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(More customer reviews)"Who Are the DeBolts? (And Where Did They Get 19 Kids?" won the 1977 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It was up against "Children of Theater Street," "High Grass Circus," "Homage to Chagall: The Colours of Love," and "Union Maids." I mention this simply because looking over this list it is rather striking to realize how much documentary films have changed in the past three decades. Today the attention is paid to expose documentaries by the likes of Michael Moore, while what we have here is a documentary that celebrates its subject.
When Dorothy DeBolt's first husband died, she was left a widow with seven children, two of who were adopted from Korea. She moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1969 and adopted two Vietnames boys who had been made paraplegics by the war. She then met and married Bob DeBolt, who had a daughter from his previous marriage. The DeBolts went on to adopt ten more children, nine of who were physically handicapped. The finally tally shows seven adopted children from Vietnam, four from Korea, one from Mexico, one African-American, and one Caucasian. John Korty's documentary shows us that this remarkable family and not only how they function each day but how they meet the many challenges posed by their particular situations.
The documentary only runs 72 minutes so some of the kids get more of the spotlights than others. Karen was born without arms or legs and not only learns to play the xylophone in the school band but how to do her share of chores around the house. J.R. is the latest addition to the family and although he is blind and can only walk with crutches, he insists on going to public school and the inspirational highpoint of this film might be watching him make his way from the house to where he catches the bus to school. Not that this story is wall-to-wall miracles, as you shall see, but you have to be impressed by the way Dorothy and Bob are raising these kids (and how they all help to raise each other). There is a lot of love here to be sure, but there is also the DeBolts' insistence that their children fit not only in the idealized household of this Melting Pot home but in the real world as well.
Of course, it will be difficult for most parents to watch this documentary and not feel like something of a failure in comparison. After all, if you have ever reached the end of your patience as a parent and you can count the number of your children on one hand, then how could you ever manage to deal with nineteen children, even without mixing special needs into the equation? Surprisingly, Dorothy and Bob do not come across as saints or miracle workers but rather as loving people with MONDO organizational skills. Korty is not particularly skilled as a filmmaker, but basically even if you are not doing anything special you cannot really go wrong pointing your camera at this family.
On the DVD extras you will find a 1982 featurette, "Steppin' Out: The DeBolts Grow up," which runs 49 minutes and is directed by Jon Else, who was the cinematographer on the original documentary. This gives you an opportunity to see what some of the kids are up to five years later, so things have not really changed all that much. The surprise is that they have only added one new member in that time (do grandkids count?). The other special features are all text files: "DeBolt Family Updates," "Bob and Dorothy Bios," "Filmmaker Bios," and "Adopt a Special Kid." That last one provides information on the organization founded by Dorothy. In "Steppin' Out" we see that Dorothy and Bob actually leave the house from time to time to do public lectures and spread their particular parental gospel.
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