Appalachian Dreams: A Conversation With Elaine McMillion Sheldon
Eli Styles | February 21, 2024
Growing up in Appalachia is a unique experience. The connection that people in rural Appalachia form with the land they grow up on runs deep within their blood, especially when their families have a history of working with and living on the land.
Such is the case for Elaine McMillion Sheldon, the Academy Award-winning director and producer of the hybrid documentary “King Coal.” The film will be shown at Warren Wilson College (WWC) in Jensen Hall 315 on Thursday, Feb. 22 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.. A Q&A with Sheldon will follow.
Sheldon’s family has lived in western Appalachia — specifically West Virginia (W.Va.) — for nine generations. W.Va. is the only state that lies completely within the Appalachian region. Sheldon grew up in the coal fields in Logan, W.Va., a small town with a rich history living within the people and the land.
She attended West Virginia University (WVU) to obtain an undergraduate degree in journalism, then went on to Emerson College to work toward an MFA, which she earned 11 years ago. Despite her undergraduate degree not being in a filmmaking field, she says it still benefits her today.
“Journalism teaches you to know the sources, where to find information, how to build trust, how to know a community,” Sheldon said. “It makes you ask questions of representation, who can tell whose stories and how to [do so] in a fair and responsible manner. [All] those things are really relevant to the producing side of my job, [and] that’s all stuff that journalism taught me. The basics of telling a story are the same, no matter the media you tell it in.”
Although Sheldon did not grow up planning to work in film, she has always had a deep-seated interest in storytelling. Rather than write about people, she prefers to film them so they can tell their stories in their own vernacular.
“I’m sort of obsessed with the idea that we have archives of the past, but we’re living these modern lives that will one day be an archive as well,” Sheldon said. “I like to think of my work as archiving the lives of people around me. The way [people] express themselves in film really allows me to get as close as possible to transporting someone to a place through people’s stories. I really enjoy using the moving image and sound as a way to create an experience for people.”
More jobs were available in multimedia work than in writing when Sheldon graduated from WVU, which led her to teach herself how to do things in order to make it in the field. Through this and her experience in the MFA program, Sheldon was able to form her own philosophy around filmmaking.
Sheldon and her team started filming “King Coal” in 2019 and finished in August 2022. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2023 and has been circulating theaters ever since. As the film was mostly made in her home state of W.Va. and involved a lot of the culture of coal, Sheldon’s passion for the project shone through.
“This is a personal film,” Sheldon said. “It is narrated in first person, from me. The story of Appalachia — especially of coal — is often told from the male perspective. There’s a lot to be said for the politics of coal, the environmental effects of coal and those things, but this [film] was really about the culture. So we thought that recentering and upending audience expectations of what they think of when they think of coal, what better way to do that than to center children and think about the future.”
The film itself is unscripted and contains aspects of folklore, fable, magical realism and observational filmmaking. Two girls, Lanie Marsh and Gabrielle Wilson, were cast to visually represent the experience of growing up in Appalachia in an environment with such a rich history. Sheldon said that the two girls being at the center of the narrative signals to viewers that this is not your typical coal documentary.
Unlike many documentaries, “King Coal” does not employ interviews to tell the story. The film is instead made more personal through the use of dancing and Sheldon’s own narration. Throughout the film, Marsh and Wilson can be seen dancing against backdrops of coal fields and tastefully lit warehouses.
“I think that reinventing whatever we are post-coal needs to have a level of vulnerability and play and imagination about our future and not just look to the past for answers, and dance in many ways represents the breaking down of that,” Sheldon said. “Dance is a free-flowing experience, and it’s one that butts up against the strict mono-economy of what we call ‘King Coal’ in the film. It’s a visual metaphor. And it also allowed for a fluidity in the film and energy and perspective from kids rather than just adults talking about the past.”
This film emerged from real-life experiences that Sheldon, her family and other community members have had.
“This film came out of conversations happening on the ground where we’re saying ‘let’s let our dreams and imaginations be part of that conversation’,” Sheldon said. “Oftentimes I use films to try to understand complex problems and try to find hope in what seems like hopeless situations. For most people that aren’t from this region, their depiction of Appalachia is a hopeless one. They don’t really get to see who we are beyond our plight.”
Depictions of Appalachia in the media have always leaned toward portraying Appalachians as rural, uneducated and poverty-stricken people. The beauty of the culture is often left to the wayside, and these inaccurate depictions paint a story of Appalachia that puts Appalachians in a box, keeping them from seeing the possibilities that they have access to.
“Yes, [Appalachians] have mined resources that have made us seem important to the rest of the world,” Sheldon said. “But now we’re looking at what we do from here, and I believe that all the other natural resources and human resources around coal are just as important as [coal] itself. This film is really about reminding people of our potential, and the incredible beauty and wonder that’s around us.”
The film’s premiere at Sundance did just that.
“People from other places that are less familiar with Appalachia find themselves kind of surprised by the form and the conversation from a headline point of view,” Sheldon said. “When the news talks about Appalachia it’s mostly about politics. This film transcends those conversations and allows people that aren’t from here a new way of seeing this place.”
“King Coal” was not an easy film to make. It was done through a sort of call-and-response of filming things and writing the narration as the story developed. But it was a challenge to get everything right, and Sheldon’s team often ran into challenges in correct representation, having no script, having to be vulnerable, the creative leap of using a breath artist to make the sounds used in the film and the overarching challenge of COVID-19 keeping them from filming. The film’s shape was found in the edit.
The documentary centers heavily around culture. The ending of the film features a solemn burial ritual, one that sticks with you long after the credits have rolled. This ritual is deeply symbolic and provides a powerful conclusion to the film — but not quite an ending.
“There is cultural healing that needs to happen, which comes from people letting go of the story that has held them back in some ways,” Sheldon said. “With the burial rituals we [were trying to] think about the ways that people have grieved loss in the past, and how do we grieve the loss of the story? And in the way of saying goodbye to the story, what are we opening ourselves up to? What’s the new story that can emerge out of saying goodbye to the old one?”
“King Coal” is not meant to offer solutions to those questions, but only to pose them.
“I’m trying to make a film that’s operating on a deeper level of asking questions about our culture and soul and psyche,” Sheldon said. “How do we want to treat each other? What does it mean to be a community? I wanted this film to leave us at the resting place of this one story so that the conversation [can continue]. If we no longer have this king that rules all the ways we live and work, what is it we want for ourselves?”
Sheldon’s favorite scenes in the film are the ones with her elderly grandfather, who is approaching 90-years-old this year. His presence cements the intergenerational conversational message of “King Coal” and invites people of all ages into the fold of learning about their history and future.
The quote at the end of the film summarizes Appalachia beautifully: “This place knows how to dream.” Sheldon resonates deeply with this idea.
“There’s a segment of growing up in Appalachia where you’re told that you can only do certain things because you’re from here,” Sheldon said. “I wanted to remind people that that’s not true. And it’s also an affirmation, reminding myself and all of us that our dreams are not this fluffy thing that don’t have an impact. What we want today will come true in the future if we put it into action today. [‘This place knows how to dream’] is a statement of defiance, in some ways.”
To learn more about King Coal and watch the trailer, visit the film’s website here.