I initially heard about Hale County This Morning, This Evening because every weekend, before the global pandemic, I would read the summaries of every movie playing in a theater then decide what I was going to see based on interest and proximity then rank them in order of priority. There was more of a sense of urgency to see it on the weekend if people of color or women were in the lead behind the camera or as the protagonist. I love documentaries and tend to rank them higher than mainstream movies because I know that few people actually pay to see documentaries in theaters, and they are usually the first films that get pulled.
Hale County This Morning, This Evening did not even make the list. I heard about it, and the documentary played in a couple of different theaters on a rolling basis, probably in connection with some local film festival, but the description was too vague. I knew nothing about the film based on the information that was available. Why do I want to see a film about this particular area? I would like to think of myself as fairly educated, but I totally missed the reference to the famous book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, with text by James Agee and photographs by Walker Evans. If the title does not ring a bell, the photographs would. The book contains the most famous photographs of sharecropper families during the Dust Bowl and the subjects were mostly white people from this region. I have never read it, but apparently Agee and Evans felt like privileged outsiders and spent three weeks there. The book’s structure does not have a traditional structure, and Agee occasionally plays a part in the book as a character, a literary device which I usually hate. I did not know about this essential fact until after I saw this film, but if I had, I probably would have appreciated and understood the film more.
Hale County This Morning, This Evening finally grabbed my attention when the director, RaMell Ross, appeared on The Daily Show, and Trevor Noah interviewed him. I had no idea that the documentary’s director is black, or that his subjects are also black. If I had known this fact, I would have seen it in theaters on opening weekend. If documentaries struggle generally, documentaries with black people behind the camera are rare. Even if the subject is a famous black person like Toni Morrison, an internationally famous author, and the film is showing in the academic capitol of the world, Massachusetts, the documentary would be lucky if it lasted a week so black documentaries need all the help that they can get if we want them to exist in the future. You have to vote with your money. So it was actually impressive that Ross’ documentary had a theatrical run at multiple theaters for a period of time and attracted the attention of the film establishment. The interview aired too late for me to see it in theaters so I put it in my queue even though I still did not know more about the documentary except black people.
Hale County This Morning, This Evening is now available for free if you are an Amazon Prime member, but I saw it on DVD once it became available for home viewing. So what is this film about? Ross’ film seems to be a reprise to Agee and Evans’ photographs, but instead of being an observant outsider, the film consists of images and moments captured over ten years when he moved to teach basketball and focus on his photography.
Do not see Hale County This Morning, This Evening expecting Hoop Dreams, a documentary that I and countless others loved. It is the anti-Hoop Dreams in terms of length and narrative. It is only seventy-six minutes long, but Ross’ goal is to counter a narrative in which the documentary focuses on subjects and artificially creates a digestible narrative from a life, but make the experience immersive. He simultaneously wants to embrace and reject Agee and Evans work. He wants to participate in his subjects’ lives and does not see himself as an outsider. He is interested in examining what a documentary would look like if black people compared and contrasted how others see them versus how we see ourselves. One of his intertitles ask, “How do we not frame someone.” Ross seems to believe that narrative is inherently othering regardless of who is behind or before the camera.
Hale County This Morning, This Evening creates a new genre of documentary that I will confess that I am utterly unsuited to consume because poetry died for me in law school. I used to love to read and write poetry, but after law school, I am only capable of prose. Others completely lost the joy of reading for pleasure so I got off easy. The process of learning the law resculpts your brain to suit the needs of the practice. Think of it as if it is the process of learning a language in Arrival. It changes you on the cellular level. On the other hand, after I became a lawyer, I was finally able to empathize with and understand abstract art, which I was incapable of doing before 2002 when I saw the Jasper Johns to Jeff Koons: Four Decades of Art from the Broad Collections at the Museum of Fine Arts. Before 2002, I was dismissive of anything that was not completely obvious. This documentary is abstract and all poetry. So I can objectively understand that I am seeing something special, but I am too much of a newborn Philistine to enjoy it. It took me numerous efforts to begin to brush the surface of Daughters of the Dust, and time and growth did much of the work to change my eyes.
I am not yet ready to revisit Hale County This Morning, This Evening even though it is readily available. There is a story, but I am still at the stage where I need something more constructed to absorb it. My greatest accomplishment was watching and enjoying The Turin Horse in one sitting-a silent black and white, anti-creation Hungarian film. I prefer expositional documentaries where I learn about something, but this documentary is a combination of poetic, observational, participatory and reflective since Ross is a part of his film, and as he gradually becomes a part of the community, the story of their collective lives begins to move to the forefront without any artificial prose dumps that explain the entire psychological and historical makeup of those before the camera. There is reality and film, and Ross tries to make film more into reality, not squeeze reality to fit film.
Hale County This Morning, This Evening is not for everyone, even if you are artsy fartsy like me and up for a challenge like me. If your instinct is to be mocking and react as if you could have made this film, then probably do not bother to watch it, but if you are open to correction, recognize that you could not because you did not. You never lived somewhere for ten years, became a part of people’s lives while filming, editing then making a film which garnered the attention and praise of many.