Harlan County, USA

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Harlan County, USA
Directed by Barbara Kopple
Produced by Barbara Kopple
Distributed by First Run Features
Release date(s) October 18, 1976
Running time 103 min.
Language English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Harlan County, USA is a 1976 Academy Award winning documentary film covering the efforts of 180 coal miners on strike against the Duke Power Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in 1973. It was directed by Barbara Kopple, who has long been an advocate of workers' rights. Harlan County, U.S.A. is less ambivalent in its attitude toward unions than her later American Dream, the account of the Hormel Foods strike in Austin, Minnesota in 1985-86.

[edit] Overview

Kopple initially intended to make a film about Arnold Miller, Miners for Democracy and the attempt to unseat Tony Boyle. When miners at the Brookside Mine in Harlan County, Kentucky, struck in June 1972, Kopple went there to film the strike against Duke Power Company and UMWA's response (or lack thereof). The strike proved to be a more interesting subject, so Kopple switched the focus of her film.

Kopple and her crew spent years with the families depicted in the film, documenting the dire straits they find themselves in while striking for safer working conditions, fair labor practices, and decent wages: following them to picket in front of the stock exchange in New York, filming interviews with people affected by black lung disease, and even catching an attempted murder on film.

The most significant point of disagreement in the Harlan County strike was the company's insistence on including a no-strike clause in the contract.[1] The miners were concerned that accepting such a provision in the agreement would limit their influence over local working conditions. The sticking point was mooted when, a few years after this strike, the UMWA folded the agreement that was eventually won by this group of workers into a global contract.

Rather than using narration to tell the story, Barbara Kopple wisely chose to let the words and actions of these people speak for themselves. For example, when the company goons show up early in the film — the strikers call them "gun thugs" — the goons try to keep their guns hidden from the camera. However as the strike drags on for nearly a year, both sides are more than willing to openly brandish their weapons.

Kopple also produces some interesting facts about the strike, such as the fact that Duke Power Company had generated more than 100 percent in profits in a single year. Meanwhile, the striking miners, many of whom are living in squalid conditions without even the basics like hot and cold running water, only received about 4 percent of the profits that Duke made.

Another key element in this movie is the country and bluegrass music which is so central to the lives of these miners. There are songs by Merle Travis, Hazel Dickens and Florence Reece, who makes a key appearance in this movie. Old as she is — she remembers when Harlan County was known as "Bloody Harlan" in the days of the Great Depression — Florence delivers a touching, throaty rendition of her most famous labor song, "Which Side Are You On?"

For those who may not understand the importance of the strike, the specter of death always seems to loom large in this movie. A good case in point is the story of Josh Yablonski, a passionate, populist union representative who was loved by many of the miners. In fact, many of them wanted to see Yablonski oust the indifferent and corrupt Tony Boyle. But sadly, Yablonski and his family were found murdered in their home. The police eventually caught the company goons responsible for the killings and in one of the film's most devastating moments Tony Boyle is shown, frail, sickly and confined to a wheelchair, being carried up the courthouse steps to face a conviction for those murders.

Almost a full year into the strike a striking miner named Lawrence Jones is fatally shot during a scuffle. Jones was well-liked, quite young and had a 16-year-old wife and a baby. His mother was so overcome with grief at the funeral that she collapsed. It is this tragic moment more than anything else that finally forces the strikers and the management to come to the bargaining table.

A central figure in the documentary is Lois Scott, a firebrand who plays a major role in galvanizing the community in support of the strike. Several times she is seen publicly chastising those whom she feels have been absent from the picket lines. In one scene, Scott pulls a pistol from her bra and earns a comparison to Women's Liberation activists by associate director Anne Lewis in the film's 2004 Criterion Collection special feature The Making of Harlan County, USA.

The film won the 1976 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. In 1990, Harlan County, USA was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The events were dramatized in the 2000 TV movie Harlan County War.

[edit] External links

Awards
Preceded by
The Man Who Skied Down Everest		 Academy Award for Documentary Feature
1976		 Succeeded by
Who Are the DeBolts?