Harlan County, USA
- sombre
- intense
Sombre, steady, measured documentary, grounded in texture. Ambivalent, mid-stakes, measured.
How every film is hand-scored →This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastover's refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with New York Women in Film & Television in 2004.
Our read · Harlan County, USA (1976) reads as a sombre, steady, grounded documentary entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook, with a strong directorial signature.
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The shape of Harlan County, USA
What watching it is actually like.
“You want raw strike footage where miners face guns on the picket line.”
Skip it tonight — Skip if real gunfire, poverty, and labor rage feel too heavy tonight.
The reading.
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