Directed by: Susan Wehling
1991
Running Time: 28:00
Color
Mountain Vision examines five innovative and sometimes idiosyncratic examples of "homegrown" Appalachian television. "Joe’s Show," a live music show produced and distributed out of Joe Engle’s basement in Viper, Kentucky is featured, as is the 1957 national series, "The Renfro Valley Show," producer John Lair’s romanticized vision of his mountain home and its music. The zany hucksterism of the long running "Virgil Q. Wacks Varieties" is explored through interviews with Wacks and scenes from his show, in which local businesses paid to be profiled, and everything including mine rescue teams, Hawaiian dancers, car lots, and roller rinks were presented in barely edited Super-8 montages held together by cheap glue and Wacks’ stream-of- consciousness narration. Also featured are East Tennessee video pioneers, Broadside Television, who in the early 1970s used inexpensive portable video equipment to put community events on the area’s first cable access channel. The program concludes with a look at "Headwaters," the Appalshop television series about the culture, politics, and people of Appalachia.
Reviews
"The history of television is short, and it needs more chapters like Mountain Vision. This program demonstrates that television can be used to focus on regional issues and strengthen a community’s sense of local identity." -Tom Whiteside, Film and Video Program, Duke University
"Gives a well rounded look at the subject of local culture. Students studying popular culture and American folklore will find this look at contemporary Appalachian lifestyle informative and entertaining." -School Library Journal
Screenings & Festivals
Kentucky Educational Television
WSWP/Beckley, WV
