Homemade Hillbilly Jam (2005) User Reviews

Now I'm going to learn to play the washboard

[nick-pett664 · 3 February 2006]

What an excellent film ! You could criticise it for a couple of minutes for a vague-at-best sense of direction, but really you should just sit back and soak it all up. Mark Bilyeu makes a wonderful centrepoint for the film: combining gentle humour with deep feeling about his home and his family. He has a lovely voice to boot, and his music, whether solo or as part of Big Smith, is much like the man (and very good). He is backed in the film, as in the band, by his charming, and huge, cousins. What else ? The close-harmony family singing was beautiful and uplifting, and the sense of community and tradition inspiring. All of this soundtracked with music that was by turns haunting, ancient, raucous, comic, patriotic, and deeply religious. This film, taken together with Search for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, which i also saw at the NFT, compered by Jim White himself, has opened my eyes to America, beyond the terrifyingly narrow-minded view that many Europeans hold of the country, and its countryside people. Now I'm going to go out and find a washboard...

I disagree...This was a fantastic film!

[bredala_leidel · 10/10 · 12 June 2008]

The point of this film was not to present a scientific cross-section of the hillbilly or Ozark music genre, so it is not a question of being narrow-minded. The film instead attempted to focus upon one extended family group known to people around the world as ambassadors for Ozark hillbilly music. It then begins to trace the branches of the family tree back through generations to the very roots. It portrays how the past, in turn, serves as inspiration to the newer generations. The resulting present-day torch carriers are enlightened, intelligent, well-educated, and unswervingly faithful to their roots.

The purposeful effect of this indie film was to give the viewer a feel for the depth and breadth of the past- and present-day life in a group that's highly representative of the Ozark music mindset. It strategically places anecdotal storytelling, old family photos, and fly-on-the-wall perspective at family gatherings and music jams. The film acquaints the viewer with the stories of branches in a family tree that have either diverged or converged, the latter effectively polishing the face of the past and finding ways to making it new again. And as a result, the viewer finds himself immersed in a situation that has the feel of being invited in to the hearth of an Ozark home, and made to feel like one of the family. It's warm, inviting, and refreshing--all the way down to your roots.

Excellent music; so-so documentary

[robotech · 6/10 · 29 August 2006]

I have been a fan of Big Smith's music for a while; I originally got started listening out of curiosity because I knew that my family and the Bilyeu family had been in a blood feud about a hundred years ago, and I found Big Smith's live concert recordings which had been made available through archive.org's eTree concert-tapes archive. I found I greatly enjoyed their music. Unlike the pasteurized, homogenized stuff that passes for country music these days, Big Smith plays the real, old-folksy stuff. It's music with heart.

I just got finished watching Homemade Hillbilly Jam at the Moxie, the local art theater in Springfield, Missouri--Big Smith's hometown. (After the show, Big Smith themselves came out, answered questions, and played a few songs for the sold-out audience.) I did enjoy the movie, for the chance to see and hear Big Smith performing, but I felt that as a documentary it really could have used a better narrative structure. In the end I'm not sure I really learned all that much about Big Smith beyond that they're hillbillies (or "neo-hillbillies"), have a strong religious and family life, and sing some darned good music. I would have liked to hear more about how they got started performing together, what their musical influences are beyond the folk and gospel music that was a part of their upbringing, and what their overall career has been like.

It's a great film for Big Smith fans. I'm just not sure how much non-fans will get out of it.

a little bit of a disappointment

[fnorful · 5/10 · 28 March 2006]

This hillbilly study is reasonably good, but suffers from being too narrow a view of the culture and the music. I love the occasional folk performer and have been to folk festivals, but this had way too much religion for my taste and not enough musical variety.

There are a few nice performances, and certainly a fair amount of heart and sincerity. More insights into the history could have been given, not just the verbal accounts of the central characters.

In a documentary it's always a balance of presenting an even view versus a biased one. It's easy to be unbiased if you simply don't tell much of a story, if the camera is just along for the ride. It's where many documenters start; I hope Minnich brings more to the screen in his next effort.

pretty bad.

[plover4 · 3/10 · 14 August 2006]

The film maker did very little with what could have been an interesting subject. While the theme of what constitutes a 'neo hillbillies' was fairly pervasive, it was poorly explored. While the cultural black hole of Branson was covered in depth, scarce mention (if any)was made of nearby Springfield, which has likely had more influence over the band itself and the 'hillbilly transformation' as a whole. It seemed as if the film maker intentionally ignored this possibility so that his finished product would more cleanly coincide with his own concept of what hillbillies are and were.He also put a great burden on Big Smith's music- perhaps he was aiming for an Amadeus style unseen character- but the result on screen did not translate as such. Big Smith is a fantastic band, but their music was used either to reassert the director's concepts of what the Ozarks are (which again could have been done well)or to simply glaze over gaps in his logic. Which were many.If this film had not had an attractive backdrop and a number of articulate subjects it would have been unwatchable.