Harlan County U.S.A. (1976) Directed by Barbara Kopple; watched on Criterion Collection DVD. An urgent, immersing documentary of an Appalachian coal mining community’s more than year-long strike against corporate overlord Duke Power. The camera gets itself everywhere you would hope it could – the families’ homes, union meetings, planning sessions by the miners’ wives (who show at least as much grit as the men, often more), on the picket lines when the strikebreaking gun thugs attack, a mile underground in the mines themselves, at Duke Power shareholder meetings, and more. Unforgettable characters emerge, underscored by the raw honesty of the area’s indigenous bluegrass songs vocalized by subjects of the film. Parallels to recent WV mine explosion & 29 deaths are, unsurprisingly, present in several instances. A work of passionate storytelling, made at no small personal risk, richly deserving of its Best Documentary Academy Award, and absolutely among the great documentary films of the last 50 years. See it.
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