Harlan County U.S.A.

synopsis

In 1973, 180 miners from the Brookside mine in south-eastern Kentucky switched from a union that was loyal to the company to the national miners’ union. The mining company, which was part of the Duke Power group, subsequently refused to sign a contract with them. During the thirteen-month strike, the director accompanies them to picket lines, trade union meetings, court hearings and medical examinations of their dust-filled lungs. In her collective portrait of the strikers, it is the political voices of the miners’ wives and daughters that resonate most strongly. The protest song Which Side Are You On? runs through the film. Its author, Florence Reece, the widow of a miners’ trade unionist, comes to sing it to the strikers herself – forty years after composing it a few valleys away during strikes that lent the county its nickname “Bloody Harlan”.

Even while filming, Barbara Kopple sought to change reality: she used the power of the camera to gather information, which she passed on to curb the brutality of the strike’s suppression; the raw footage served as a catalyst for further organising and the negotiation of a collective agreement. She then viewed the resulting film as a tool for organising. During negotiations over distribution, she insisted that workers be allowed to screen it free of charge. Fifty years after it was made, a restored copy returned to cinemas, and screenings are accompanied by discussions with trade unionists. The film has also become an educational resource for understanding labour disputes and trade union organising.

biography

Barbara Kopple (1946) undertook an internship with Albert and David Maysles and adopted their observational style: a small crew, on-camera sound recorded by herself, and no commentary. She won her first Oscar for Best Documentary Feature for her debut film Harlan County, U.S.A. (1979); she won her second for The American Dream (1990), in which she documented a strike by workers at the Hormel meat-processing plant in Minnesota. She has made over thirty films.

film details

director:	Barbara Kopple
producer:	Barbara Kopple
photography:	Hart Perry
editing:	Nancy Baker