The Last Hillbilly (2020) Movie Script
1
It was summer of 2016
It was the time of the wild roses
when the air flows thick
with perfume
and the deer were thick
on the ground
Every deer road a highway
every tall patch of grass
wallowed flat in their dreaming
And the flies prospered with them
Feasting on blood
That was more than they could drink
But then
All at once
All the waters were thick with deer
They went to water
when the fever set down
They lay in the water
They died in the water
Burning with fever
Tongues thick in their mouths
With thirst and fire and fear
They drank
They tried to drink
Then they could drink no more.
This land is the land
of old Kentucky
Its name was handed down
from old times
before Europeans came
In old times in old Kentucky
the wilderness was tamed
Oh people they lived here
long before our people came
our ancestors took this land
from the people who were here
And in the taking of this land
our ancestors killed
more than souls
In the taking of the land
our ancestors extinguished nations
They were sent as strangers
to a dark and bloody continent
Our ancestors carried us here
in their dreams
They were abandoned and alone
a world away from home
Our ancestors are those who came
and those who came before
There is a history,
a geography,
a culture bound together
in an identity
The place and the people
are entangled
so as to create a unified whole.
If the one is removed from
the other the whole is broken
If the place and people are
separated the identity is destroyed
Since before I was born
people have been leaving the land
The population of the county
of Kentucky that I was born in
has not grown by as much as
a single person in a single year
The land is being emptied out
of the people that belong to it
This is either a goal
or a consequence of progress
that families and houses are broken
and scattered to the wind
that people cannot get
their subsistence from the land,
that their settlements suffer
a long slow painful wasting death
Thusly do we progress
and towards what?
They called me
one to tell about
his new silver teeth,
one to tell about his blue ribbon
and the red one he got
They both yelled into the phone
like a couple of cats fucking
Too excited to speak slowly,
clearly, or one at a time
Fighting like brothers
do and should
Just to speak
Just to be heard by me
They told me about their
girlfriends, kittens and puppies
Then she told them
it was time to say goodbye
Tomorrow they will come
and play in the creek by my house
and the woods it runs through
and the three new kittens
I found under the fence.
Ill follow them and their cousins
and their dogs and all
Tomorrow night I'll sit
on the porch
after theyve gone to bed
and I'll smoke a cigarette
and fear for their lives.
'Cause to have children is
to ache with fear.
To have a heart that whines
like a bitch for her pups.
To love and be loved
and fear for that love.
Come on girls!
I wanna to say it's a piece of wood
but I don't know
It' s a calf.
Good job.
I believe that's what that is.
I know it is.
Thats a damn shame.
Bull or heifer? Bull.
Yep, bull.
Maybe the brother I lost
haunts my love for my sons
Cause I had a brother
and I lost him
I lost him
And my father was terrified
by the loss
But my sons didnt bring him back
Please God let them keep each other
Please dont let love maim them
Please let the burden stay with me
Let me be the one to worry
in silence while they dream
Grandma, can you get me
something to eat?
Didn't you have breakfast?
It's my birthday, I want brownies!
Is uncle Five here?
He didn't say
what they were going to go.
He's gonna take Austin if he puts
a shirt on. You know how that is
It's my birthday, let's do something
else beside running around!
You're scared, you're a baby!
It's creepy!
Tiger!
You might want to keep him
away from Tiger.
Austin, faster!
Go, hurry!
-Katie!
-Hurry!
I gotta get my whole body
in the creek like you!
Oh my God!
So you want to know
about hillbillies
Well, you do, and you dont.
Because you already know
about hillbillies.
You have all the stories
that you tell,
you have all the books
that you read
Everybody knows that
were ignorant,
were uneducated,
were poor,
that were violent, racist,
inbred.
And its all true.
Every stereotype is stuck
in the 30s.
Every hillbilly is a coal miner.
Every hillbilly rides a mule,
wears overalls...
Its all true.
Hillbilly is a word thats stuck
in the past.
Mired down in it.
It's a word with a present.
And that present,
it's a popular word
You know were responsible
for Trump
and all that mess.
If you listen to the news anyway.
But these days they say
the meaning of the word
Kentucky is Land of Tomorrow.
Its kind of a cruel joke,
cause hillbilly is a word
that doesnt have a lot of future
attached to it.
These days people have a hard time
seeing much of a future.
'Cause the coal is all gone
and it's not coming back.
People wish it would,
and they kick and they scream
and they claw
and they do all they can,
they want to bring it back
It's not coming back.
But then what?
What do you do when something that
your whole image is based around
is gone, for good.
Where do you go after that?
I tell you what we ought to do,
go down the hill with it there
thatll keep them from going over.
Right down to the bottom
of that flat there, maybe.
If they go down out there,
they gonna run into the fence.
He didn't hear anything.
-They gonna come all the way down.
-This is a bad idea
You reckon that'll work?
I don't know.
You hear what I said?
-Yeah If you wanna run it
down there, run it.
I wish Id get something other
to clean them up better.
I dont know
what you can use on them.
You cant really put oil on them.
They got a lot of
nicotine on them!
Probably the best thing to do,
just take a rag and rub them a lot.
Where'd you get these mounted?
Them right there?
Look when it was mounted.
86.
Its been a while.
The first deer Dad ever killed.
In Owen County.
Thats the one I killed
in Long Fork.
-Was I with you when you?
-No, Ronald was with me.
You was with me
when I shot that one.
You killed this one.
I killed that one
and Dad killed that one.
And James killed that one
over there.
-What's been going on, man?
-Workin'.
Supposed to get started
on the house, but
The boys come down this weekend,
I'm gonna burn all that.
They'd be wanting
a big hot dog roast anyway.
What are you gonna do to it?
I'm gonna come 14 more foot
out this way
for a living room, the bedroom
and the bathroom.
How many bedrooms would that be?
It'd be 3 bedrooms altogether.
You're gonna move
the living room out?
The living room's gonna be
right there next to the driveway.
I'm gonna use maple
for my flooring.
I cut Harold some beech
maple porch posts.
He's gonna put new posts
on his porch?
He needs to
-Dogs have pissed on them
-Rusted them off the concrete.
I got tomatoes
-Planted in horse shit?
-Yeah.
Tomatoes, cucumbers,
peas here, cantaloupe there.
I've got watermelon behind here.
I planted a whole pack of pumpkins
up there on the hill.
Where'd you get the stone?
The gravestone.
Dad got it from Hindman Monument.
Rachel got Dad's in Havendale's.
I got to build the form up to
-To set them on?
-Yeah.
Do you just pour a slab?
You make a concrete slab
and set the base on.
98, huh?
He died, I think it was
What day was it? June?
July 30th.
Cheyenne was born May 1, 1998.
He died a couple months after her.
Where the doors from?
Me and Rick tore down
a two-story house in the winter.
I got some fresh doors out of it.
These are insulated, ain't they?
They're gonna go in my bedroom
to the outside, to the porch.
That'd be nice.
I'm gonna come back
and deck them out.
I've gotta put some
brown stain on them.
I don't know
It might set it off really.
You got white windows.
They're gonna be trimmed out
in the same color as the roof.
Are you gonna change the roof
or leave it like that?
It's got to be just flip flopped.
And maybe
Add another story later?
Hell no. It's just me and the boys.
They'll be grown up
in a couple of years.
That's when you'll want
your party pad ready again.
Fuck. The party's over with.
I'm busted up
and broke all to hell.
-I can't hardly party much
-I've had too many parties.
It'll kill you
This cliff rock got the best of me
Right there is high
as I'll let them go.
That's high enough really.
We used to climb
this little crack here.
I remember that.
I don't even remember
how you get up at the top anymore.
You have to turn around
Your foot, your hand, and you sit
your little ass up in that.
When you stood up
in that little hole there,
you turn your fist around,
so when you got out of that hole,
that ledge there was just right up.
You just reach up and grab it.
And just pull yourself on up.
A thousand wonders we survived
We shouldn't be alive here.
We should be dead.
StarFire, they just quit about
a quarter mile back there.
They was wanting to use this
as an access road for the trucks.
They was gonna take the top
of the mountain off back there.
Dad agreed to it,
but they had to stay 200 foot
away from the cemetery.
But they wanted to keep
within 50 foot of it.
-That's too close.
-Dad was afraid of
The grave slipping off.
So they never did get to do it.
2 or 3 years after that,
I think the mine shut down anyway.
You got a midget golf club, too.
There's 3 more around somewhere.
Where'd these come from?
To tell you the truth
I don't really know.
I had a friend
who beat his wife
because he hated himself.
And he beat his wife
to the point that one night
he shot her in the leg,
he shot her one time
through the side,
and then he blew his brains out.
I had a friend
who knocked a dog in the head
with a ball peen hammer
for killing chickens.
I had a friend who drove
a coal truck
for years and years
And every day
he'd buy a fifth of Jim Beam,
unscrew the cap, and throw it away.
He'd drive his coal truck,
drunk as a skunk all day long.
I have friends who went to college,
moved away, never came back.
It's supposed to rain all night
and all day tomorrow.
It rained hard this morning. Rough.
I have friends who went to college,
moved away,
then they came back.
'Cause they couldn't leave.
' Cause they belonged here in a way
that they couldn't cut off,
that they couldn't
dig out of themselves.
I thought about you today
I almost went to look for you
On the hill between the methadone
and the Suboxone
And the less respectable stuff
But you never woke
on the first day of spring
So I buried that part of me again
That part that dies again and again
But wont stay buried with you
[] Amazing Grace,
How sweet the sound
That saved a wreck like me!
I once was lost, but now am found.
Was blind but now I see
When weve been there
ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
Weve no less days
to sing Gods praise
Than when we first begun.
Amazing grace,
How sweet that sound,
That saved a wreck, like me!
I once was lost,
but now am found,
Was blind,
but now I see. []
That's about all
you gonna get today.
I can't go back to church.
Its over.
I went and I quit, and that's over.
Oh my gosh!
Carolina, look!
Bobby's up here.
Who's Bobby?
Bobby, our cat. It's supposed to be
down at the house.
Cool.
If the horses were here,
we could groom the horses
and then ride the horses.
I want to get in the grain wagon!
Oh my gosh
What? It's awesome.
No. It's the opposite.
I bet there's just
a little bit in it.
Enough to where I can
I'm not sure though.
What are you talking about?
Grain wagon.
There's none!
There is none in it.
No wonder they're getting no food.
-There's nothing to do.
-That's a lie.
That's so true.
The only thing there is to do
is sleep and walk.
That's plenty to do.
Two things!
I wanna to go drive again.
Horses!
Rabbit!
Can I drive?
Katie, where are we going?
I don't know.
Straight.
Got to give it a little more gas.
Not that much!
You said give it gas!
I'm bored.
I'm bored, bored, bored-ity bored.
Bo-bored bored.
Never ending boredness.
Why are you doing this?
-If you rub two rocks together
-You can make sparks.
No, they get smooth.
-What?
-They get smooth.
You can take 2 rocks
and polish both rocks.
Do you guys want to try
to call for coyotes?
Are you sure they're that way?
I'm not sure, but
if you yell at the right place,
it'll echo.
Try to aim right at this hill.
Make your hands a little more open.
-Real open.
-Like that?
Yeah.
Did you hear it?
I heard mine.
I don't think
they're over there today.
Knock knock, wolfies!
Maybe they will be later.
Coyotes
You wanna know
how they stripped all these?
They blew it up.
-Dynamite.
-That was a joke!
That's how they did it.
They use big drills, like the ones
they use to drill gas wells.
They drill like 60 or 40 feet down
or however deep
-they want to put a shot off.
-Or 100 feet.
And they fill it
totally full of explosives.
They do that about 50 or 60 times
and they put off a big shot,
it blows a big section
of the mountain.
And they just haul it away.
You know Grandpa
stripped most of this.
I think he worked over there,
that's a Starfire mine.
They came and cleave, then Bronson
worked over there for a while.
It seems like this one is HanCo.
I think he worked there
when he was younger.
You can't really see it from here
Yep, it's coal.
That's how long it took
One lifetime,
they stripped all this.
Until it's pretty well done.
There's nothing left to strip.
There's more coal and stuff but
It's not enough
to pay for stripping anymore.
They took all the land!
It changed the entire landscape.
You can look
and it changed
the entire population.
Hundreds of thousands of people
were displaced when they came in
and started land grabbing.
A lot came out of it
it made America
a global superpower,
an empire and all that.
So THEY got something out of it.
When you ask what something's worth
ask who it's worth something to.
I don't think the people here
got all that much out of it.
About 3 generations of work
is what it ended up being.
But 3 generations of work
got turned into our whole
history for hundreds of years,
which doesn't actually add up
We got about a hundred years
of coal mining.
It totally changed everything.
We went from mountaineers,
with all these courageous,
independent pioneers,
settling in the mountains
to a bunch of dirty coal miners,
of ignorant out of work hillbillies
in 3 generations.
-The wolves are calling us!
-Might be coyotes over there.
Guys, I know it's fun but get off!
It's not fun
if somebody loses an eye!
Or if somebody is vaporized!
Don't fall in the fire here
I think it's catching now.
It's getting bigger.
It's getting bigger and bigger.
Watch out Austin.
Sorry.
You okay?
Let me see.
Where did it get you?
You're not gonna lose any toes.
You're not gonna lose any toes.
Austin
I know it hurts,
but you gotta be tough.
You gotta be tough.
That's not even the foot
that got hurt.
I'm just feeling it.
You're just scared.
You got a pretty big knot there.
You got a bruise.
A big one?
It's a bruise.
Main thing, listen
Look at me.
You gotta be tough.
Can you stand up?
If we're lucky and it's been
a hundred years, guess what?
-Solar eclipse?
-No, a star will explode.
It's a million years
before a star is born.
But it's a hundred years
before one
Dad's coming!
-Hello!
-Hey Dad!
Dad, I wish we had a Gameboy
Like me and Aaron
When I was a kid, we shot deer.
You know why?
Because our people have been
shooting deer for the last
thousand fucking years.
That's why.
My Dad did it because his Dad and
his great granddad did it
But, it's meat.
-Dad, I have a question.
-Listen to the end. Okay?
Maybe at one point
it meant something
There was a reason
because we were hungry and poor.
Not "we", specifically us,
but "we" as a family, as a group.
We were poor, we were hungry,
and shooting deer made sense.
But now we do it
because we always did it,
because we don't know
what else to do.
And because if we don't do it
we're not who we are anymore.
Dad?
What?
My back's starting to hurt
and I'm getting really thirsty.
Sit down and listen.
-Dad, I have a question.
-What?
Have guns been around for
Guns have only been around
for not very long.
Guns are a new thing.
You know what else is new?
You know what else is a new thing?
Every fucking thing you love
is a new thing.
Everything you love,
everything you do all day.
I didn't have that as a kid.
That was all invented
in the last 10, 15 years.
Before you were born. You'll never
know another world.
For me, it was very different
when I was born.
All this shit is very new.
It seems perfectly normal to you,
but it's kind of crazy to me.
I grew up in a world
where we grew our own food,
we shot deer, and it was the 1990s.
That's fucking weird, right?
In the 1990s the rest of America
didn't grow their own food
or shoot deer and shit.
What?
What was the damn it.
Exactly.
-I remember!
-What?
You didn't have dogs
or bikes back then?
We had dogs.
-How about bikes?
-We had bikes.
Bikes have been around
a long fucking time.
Try to pay attention.
All this stuff that you love,
Nintendo, smartphones, tablets, TV,
all this shit is very new.
And it's not going to last.
There's going to be an end
to this shit.
There's going to be a point
where this shit stops.
How?
I don't know.
I can't tell the future,
but I can tell you about the past,
and the past is dull.
Compared to today,
its boring as shit.
Your Grandma and Grandpa
are wonderful people now,
They're so bubbly and friendly
and great.
When I was a kid,
they were strict as fuck.
Now they're soft, they're great,
they're wonderful people.
They're modern human beings.
But when I was a kid,
they were getting over
being like cavemen and shit.
Everybody had to get over that
because they were cavemen
right up until I was born.
Then I was born and
the new world happened.
And there was still cavemen
walking around and shit.
That sounds fun!
You know what? It was.
It was a great childhood.
I'm the last Hillbilly.
You know why?
I was the last free kid in America.
You kids are trapped
in YouTube, in your smart phones,
on whatever your game is,
or the Korean videos.
You're trapped by all that.
You'll never be able to put it down
and walk away.
-What?
-I'm really thirsty!
The house is right there.
When I was a kid, it wasnt
a big deal to walk that far.
-But I'm scared.
-You don't have to stay here.
Go get some water.
Aaron, Jesus Christ.
Somebody walk him to the house.
-Come on, Aaron.
-Katie will bring you up.
I'll be back down.
-It's going to be okay.
-Come on!
Whatever it is, it's gonna be okay.
Austin broke his foot,
he didn't cry that much.
-He didn't break his foot!
-He broke his foot.
It's black, it's swelling up.
I think he broke a toe at least.
Damn
I wanna live right up there.
Okay.
It's pretty, I mean.
I do not see myself living here.
I like the city more.
You seem like you'd look good
in California.
I feel like the city would be
boring for me.
I feel like everybody in the city
would hate me.
Because, one thing,
I talk different.
I remember when you "firsht"
Firsht?
When you "firsht" came here
When you FIRST came here
you could barely understand me.
You honestly could not
understand me.
I still can't sometimes.
-See?
-I just pretend like I do.
I feel like nobody would know
what I was talking about.
But if I was to stay here,
I would probably
there's a couple job options.
There's like a restaurant,
which is not that good of a job.
There's a teacher,
that's an okay job.
I feel like I would be a teacher
so I could be nice
so everybody would love me.
There's a pharmacist
or like in the medical field
I'm not that smart.
There's like lawyers, I guess.
I feel I'd probably be a lawyer
if I was to stay here.
Being a doctor would be okay, but
you gotta go to school for that
You gotta go to school for
everything that pays good money!
That doesn't pay good money.
Not to be a farmer, you don't.
It does! If you have cows you sell
that's pretty good money.
If I have to, I'll whoop him.
"I will die in my own nest
and multiply my days
as the sand.
My roots will have access to water,
and the dew will
rest on my
branches all night."
"My whole being will
be refreshed within me
and my
bow will be
renewed
in my hand."
"I was eyes to the blind
and feet to the lame."
I'm making a hurricane!
"Is there no end
to your
empty words?"
One more.
You're scared.
-I did like this!
-No.
That don't count. It has to be
like this to be scissors.
You get it?
I'll try if it don't swim away.
It won't swim.
Give me a stick and I'll do it.
You have to touch it
with your hands!
-We never said that.
-We did.
-We said we had to pick it up
-With your hands!
Get on it!
That's a big fish.
It's a big gross fish.
I got it.
-I'll bring it towards the land.
-Its eyes popped!
No, it's not.
Eyes aren't popped.
It probably died of natural causes.
Probably died of heart failure.
What if it was just passed out
and we killed it?
Happy birthday to you!
We're here today,
for this fish named
-Roger?
-No, Edward!
For this fish named Edward.
He was a good fish.
He died from either natural causes
or a head injury.
We don't know yet,
but we're working on it.
-Looks like a head injury.
-Austin, you can sing now.
Oh, this was a good fish!
But unfortunately he died
Austin, one at a time.
Get off!
I look stupid with a fish.
Look, this is my attack!
To be honest,
that would probably hurt a lot.
Come on, camera man!
Chopped its head off.
That's technically my fish.
No, I found it first.
But I touched it with my hand
a lot more.
I touched him
more than you know.
You didn't take it out
of the water. I did.
-But you did it with sticks.
-But I did and you didn't.
This should be deep enough?
Now let the burial begin!
Rest in peace, Edward III.
Of natural causes cause of death.
Fuck the ones in space!
Fuck the ones on the moon!
Fuck the ones on Neptune!
Fuck the ones in other galaxies!
Fuck the ones on Pluto!
Fuck the ones that are aliens!
Aliens are real!
Fuck everything
I have no control
over a fucking tornado
And I can hardly stop.
Help me!
It was summer of 2016
It was the time of the wild roses
when the air flows thick
with perfume
and the deer were thick
on the ground
Every deer road a highway
every tall patch of grass
wallowed flat in their dreaming
And the flies prospered with them
Feasting on blood
That was more than they could drink
But then
All at once
All the waters were thick with deer
They went to water
when the fever set down
They lay in the water
They died in the water
Burning with fever
Tongues thick in their mouths
With thirst and fire and fear
They drank
They tried to drink
Then they could drink no more.
This land is the land
of old Kentucky
Its name was handed down
from old times
before Europeans came
In old times in old Kentucky
the wilderness was tamed
Oh people they lived here
long before our people came
our ancestors took this land
from the people who were here
And in the taking of this land
our ancestors killed
more than souls
In the taking of the land
our ancestors extinguished nations
They were sent as strangers
to a dark and bloody continent
Our ancestors carried us here
in their dreams
They were abandoned and alone
a world away from home
Our ancestors are those who came
and those who came before
There is a history,
a geography,
a culture bound together
in an identity
The place and the people
are entangled
so as to create a unified whole.
If the one is removed from
the other the whole is broken
If the place and people are
separated the identity is destroyed
Since before I was born
people have been leaving the land
The population of the county
of Kentucky that I was born in
has not grown by as much as
a single person in a single year
The land is being emptied out
of the people that belong to it
This is either a goal
or a consequence of progress
that families and houses are broken
and scattered to the wind
that people cannot get
their subsistence from the land,
that their settlements suffer
a long slow painful wasting death
Thusly do we progress
and towards what?
They called me
one to tell about
his new silver teeth,
one to tell about his blue ribbon
and the red one he got
They both yelled into the phone
like a couple of cats fucking
Too excited to speak slowly,
clearly, or one at a time
Fighting like brothers
do and should
Just to speak
Just to be heard by me
They told me about their
girlfriends, kittens and puppies
Then she told them
it was time to say goodbye
Tomorrow they will come
and play in the creek by my house
and the woods it runs through
and the three new kittens
I found under the fence.
Ill follow them and their cousins
and their dogs and all
Tomorrow night I'll sit
on the porch
after theyve gone to bed
and I'll smoke a cigarette
and fear for their lives.
'Cause to have children is
to ache with fear.
To have a heart that whines
like a bitch for her pups.
To love and be loved
and fear for that love.
Come on girls!
I wanna to say it's a piece of wood
but I don't know
It' s a calf.
Good job.
I believe that's what that is.
I know it is.
Thats a damn shame.
Bull or heifer? Bull.
Yep, bull.
Maybe the brother I lost
haunts my love for my sons
Cause I had a brother
and I lost him
I lost him
And my father was terrified
by the loss
But my sons didnt bring him back
Please God let them keep each other
Please dont let love maim them
Please let the burden stay with me
Let me be the one to worry
in silence while they dream
Grandma, can you get me
something to eat?
Didn't you have breakfast?
It's my birthday, I want brownies!
Is uncle Five here?
He didn't say
what they were going to go.
He's gonna take Austin if he puts
a shirt on. You know how that is
It's my birthday, let's do something
else beside running around!
You're scared, you're a baby!
It's creepy!
Tiger!
You might want to keep him
away from Tiger.
Austin, faster!
Go, hurry!
-Katie!
-Hurry!
I gotta get my whole body
in the creek like you!
Oh my God!
So you want to know
about hillbillies
Well, you do, and you dont.
Because you already know
about hillbillies.
You have all the stories
that you tell,
you have all the books
that you read
Everybody knows that
were ignorant,
were uneducated,
were poor,
that were violent, racist,
inbred.
And its all true.
Every stereotype is stuck
in the 30s.
Every hillbilly is a coal miner.
Every hillbilly rides a mule,
wears overalls...
Its all true.
Hillbilly is a word thats stuck
in the past.
Mired down in it.
It's a word with a present.
And that present,
it's a popular word
You know were responsible
for Trump
and all that mess.
If you listen to the news anyway.
But these days they say
the meaning of the word
Kentucky is Land of Tomorrow.
Its kind of a cruel joke,
cause hillbilly is a word
that doesnt have a lot of future
attached to it.
These days people have a hard time
seeing much of a future.
'Cause the coal is all gone
and it's not coming back.
People wish it would,
and they kick and they scream
and they claw
and they do all they can,
they want to bring it back
It's not coming back.
But then what?
What do you do when something that
your whole image is based around
is gone, for good.
Where do you go after that?
I tell you what we ought to do,
go down the hill with it there
thatll keep them from going over.
Right down to the bottom
of that flat there, maybe.
If they go down out there,
they gonna run into the fence.
He didn't hear anything.
-They gonna come all the way down.
-This is a bad idea
You reckon that'll work?
I don't know.
You hear what I said?
-Yeah If you wanna run it
down there, run it.
I wish Id get something other
to clean them up better.
I dont know
what you can use on them.
You cant really put oil on them.
They got a lot of
nicotine on them!
Probably the best thing to do,
just take a rag and rub them a lot.
Where'd you get these mounted?
Them right there?
Look when it was mounted.
86.
Its been a while.
The first deer Dad ever killed.
In Owen County.
Thats the one I killed
in Long Fork.
-Was I with you when you?
-No, Ronald was with me.
You was with me
when I shot that one.
You killed this one.
I killed that one
and Dad killed that one.
And James killed that one
over there.
-What's been going on, man?
-Workin'.
Supposed to get started
on the house, but
The boys come down this weekend,
I'm gonna burn all that.
They'd be wanting
a big hot dog roast anyway.
What are you gonna do to it?
I'm gonna come 14 more foot
out this way
for a living room, the bedroom
and the bathroom.
How many bedrooms would that be?
It'd be 3 bedrooms altogether.
You're gonna move
the living room out?
The living room's gonna be
right there next to the driveway.
I'm gonna use maple
for my flooring.
I cut Harold some beech
maple porch posts.
He's gonna put new posts
on his porch?
He needs to
-Dogs have pissed on them
-Rusted them off the concrete.
I got tomatoes
-Planted in horse shit?
-Yeah.
Tomatoes, cucumbers,
peas here, cantaloupe there.
I've got watermelon behind here.
I planted a whole pack of pumpkins
up there on the hill.
Where'd you get the stone?
The gravestone.
Dad got it from Hindman Monument.
Rachel got Dad's in Havendale's.
I got to build the form up to
-To set them on?
-Yeah.
Do you just pour a slab?
You make a concrete slab
and set the base on.
98, huh?
He died, I think it was
What day was it? June?
July 30th.
Cheyenne was born May 1, 1998.
He died a couple months after her.
Where the doors from?
Me and Rick tore down
a two-story house in the winter.
I got some fresh doors out of it.
These are insulated, ain't they?
They're gonna go in my bedroom
to the outside, to the porch.
That'd be nice.
I'm gonna come back
and deck them out.
I've gotta put some
brown stain on them.
I don't know
It might set it off really.
You got white windows.
They're gonna be trimmed out
in the same color as the roof.
Are you gonna change the roof
or leave it like that?
It's got to be just flip flopped.
And maybe
Add another story later?
Hell no. It's just me and the boys.
They'll be grown up
in a couple of years.
That's when you'll want
your party pad ready again.
Fuck. The party's over with.
I'm busted up
and broke all to hell.
-I can't hardly party much
-I've had too many parties.
It'll kill you
This cliff rock got the best of me
Right there is high
as I'll let them go.
That's high enough really.
We used to climb
this little crack here.
I remember that.
I don't even remember
how you get up at the top anymore.
You have to turn around
Your foot, your hand, and you sit
your little ass up in that.
When you stood up
in that little hole there,
you turn your fist around,
so when you got out of that hole,
that ledge there was just right up.
You just reach up and grab it.
And just pull yourself on up.
A thousand wonders we survived
We shouldn't be alive here.
We should be dead.
StarFire, they just quit about
a quarter mile back there.
They was wanting to use this
as an access road for the trucks.
They was gonna take the top
of the mountain off back there.
Dad agreed to it,
but they had to stay 200 foot
away from the cemetery.
But they wanted to keep
within 50 foot of it.
-That's too close.
-Dad was afraid of
The grave slipping off.
So they never did get to do it.
2 or 3 years after that,
I think the mine shut down anyway.
You got a midget golf club, too.
There's 3 more around somewhere.
Where'd these come from?
To tell you the truth
I don't really know.
I had a friend
who beat his wife
because he hated himself.
And he beat his wife
to the point that one night
he shot her in the leg,
he shot her one time
through the side,
and then he blew his brains out.
I had a friend
who knocked a dog in the head
with a ball peen hammer
for killing chickens.
I had a friend who drove
a coal truck
for years and years
And every day
he'd buy a fifth of Jim Beam,
unscrew the cap, and throw it away.
He'd drive his coal truck,
drunk as a skunk all day long.
I have friends who went to college,
moved away, never came back.
It's supposed to rain all night
and all day tomorrow.
It rained hard this morning. Rough.
I have friends who went to college,
moved away,
then they came back.
'Cause they couldn't leave.
' Cause they belonged here in a way
that they couldn't cut off,
that they couldn't
dig out of themselves.
I thought about you today
I almost went to look for you
On the hill between the methadone
and the Suboxone
And the less respectable stuff
But you never woke
on the first day of spring
So I buried that part of me again
That part that dies again and again
But wont stay buried with you
[] Amazing Grace,
How sweet the sound
That saved a wreck like me!
I once was lost, but now am found.
Was blind but now I see
When weve been there
ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
Weve no less days
to sing Gods praise
Than when we first begun.
Amazing grace,
How sweet that sound,
That saved a wreck, like me!
I once was lost,
but now am found,
Was blind,
but now I see. []
That's about all
you gonna get today.
I can't go back to church.
Its over.
I went and I quit, and that's over.
Oh my gosh!
Carolina, look!
Bobby's up here.
Who's Bobby?
Bobby, our cat. It's supposed to be
down at the house.
Cool.
If the horses were here,
we could groom the horses
and then ride the horses.
I want to get in the grain wagon!
Oh my gosh
What? It's awesome.
No. It's the opposite.
I bet there's just
a little bit in it.
Enough to where I can
I'm not sure though.
What are you talking about?
Grain wagon.
There's none!
There is none in it.
No wonder they're getting no food.
-There's nothing to do.
-That's a lie.
That's so true.
The only thing there is to do
is sleep and walk.
That's plenty to do.
Two things!
I wanna to go drive again.
Horses!
Rabbit!
Can I drive?
Katie, where are we going?
I don't know.
Straight.
Got to give it a little more gas.
Not that much!
You said give it gas!
I'm bored.
I'm bored, bored, bored-ity bored.
Bo-bored bored.
Never ending boredness.
Why are you doing this?
-If you rub two rocks together
-You can make sparks.
No, they get smooth.
-What?
-They get smooth.
You can take 2 rocks
and polish both rocks.
Do you guys want to try
to call for coyotes?
Are you sure they're that way?
I'm not sure, but
if you yell at the right place,
it'll echo.
Try to aim right at this hill.
Make your hands a little more open.
-Real open.
-Like that?
Yeah.
Did you hear it?
I heard mine.
I don't think
they're over there today.
Knock knock, wolfies!
Maybe they will be later.
Coyotes
You wanna know
how they stripped all these?
They blew it up.
-Dynamite.
-That was a joke!
That's how they did it.
They use big drills, like the ones
they use to drill gas wells.
They drill like 60 or 40 feet down
or however deep
-they want to put a shot off.
-Or 100 feet.
And they fill it
totally full of explosives.
They do that about 50 or 60 times
and they put off a big shot,
it blows a big section
of the mountain.
And they just haul it away.
You know Grandpa
stripped most of this.
I think he worked over there,
that's a Starfire mine.
They came and cleave, then Bronson
worked over there for a while.
It seems like this one is HanCo.
I think he worked there
when he was younger.
You can't really see it from here
Yep, it's coal.
That's how long it took
One lifetime,
they stripped all this.
Until it's pretty well done.
There's nothing left to strip.
There's more coal and stuff but
It's not enough
to pay for stripping anymore.
They took all the land!
It changed the entire landscape.
You can look
and it changed
the entire population.
Hundreds of thousands of people
were displaced when they came in
and started land grabbing.
A lot came out of it
it made America
a global superpower,
an empire and all that.
So THEY got something out of it.
When you ask what something's worth
ask who it's worth something to.
I don't think the people here
got all that much out of it.
About 3 generations of work
is what it ended up being.
But 3 generations of work
got turned into our whole
history for hundreds of years,
which doesn't actually add up
We got about a hundred years
of coal mining.
It totally changed everything.
We went from mountaineers,
with all these courageous,
independent pioneers,
settling in the mountains
to a bunch of dirty coal miners,
of ignorant out of work hillbillies
in 3 generations.
-The wolves are calling us!
-Might be coyotes over there.
Guys, I know it's fun but get off!
It's not fun
if somebody loses an eye!
Or if somebody is vaporized!
Don't fall in the fire here
I think it's catching now.
It's getting bigger.
It's getting bigger and bigger.
Watch out Austin.
Sorry.
You okay?
Let me see.
Where did it get you?
You're not gonna lose any toes.
You're not gonna lose any toes.
Austin
I know it hurts,
but you gotta be tough.
You gotta be tough.
That's not even the foot
that got hurt.
I'm just feeling it.
You're just scared.
You got a pretty big knot there.
You got a bruise.
A big one?
It's a bruise.
Main thing, listen
Look at me.
You gotta be tough.
Can you stand up?
If we're lucky and it's been
a hundred years, guess what?
-Solar eclipse?
-No, a star will explode.
It's a million years
before a star is born.
But it's a hundred years
before one
Dad's coming!
-Hello!
-Hey Dad!
Dad, I wish we had a Gameboy
Like me and Aaron
When I was a kid, we shot deer.
You know why?
Because our people have been
shooting deer for the last
thousand fucking years.
That's why.
My Dad did it because his Dad and
his great granddad did it
But, it's meat.
-Dad, I have a question.
-Listen to the end. Okay?
Maybe at one point
it meant something
There was a reason
because we were hungry and poor.
Not "we", specifically us,
but "we" as a family, as a group.
We were poor, we were hungry,
and shooting deer made sense.
But now we do it
because we always did it,
because we don't know
what else to do.
And because if we don't do it
we're not who we are anymore.
Dad?
What?
My back's starting to hurt
and I'm getting really thirsty.
Sit down and listen.
-Dad, I have a question.
-What?
Have guns been around for
Guns have only been around
for not very long.
Guns are a new thing.
You know what else is new?
You know what else is a new thing?
Every fucking thing you love
is a new thing.
Everything you love,
everything you do all day.
I didn't have that as a kid.
That was all invented
in the last 10, 15 years.
Before you were born. You'll never
know another world.
For me, it was very different
when I was born.
All this shit is very new.
It seems perfectly normal to you,
but it's kind of crazy to me.
I grew up in a world
where we grew our own food,
we shot deer, and it was the 1990s.
That's fucking weird, right?
In the 1990s the rest of America
didn't grow their own food
or shoot deer and shit.
What?
What was the damn it.
Exactly.
-I remember!
-What?
You didn't have dogs
or bikes back then?
We had dogs.
-How about bikes?
-We had bikes.
Bikes have been around
a long fucking time.
Try to pay attention.
All this stuff that you love,
Nintendo, smartphones, tablets, TV,
all this shit is very new.
And it's not going to last.
There's going to be an end
to this shit.
There's going to be a point
where this shit stops.
How?
I don't know.
I can't tell the future,
but I can tell you about the past,
and the past is dull.
Compared to today,
its boring as shit.
Your Grandma and Grandpa
are wonderful people now,
They're so bubbly and friendly
and great.
When I was a kid,
they were strict as fuck.
Now they're soft, they're great,
they're wonderful people.
They're modern human beings.
But when I was a kid,
they were getting over
being like cavemen and shit.
Everybody had to get over that
because they were cavemen
right up until I was born.
Then I was born and
the new world happened.
And there was still cavemen
walking around and shit.
That sounds fun!
You know what? It was.
It was a great childhood.
I'm the last Hillbilly.
You know why?
I was the last free kid in America.
You kids are trapped
in YouTube, in your smart phones,
on whatever your game is,
or the Korean videos.
You're trapped by all that.
You'll never be able to put it down
and walk away.
-What?
-I'm really thirsty!
The house is right there.
When I was a kid, it wasnt
a big deal to walk that far.
-But I'm scared.
-You don't have to stay here.
Go get some water.
Aaron, Jesus Christ.
Somebody walk him to the house.
-Come on, Aaron.
-Katie will bring you up.
I'll be back down.
-It's going to be okay.
-Come on!
Whatever it is, it's gonna be okay.
Austin broke his foot,
he didn't cry that much.
-He didn't break his foot!
-He broke his foot.
It's black, it's swelling up.
I think he broke a toe at least.
Damn
I wanna live right up there.
Okay.
It's pretty, I mean.
I do not see myself living here.
I like the city more.
You seem like you'd look good
in California.
I feel like the city would be
boring for me.
I feel like everybody in the city
would hate me.
Because, one thing,
I talk different.
I remember when you "firsht"
Firsht?
When you "firsht" came here
When you FIRST came here
you could barely understand me.
You honestly could not
understand me.
I still can't sometimes.
-See?
-I just pretend like I do.
I feel like nobody would know
what I was talking about.
But if I was to stay here,
I would probably
there's a couple job options.
There's like a restaurant,
which is not that good of a job.
There's a teacher,
that's an okay job.
I feel like I would be a teacher
so I could be nice
so everybody would love me.
There's a pharmacist
or like in the medical field
I'm not that smart.
There's like lawyers, I guess.
I feel I'd probably be a lawyer
if I was to stay here.
Being a doctor would be okay, but
you gotta go to school for that
You gotta go to school for
everything that pays good money!
That doesn't pay good money.
Not to be a farmer, you don't.
It does! If you have cows you sell
that's pretty good money.
If I have to, I'll whoop him.
"I will die in my own nest
and multiply my days
as the sand.
My roots will have access to water,
and the dew will
rest on my
branches all night."
"My whole being will
be refreshed within me
and my
bow will be
renewed
in my hand."
"I was eyes to the blind
and feet to the lame."
I'm making a hurricane!
"Is there no end
to your
empty words?"
One more.
You're scared.
-I did like this!
-No.
That don't count. It has to be
like this to be scissors.
You get it?
I'll try if it don't swim away.
It won't swim.
Give me a stick and I'll do it.
You have to touch it
with your hands!
-We never said that.
-We did.
-We said we had to pick it up
-With your hands!
Get on it!
That's a big fish.
It's a big gross fish.
I got it.
-I'll bring it towards the land.
-Its eyes popped!
No, it's not.
Eyes aren't popped.
It probably died of natural causes.
Probably died of heart failure.
What if it was just passed out
and we killed it?
Happy birthday to you!
We're here today,
for this fish named
-Roger?
-No, Edward!
For this fish named Edward.
He was a good fish.
He died from either natural causes
or a head injury.
We don't know yet,
but we're working on it.
-Looks like a head injury.
-Austin, you can sing now.
Oh, this was a good fish!
But unfortunately he died
Austin, one at a time.
Get off!
I look stupid with a fish.
Look, this is my attack!
To be honest,
that would probably hurt a lot.
Come on, camera man!
Chopped its head off.
That's technically my fish.
No, I found it first.
But I touched it with my hand
a lot more.
I touched him
more than you know.
You didn't take it out
of the water. I did.
-But you did it with sticks.
-But I did and you didn't.
This should be deep enough?
Now let the burial begin!
Rest in peace, Edward III.
Of natural causes cause of death.
Fuck the ones in space!
Fuck the ones on the moon!
Fuck the ones on Neptune!
Fuck the ones in other galaxies!
Fuck the ones on Pluto!
Fuck the ones that are aliens!
Aliens are real!
Fuck everything
I have no control
over a fucking tornado
And I can hardly stop.
Help me!