Much like the formation of coal deep within the earth, Appalachian native Elaine McMillion Sheldon forms an eloquently layered piece of creative nonfiction, weighed down under mountains of history and threaded by a river of shining narration in her documentary, King Coal. In it, she elevates coal beyond crude natural resource, signifying its powerful resonance throughout rural Appalachia.
Appalachia is often the butt of the joke, a poor region situated in the long mountain range that snakes up from Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, through the Carolinas, West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky Pennsylvania, and finds its resting place in New York. Coal is king in the towns Sheldon visits. Her narration and imagery (with beautiful cinematography by Curren Sheldon) create a thickly folkloric atmosphere; the story of coal is told as one might hear a fairy tale before bed. Coal was once a powerful king in his kingdom, making the rest of the country rich while those who toiled in the mines lost their lives. Coal created the middle class in the United States. Coal established unions and labor rights. Coal built towns, funded education. Coal pollutes our rivers and chokes our lungs until we can’t breathe. Coal is dirty energy. Coal is responsible for natural disasters.
Sheldon could paint coal as a greedy, hungry monarch. But coal is just coal. Coal is what people make of it. Sheldon’s attention to the communities the film visits brings this into sharp focus. Two little girls run a thread through the film, vibrant and young, juxtaposed against the patina of the rural town they live in. They are there for various public events: the crowning of the Coal Queen, the funeral for coal, a local festival, a memorial to coal miners who were lost in the mines. They are also shown in their private spaces: dancing, playing, walking in the creek, and talking about their dreams for the future. Dreams that do not involve the mines, but dreams that wouldn’t be possible without them.
Death hangs in the air of King Coal. Sheldon revisits her “Pawpaw,” her grandfather, a man who digs graves and holds fast to the superstitions of the region. Pawpaw repeats throughout, an image of an ancient-looking man puttering about the house.. He keeps a record of where all the bones are buried, and understands the traditions of an Appalachian death. Stop the clocks, turn the mirrors, open the windows, toll the bells, build the casket. Pawpaw is a grounding force. These traditions are enacted during a funeral for King Coal. In one of many creative and conceptual scenes, black-clad mourners walk through the mountains to lay the king to rest. The narrator ominously says, “King’s ghost will haunt our dreams unless we say goodbye.”
As meditative as King Coal is, it still thrums with tension. Sheldon talks about both the miracle of coal and the subsequent exploitation of the region. Exploitation which disproportionately hurt the people of color working in the mines. Exploitation that dried up towns and starved populations. Coal was a once-powerful figure. Now it is a specter haunting the mountain mist. Sheldon keeps this tension tight by ignoring any strict structure or narrative. The film weaves together myriad imagery and sound. There are long shots of mountain vistas and rivers, dancing of young girls, the rare interview here and there, families walking around festivals and pageants, memorials, laughter, traditional mining songs, and a score rife with deep drumbeats. The audience is left to wonder what will come next in the fairy tale, a fairy tale that is rife with moral ambiguities.
King Coal is a haunting documentary and a powerful exercise in remembering a region whose identity has been coated in thick, dark dust.
Author Biography
Kathryn Fulp is a North Carolina native and current MFA in Filmmaking student at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. As a photographer and filmmaker, her focus is on familial relationships, religion and folklore, mental health, and queer southern culture.
Film Details
King Coal (2023)
United States
Director Elaine McMillion Sheldon
Runtime 80 minutes
