'COUNTRY BOYS' PBS documentary reveals human face of poverty

By CHARLIE McCOLLUM
SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS
The genesis of David Sutherland's extraordinary documentary miniseries "Country Boys" took place seven years ago in a screening room.
Sutherland had finished editing "The Farmer's Wife," his critically acclaimed documentary from 1998 that followed Juanita and Darrel Buschkoetter through their struggles to save their farm in Nebraska. Before airing the series, PBS decided to show it to a focus group and, Sutherland recalls, "someone said the Buschkoetters didn't look poor."
"And I thought to myself, 'What does poor look like?' People have this perception of poor people and how they should be. The comment reminded me of the covers of Life and Look on Appalachia and poverty in America back in the late 1950s."
Sutherland decided to "put a face on something most of us just ignore" -- modern-day rural poverty. But along the way, the film evolved from what he originally envisioned into a coming-of-age story involving two teenage boys from the small eastern Kentucky town of Prestonsburg.
Complex portrait
While poverty and life in the "hollers" of Appalachia remain a subtext in the piece, the struggles and triumphs of Cody Perkins and Chris Johnson -- and the complexity of their lives -- are what provide the drama and emotional impact of the six-hour, three-night "Country Boys."
Sutherland followed the two for the three years leading to their high school graduation, capturing moments small and large. There are times of tragedy (the deaths of family members), family turmoil (Johnson's father was an alcoholic) and pure love (the strong relationship between Perkins and his grandmother). The two young men go through struggles and triumphs in school, get their first jobs, have their first sexual experiences and gradually start to emerge as the adults they will become.
Initially, Sutherland met some resistance among those he approached about his film. That was particularly the case with David Greene, the founder and director of the David School, the alternative school that Perkins and Johnson attended.
Concerns
"I had seen where camera crews had come through Appalachia with an agenda, with a particular focus," Greene says. "And more often over the years, the media in general seemed to be reinforcing the stereotype of Appalachia and really weren't looking for a balanced view, like they could looking through Cody's eyes and Chris' eyes." Greene was concerned that the filmmakers "would see only the despair and the failure, not the hope and the success."
But after Sutherland screened "The Farmer's Wife" for him, Greene changed his mind and agreed to cooperate, letting film crews into his school.
Perkins and Johnson, who were 15 when Sutherland began filming, acknowledge they signed on for the project at least partly out of boredom. But there were other reasons.
"I figured giving a little of myself to someone else would make me feel better about myself," Johnson says. "And a lot of times it did."
X"Country Boys" airs at 9 p.m. Monday through Wednesday on PBS channels 45/49.