Dancing Outlaw DVD

Jesco has been a part of our family get togethers for years on an old VHS tape. This year we have upgraded to DVD and I couldnt be more pleased! This is a great story and Jesco is the most interesting fellow! Our family watches this together and laughs like we have never seen it before! Its a great tradition and a great DVD!

I've had this on a VHS tape for several years and I've noticed people are either horrifed or love this documentary. I've noticed the break is sort similar to feelings about Shelby Lee Adams photography.

I like this film- it's got great dancing and the mud bog scene always makes me smile (and everyone else who has ever mud bogged!)On the otherhand I've got redneck relatives who won't watch it for fear of being offended....
Violence, alcoholism, exploitation, and poverty of all sorts exist on every socio-economic level- and I guess if that's what you want to latch onto when you watch this- then you'll be offended-
For myself, I see Jesco as someone who is really passionate about what he's doing-he's pretty good at it, and he defies sterotypes- I think the last thing you can say about this guy is he's not true to himself-
Check out "Tater Tomater" too if you like this :)

After reading the reviews and awards this documentary has received I was excited to watch it with a friend for whom I'd gotten as a gift. After seeing it I was embarrassed at my selection. Neither of us found the poverty, ignorance, and alcoholism that envelopes this hillbilly culture remotely entertaining. Pitiful is more the word for it. Jesco isn't anyone we can identify or empathize with either as a person or for his struggle live up to his father's talent which he obviously didn't inherit. Jesco talks in retrospect about his wilder days which, by the time this film was made, were long over. Jesco sits surrounded by his Elvis paraphenalia with nothing much interesting to say at this point. Jesco on the porch of his trailer talking about his squirrel rifle. Ya. The real story here would have been about Jesco's father who was tragically murdered in a dispute with neighbors. You don't have to know anything about this style of mountain dancing to know he was the true master of it. As a final note, perhaps mercifully or not, this film is way too short. In the version I bought there are some boring outtakes and a Part 2 where Jesco goes to Hollywood to appear on Rosanne. I guess Tom Arnold thought this was good.

For the uninitiated, this is a documentary about Jesco White, "the last of the mountain dancers," and his wild and crazy family. This little acre of Mulletland is pervaded by gasoline huffin', whiskey drinkin', shotgun shootin' madness, as well as loyalty to family, love for Elvis and naivete about just what the filmmaker, Jacob Young, is doing.

"The Dancing Outlaw" is a masterpiece in a genre all its own. Its strength is found in the tension between the absolute hilarity of the dialogue from its main characters (Jesco, Norma Rae, Mayme, Birty Mae and Dorsey) and the guilt one feels about having fun at someone else's expense. It is uncomfortable for most of us to like people and laugh at them at the same time, but it is a powerful mix perfected in this gem. Guilty pleasures are sometimes the best ones, right?

Phrases, sentences, and stories from "The Dancing Outlaw" will stick in your mind for years to come. I guess you could call this genre "comedic ethnography," as it comes in a public TV, Appalachian anthropology package. But seriously folks, no one watches this to learn tap dancing steps...

I am proud to have tracked Jesse, Mayme and kin down in Boone County back in 1994, and spent an enjoyable afternoon with them. Friendly folks with great stories and a penchant for unforgettable conversation. I didnt even get shot at. In the neck, I mean.

Jesco had a brief shot at stardom (he guested on "Roseanne" back in the 90s), but it seems fame and fortune have now passed him by. It is a shame that he and the White clan (and Jacob Young, for that matter) did not profit more from this wonderful film.

I noticed two main differences between the "Dancing Outlaw" DVD with "Dancing Outlaw II" by Jacob Young and the original documentary as shown on WV public television. In the original, when Jesse is relating the "tragety" of the shooting that killed D.Ray and wounded Dorsey and Jesse, he says "That was the first time I had been shot in the neck before." The DVD has a different cut in which Jesse leaves out "before". The second difference I noticed was that Bertie May, in the first version said about D. Ray "He knew 52 more steps than any other." That was the whole sentence. In the DVD a different take is used in which she says "He knew 52 more steps than any other mountain dancer." Better English but both changes take away the quirky eccentricity of the original versions.

They seem like minor differences but to us purists they are significant.

For the uninitiated, just don't watch "Dancing Outlaw II, Jessco Goes to Hollywood." It will destroy the fresh honesty that still shows through in the new "Dancing Outlaw."