"Harlan County, USA" -- It's MUST SEE stuff for all Americans. -- 12:35pm ET today on IFC

http://www.ifc.com/

Harlan County, USA

1976 | 103 min. | Director: Barbara Kopple | TV14

Director Barbara Kopple's look at a 13-month coal miners' strike that took place between 1973 and 1974 in Harlan County, KY, is one of the great films about labor troubles, though not for a sense of objectivity. Kopple lived among the miners and their families off and on during the four years the entire story played out, and it's clear in every frame of the film that her sympathies lie with the miners and not their bosses at Eastover Mining, owned by Duke Power Company. Kopple's camera focuses on the desperate plight of people still living in shacks with no indoor plumbing and working dangerous jobs with little security and few safety rules. The miners are determined to join the United Mine Workers, and the company is determined to break the strike with scabs, who are even more desperate than the men with jobs. The miners eventually win a new contract, though it turns out that some of the benefits they had fought for were not included in the final deal. The filmmaker's strong identification with one side of a labor struggle doesn't make for a balanced historical record, but it did provide the right stuff for a powerfully dramatic film.


http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060216/REVIEWS/601010313/1023&template=printart
Harlan County, U.S.A.
There are no neutrals there
Release Date: 2006

Ebert Rating: ****

BY ROGER EBERT / Feb 17, 2006

At Sundance 2005, I went to a tribute screening for Barbara Kopple's great documentary "Harlan County, USA," which won the Academy Award in 1976. The handsome restored print opens this weekend at Facets Multimedia.

The film retains all of its power, in the story of a miners' strike in Kentucky where the company employed armed goons to escort scabs into the mines, and the most effective picketers were the miners' wives -- articulate, indominable, courageous. It contains a famous scene where guns are fired at the strikers in the darkness before dawn, and Kopple and her cameraman are knocked down and beaten.

"I found out later that they planned to kill us that day," Kopple said later, in a discussion I chaired at the Filmmakers' Lodge. "They wanted to knock us out because they didn't want a record of what was happening." But her cinematographer, Hart Perry, got an unforgettable shot of an armed company employee driving past in his pickup, and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Kopple brought some friends along to the festival. Foremost among them was Hazel Dickens, a miner's wife and sister, now 69, who wrote songs for the movie and led the room in singing "Which Side Are You On?" Kopple also shared the stage with Utah miners who are currently on strike; although the national average pay for coal miners is $15 to $16 an hour, these workers -- who are striking for a union contract -- are paid $7 for the backbreaking and dangerous work.

Using a translator, the Spanish-speaking miners told their story. One detail struck me with curious strength. A miner complained that his foreman demanded he give him a bottle of Gatorade every day as sort of a job tax. It is the small scale of the bribe that hit me, demonstrating how desperately poor these workers are. Work it out, and the Gatorade represents 10 percent of a daily wage.

Kopple and Perry spent 18 months in Harlan County, filming what happened as it happened. Her editor, Nancy Baker, who was also onstage, took hundreds of hours of footage and brought it together with power and clarity. I asked Kopple what she thought about other styles of documentaries, like Michael Moore's first-person adventures, or the Oscar-nominated "Story of the Weeping Camel," which is scripted and has people who portray themselves, but is not a direct record of their daily lives.

"I accept any and all kinds of documentaries," she said. " 'Harlan County' came out of the tradition of Albert Maysles and Leacock and Pennebaker, documentarians who went somewhere and stayed there and watched and listened and made a record of what happened. That is one approach. There are others, just as valid. All that matters is making a good film."

Reprinted from Ebert's 2005 Sundance coverage.

When one side of the argument is living in shacks and being fired at?

I'm just a typical internet poster. Bwahahahahahahahahaha.

My version of "fair and balanced"

As of a few years, now.

Thanks.

I have gone to Matewan just to see it for myself after watching that movie.

Made me a John Sayles admirer for life.

I'll "second" your MUST SEE.

I grew up hearing about Harlan County and its violent history. It is a powerful film

That movie told a story that needed to be told.

And priceless for its' propoganda value. Our side needs more movies like this.


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I saw it years ago, time for a re-run.