privilege in America," Lynette Rice of Deadline Hollywood reports. The book has been criticized for its use of Appalachian stereotypes. "Howard will direct while Vanessa Taylor,  co-writer of 'The Shape of Water,' will adapt" the book for the screen. "The idea is to shoot later this year but cast has yet to be set."

"Netflix is expected to fully finance the project, which could reportedly ring in at $45 million," Rice reports. That indicates the movie "could get a theatrical bow before it shows up on the streaming service," like "Roma," the Netflix feature that has been nominated for 10 Academy Awards.

Reporter who broke Sandusky abuse story consulted on film

Sara Ganim

Sara Ganim, "who broke the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal wide open at the tender age of 23" as a reporter for The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, played a key role "Paterno," HBO's new movie on the 2011 Penn State scandal, John Luciew reports for the newspaper. 

The film, which premiered Saturday, is half about head football coach Joe Paterno's downfall, and half about Ganim's dogged pursuit of the story about the assistant coach, for which she and others at the paper won a 2012 Pulitzer Prize. Ganim, now a CNN correspondent in Washington, D.C., was a paid consultant for the movie. She told Luciew she had turned down similar projects, but believes this film puts the appropriate focus on the victims. 

Ganim said she hopes it will inspire other journalists: "This came at a great time for community journalists . . . As a profession, they are not appreciated. There are major cuts and financial problems. I felt this was a win for people who are doing good work. I can only hope it will inspire others who are grinding it out every day for a very little paycheck and very little reward."

Black Panther film's fictional Wakanda has lessons for Appalachia, Roanoke Times editorial says

A Roanoke Times editorial takes a whimsical turn, saying that the fictional Wakanda in the hit film "Black Panther" has some lessons for Appalachia. It's not that far-fetched a comparison: Wakanda is a tiny country whose wealth comes from minerals. Though Appalachia has no "vibranium," it does have coal, oil and natural gas, which leads the Times' editorial board to ponder: Can an economy based on resource extraction really become wealthy? Can an isolationist nation really become wealthy?

To the first question, the editorial notes that coal mining has historically enriched a wealthy few, while the miners were among the poorest in the country. "The fictional Wakanda has somehow created a resource extraction economy that re-invests its wealth in its own people. With the demise of coal, it’s too late for Appalachia to do that. Instead, the great challenge for the region now is to build a new economy that generates wealth here, not someplace else," the editorial board writes.

As for isolationism, the Times editorial board remains skeptical that any country would have everything it needs to build a society without trade. "That’s also the danger of Donald Trump’s isolationist trade policies," they write. "By withdrawing from the TransPacific Partnership, Trump basically made it harder for American businesses to profit from future growth in Asia. China is more than happy to step into that void."

Two things the board liked about Wakanda, and hopes Appalachia can replicate, are its focus on education and gender equality. Education matters because the biggest indicator of economic success is in the skill level of the population. And, it notes, getting girls involved in STEM fields is important because "you can’t build a modern economy with only half the population."

A list of 'best films' about 25 professions recalls a better one naming the best movies about farming

Kevin Costner played a farmer in "Field of Dreams" (1989).

The Washington Post's selection of the 10 best movies about journalism prompted the newspaper to round up some experts — just one for each profession — to declare the best movies about other professions. Since the first list didn't include any pictures with a rural angle, here are the pickers and the picks for two rural lines of work, farming and mining.

Phil Smith, director of government affairs and longtime spokesman for the United Mine Workers of America, told the Post that the best movie about coal mining is "Matewan," a 1987 film about a West Virginia coal strike almost 100 years ago that led to the greatest use of military force against American civilians.

"The story is about miners who decided to organize . . . the real life and death struggle it took to make improvements in their lives," Smith writes. "My favorite scene is a meeting scene. James Earl Jones stands up with that voice, and makes an argument about how they should be working together and working toward the same goal. Sometimes the most thrilling part of a movie can still just be a speech."

To choose the best movie about farming, someone at the Post picked Breanna Holbert, a student at California State University, Chico, and president of the National FFA Organization, formerly known as Future Farmers of America. She selected "Charlotte's Web," a 1973 film full of talking animals and starring a spider who saves a pig from slaughter.

"My brother is 8. He loves this movie and I do, too," Holbert writes. "There are a lot of small players in the agricultural industry, small farmers, who get overlooked — but then they end up pushing the big players to move forward, to try and experience new things. Those small players are the Charlottes. We need Charlottes."

Farm and Dairy, an agricultural paper in eastern Ohio, picked the best films about farming four years ago. They included "Charlotte's Web," and "Places in the Heart" a 1984 film starring Sally Field, but higher on the list came "Grapes of Wrath" (1940), from John Steinbeck's novel about Oklahoma farmers becoming migrant workers in California; "Babe" (1995), also about a pig, one that herds sheep; and "Field of Dreams" (1989), starring Kevin Costner as an Iowa farmer who "builds a baseball diamond in the middle of his cornfield," Will Flannigan wrote. "The ghosts of legendary baseball players then come to the field every night to play."

Also on the Farm and Dairy list is a 2005 documentary, "The Real Dirt on Farmer John," about John Peterson, a Northern Illinois farmer who operates Angelic Organics. the largest community-supported agriculture business in the U.S. "Peterson is an outcast in his community who turns his family’s farm around by taking his family traditions and combining them with art and free expression," Flannigan wrote.

List of top 10 journalism movies makes us ponder the lack of movies about great rural journalism

The release of "The Post," a movie about The Washington Post's handling of the Pentagon Papers, prompted the newspaper to pick the 10 best movies about journalism and get some major players to write about them. There's no rural journalism among them, with the very limited exception of Charles Foster Kane's early forays into the newspaper business. We have to wonder about the lack of movies about great rural journalism, since there are so many movie-worthy stories.

Some such stories are outlined in You Might Want to Carry a Gun: Community newspapers expose big problems in small towns, a book by Kathy Cruz of the Hood County News in Granbury, Tex., and Tommy Thomason of the Texas Center for Community Journalism at Texas Christian University. It would be a good Christmas gift for a courageous rural journalist (or one who could use a little more courage). It's available on Amazon. (Disclosure: Tommy Thomason is an academic partner of the University of Kentucky's Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, publisher of The Rural Blog.

The movies in the Post list, in order of release: "His Girl Friday," 1940, recommended by former New York Times Editor Jill Abramson; "Citizen Kane," 1941, reviewed by Chris Matthews of MSNBC; "Network," 1976, described Katy Tur of NBC News; "All the President's Men," recalled by major characters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein; "The Killing Fields," 1984, praised by Fareed Zakaria of CNN; "Broadcast News," 1987, appreciated by Katie Couric of National Geographic; "Shattered Glass," 2003, explained by Post editorial writer Charles Lane, who was Stephen Glass's editor at The New Republic; "Good Night, and Good Luck," 2005, loved by Andrea Mitchell of NBC; "Frost/Nixon," 2008, praised by radio interviewer Diane Rehm; and "Spotlight," 2015, limned by Post Editor Martin Baron, a major character as editor of The Boston Globe.

HBO documentary explores meth in rural Arkansas

Veronica Converse and her sons (HBO photo)

A new HBO documentary called "Meth Storm" highlights the causes and devastating effects of methamphetamine in a rural Arkansas community, Stephanie Sharp reports for Arkansas Matters.

"The 96-minute film follows DEA agents and police fighting against cartels, local dealers and users and their families in central Arkansas. There are no jobs here, especially since Walmart moved on, and residents seem chained to a life of poverty, addiction, and dealing to support their habits," Eric Killelea writes for Rolling Stone.

As Little Rock natives, filmmakers Brent and Craig Renaud are no strangers to the area. The Peabody Award-winning brothers returned to their home state and spent more than two years on the documentary, following the life of longtime meth user Veronica Converse and her sons, who deal the drug. The Renauds also embedded with a DEA unit and witnessed large-scale seizures of meth and firearms, many of which originated with Mexican drug cartels. Read more about the documentary and find listing times here.

Sam Shepard chose to die in rural Kentucky, where people in Midway respected his privacy

Shepard at the Sundance Film Festival in
2014 for the opening of "Cold in July."
(Photo from www.sam-shepard.com)

Tonight on Broadway in New York, the lights of theater marquees will go dark for one minute to honor Sam Shepard, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, screenwriter, director, author and Oscar-nominated actor, who died Thursday at 73. In one small town in Kentucky, spirits are already dimmer, because folks there remembered Shepard as a good neighbor, and one whose privacy they respected.

Shepard had a home at a small horse farm near Midway, a town of 1,800 halfway between Lexington and the state capital of Frankfort. John McDaniel, a city council member and correspondent for The Woodford Sun, the local weekly, wrote a 1,700-word appreciation of Shepherd for the Midway Messenger, which has the same publisher as The Rural Blog.

"The news did not surprise me, because I had seen him out just a few couple of months ago on Main Street and saw how much different he looked from just a little over a year ago before he found out that he had ALS," McDaniel reports. "Seeing him in his wheelchair, it was easy to surmise that his days left on this earth were few."

"It’s going to be a little bit different not seeing Shepard in town anymore, hanging out on the downtown patios or squirreled away in back of one of the Midway restaurants, writing notes in his notebook or reading a book as he ate," McDaniel writes. "I think a lot of people were intimidated by Shepard. Though they were excited to see him in the flesh, it was very seldom that onlookers would actually stop to ask him for an autograph; most would just stare at him. Midway residents would smile and speak but, I only knew a few who ever bothered him for a picture or autograph. Townspeople made it a point to respect his privacy, and I believe that is why he liked Midway so much."

McDaniel concludes: "There is no doubt that Sam Shepard was a very talented, complex and intelligent person. He could be rude, he could be funny, he could be compassionate, and he had days that he just didn’t give a damn. I liked him for a lot of reasons, but he won me over because during one of our talks he once told me that he really did like Midway and that it had such a quality that even he had a hard time finding the words to describe the area around here. Maybe that’s why he chose to spend his last days here."

UPDATE, Aug. 7: John J. Winters writes on The Conversation that Shepard grew up rural and told Playboy in 1984, “One of the biggest tragedies about this country was moving from an agricultural society to an urban, industrial society. We’ve been wiped out.” Winters adds, "Shepard's characters embody this loss. . . . Shepard’s love of the country and its open spaces would mark all aspects of his career." He also cites Patti Smith's tribute in The New Yorker.

Movie set in coalfield town of Big Stone Gap, Va., is mostly believable, in-state critic says

Ashley Judd and Patrick Wilson, the film's love interests

The film "Big Stone Gap" opens today in 274 theaters, reports Glenn Gannaway of The Post in the southwest Virginia coal town of 5,600 that is the locle of the romantic comedy, set in 1978 and based on the novel of the same name by local native Adriana Trigiani.

"It has an impressive cast, all of whom reportedly took minimum salaries to get it made. They include Ashley Judd, Patrick Wilson, Whoopi Goldberg, Jenna Elfman, Jane Krakowski and Anthony LaPaglia," film critic Mal Vincent writes for The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk. "In spite of the actual plot of the movie, the wake-up call comes when the local folks learn that Elizabeth Taylor is coming to town. They plan a welcome they hope will rival Cleopatra's entrance into Rome. The local drug store, owned by Ave Maria Mulligan (Judd) and run by Fleeta Mullins (Goldberg), spruces things up in case Taylor might stop by for an aspirin. Those of us who have been around long enough remember the mania."

"For all of the movie's warmth, the setting sometimes raises an eyebrow," Vincent writes. "The corn is as high as an elephant's eye even though we are in Virginia, not Oklahoma. Things also sometimes venture dangerously close to the kind of hillbilly-bashing of things like 'Ma and Pa Kettle' and 'The Beverly Hillbillies.' But, for the most part, it stays believable, although the low budget at times shows. The writer stays away from the coal mines and any drama they might suggest. This is not the kind of movie, or novel, that is going to deal with the problems of organized labor. It's the sort of story that, one critic wrote in referring to the novel, 'is as comforting as a patchwork quilt and as charming as a country cottage. 'Yeah. That's kinda it. These are good ol' country folk—the kind you don't often see in the movies. Y'all come." To read other reviews of the film, click here and here.

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The town is planning a big celebration Saturday with the stars and "and the hundreds of people who participated in filming two years ago, either in front of the camera or behind the scenes," Gannaway reports. "Other celebrities expected are novelist Barbara Kingsolver and possibly several other writers, and the film’s composer John Leventhal and wife Rosanne Cash."

Saturday's events included a press conference with Judd, Wilson and others. For a report from Robert Sorrell of the Bristol Herald Courier, click here.

Hollywood has yet to convert all films to digital, but drive-ins are still scrambling to make changes

Time could be running out for many of America's drive-in theaters. With film distributors planning to convert all movies to digital, theaters have been forced to spend between $70,000 and $100,000 per screen to stay in business. An online contest sponsored by Honda paid for 10 drive-ins to convert to digital, and the publicity saved 17 more theaters, says the contest website. But for theater owners who can't foot the bill to convert to digital, pieces of rural American history could be coming to an end. (Plain Dealer photo by Joshua Gunter: North Ridgeville, Ohio drive-in)

Rick Stinnett, owner of two drive-ins around Bessemer City, N.C., paid $100,000 to convert one theater to digital, but doing the other theater will require him to "build a new dust-free, air-tight projection room from scratch," Joe DePriest reports for the Charlotte Observer. "Whether he can afford the project depends on how well the drive-in does in coming months." If the 400-car theater doesn't make enough money to offset the costs of converting, the theater will likely close.

So far, converting to digital hasn't been "do or die" in the mom-and-pop world of drive-ins, mainly because Hollywood has yet to follow through on its promise to eliminate 35mm film, Michael Sangiacomo reports for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland. Theater owner D. Edward Vogel told him, "Last year, the studios were saying that they would no longer make film copies of new movies, meaning if theaters didn't switch to digital, they could not get the movies. But here we are a year later, and the film copies are still being made."

Still, most of the roughly 350 drive-in theaters, with about 600 screens, are converting to digital—or attempting to—in anticipation of the conversion, Sangiacomo writes. Between 50 to 70 percent of drive-ins have already converted to digital, said Vogel, who said he has heard of only one theater—in Maine—closing because it was unable to convert. (Read more)

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/06/01/4948031/digital-technology-may-force-some.html#emlnl=Todays_Headlines#storylink=cpy

Bill would set annual fees for filming on public lands, as opposed to current daily fees

National Geographic shoots in Yellowstone

It could soon be easier, and cheaper, for journalists, film crews, and filmmakers to film on public lands. A House bill would charge an annual fee of $200 for camera crews of five or fewer people, amending rules set by the Agriculture and Interior secretaries, reports Agri-Pulse, a Washington newsletter. Yellowstone National Park charges crews of three to 10 people $150 per day. Other parks charge similar fees.

The bill would prohibits the agencies "from assessing any additional fee for commercial filming activities and similar projects that occur in those areas during those hours," according to the bill's language. It would also bar them "from prohibiting, as a motorized vehicle or under any other purposes, the use of cameras or related equipment used for commercial filming activities or similar projects in accordance with this Act on federal lands and waterways administered by the Secretary."

Rep. Robert Latta (R-Ohio), who introduced the bill, testified in August before a subcommittee that the current laws “place a severe burden on individual journalists and small film crews. This bill is needed to ensure that public lands are open to being filmed for enjoyment by all Americans. In some instances, small crews, such as a cameraman following an elk hunter in a national forest, [are] being treated the same as a major Hollywood production with exorbitant fees and regulations.”

A Congressional Budget Office "score released last week, however, indicates the legislation might not do as much heavy lifting as the Ohio congressman indicated," Agri-Pulse reports. CBO said it "expects that, under the bill, certain film crews would pay less than the amounts required under current law and others would pay more." Agri-Pulse is subscription only, but can be accessed by clicking here.

Another film, 'Out of the Furnace,' portrays Appalachia as violent, drug-filled world

The Appalachian-based film "Out of the Furnace" debuted over the weekend to less than stellar box-office numbers. But the $22 million film's $5.3 million take wasn't bad, considering everyone involved probably has just one eye on the box office and the other on the upcoming awards season. Just about all the stars—Christian Bale, Forest Whitaker, Sam Shephard, Woody Harrellson, Willem Dafoe and Casey Affleck—has either won or been nominated for an Academy Award. (Rotten Tomatoes photo: Christian Bale in "Out of the Furnace")

The movie, which takes place in Pennsylvania, is another in the long line of films that doesn't paint Appalachia as the greatest place to live, with drugs and violence ruling the day. But the release of the movie got Jay Fernandez of Word and Film thinking about other movies and novels set in Appalachia. He discusses both how Hollywood has displayed Appalachia on the big screen and how novelists have painted the region in words. (Read more)