CANON OF FILM: "HARLAN COUNTY, U.S.A."

HARLAN COUNTY U.S.A. (1976)

Director: Barbara Kopple

 
 

You know, funny thing, I thought when I started this list that I would have more documentaries on it than I do. It's a strange thing though, documentaries are strangely one of those genres that age fairly badly overall. I mean, it makes sense when you think about it, 'cause documentaries are the most immediate of genres; watching older documentaries seem more like an anthropology assignment. Even the best documentaries I can think of, they rarely end up becoming feature films that I end up going back to on a regular basis. Some because they're so good that they become too hard to watch at times, sure, but a lot of times, time has just made such films lose such power. The appeal of most of these films is that they're about the conditions and events that are going on right now. Even historical documentaries suffer from this, they're telling a slanted portrayal of history that might be what's considered general knowledge now, but things can change that. 

Things have definitely changed in the years since "Harlan County, U.S.A.", but not nearly as much as you'd hope. 

https://www.workers.org/2019/10/44199/

Actually, there's a lot of links I can point people to, but I'm not gonna bombard you with the current status between miners and owners, it'll just be depressing. 

On every possible list of the great documentarian filmmakers of all-time, you’ll soon arrive at Barbara Kopple’s name. In fact, among film people, she’s considered one of the greatest female directors of all-time in any genre, and is one of the most highly-respected artists working today. Her debut feature “Harlan County U.S.A.” isn’t just one of the best documentaries ever; it’s one of the best American films ever. Chronicling a coal-mining strike in the small Kentucky county, It earned Kopple her first Oscar for Best Documentary. Her second Oscar was for the film “American Dream,” also involved a labor union going on strike. I haven’t seen “American Dream,” but I’ve been informed that the ending of that film is different than this one, probably a commentary on not only how union workers are getting screwed over by large companies which are becoming large conglomerates, but also how times have changed and the power has shifted even more drastically between the worker and the man. 

I say even more drastically because “Harlan County…” chronicles an uphill climb for unions that includes incredibly shocking behavior by the people involved even by today’s comparison, especially for this country. Her subjects can stray wildly from this too, to the life of Woody Allen in “Wild Man Blues,” to recording the fall and rise of the “Dixie Chicks,” after Natalie Maines famous comment about George W. Bush, and the fallout from the country music base of their fans to the respect of those outside of them in “Shut Up and Sing,” (She co-directed that film). She’s also directed many T.V. shows that use a more natural, handheld style of filmmaking, most notably “Homicide: Life on the Street,” and "Oz" as well the occasional scripted film like the Stephen Gaghan (“Traffic,” “Syriana”) penned “Havoc,” starring Anne Hathaway and Bijou Phillips and is actually one of those rare straight-to-video films that is truly worth going out of your way for, depicting the risky behavior of rich Beverly Hills teenagers as they party in crime-riddened Mexican gangster neighborhoods for fun, drugs, sex, violence, and anything else they can find. 

“Harlan County U.S.A.” begins with images of the claustrophobic mines and some of their workers. They’re dirty, dark, unsafe, and unhealthy. We meet the townspeople on the picket lines, during strategy meetings, even during elections and funerals. I never really imagined what goes into having to strike. I remember the Frontier Hotel Strike which lasted almost a decade in this town. They’re certainly a risk for most industries, especially those for untrained jobs which can easily be replaced, usually for cheaper labor. Mining is certainly not that but in Harlan County, it’s basically all there is. Nobody’s particularly happy to work in the mines, but it’s the place in town that hires people. Almost every miner wife has a story of there husband getting hurt, or suffering from Black Lung, or accidents in the mines. The older wives inform about the strikes in the thirties during the depression and how those took months to end, in the meantime, they had to battle police, hired guns, scabs, even the U.S. Government stepping in before they got what they wanted. I went into this movie thinking things had changed from back then. Maybe they had somewhere else, but not here. Police protect the scab workers from being attacked by the picketers, and the picketers get attacked by the thugs. 

Kopple was right in the middle of it, recording 5am attack of picketers by machine guns that seem to come out of nowhere. There’s a recording of how the former president of the company hired and killed one of the heads of the union and his entire family. He is later arrested. They’re bullet holes in the houses from drive-bys at night, and threats from a strikebreaker named Basil Collins who rides in his pick-up wielding his gun at the protesters constantly threatening violence. Finally, one of the protestors is killed. Everybody knows who did it, but there’s no trial or conviction, just a funeral and then a contract agreement. It ends the strike, but it certainly doesn’t end the war. Miners have been going on strike on and off for years since this film came out. I don’t know if the violence still remains, but the greed of the business leaders continues. (And since Harlan County is mostly know nowadays for being the setting of TV series "Justified" which basically treats the modern town like it's a wild west town, I suspect the violence might still be around) 

When I first watched the film, there was a special feature on the Criterion disk where Kopple, Roger Ebert and others talked about the film and the continuing struggle of the mineworkers. Back then, it was mentioned that Kentucky mineworkers were still only getting $9/hr, when the average should've been around $16/hr., with the companies pocketing the rest and continue to fight the Unions.  Looking it up currently, at least statistically, it seems like miners in Kentucky make about the current average of $23/hr, which is actually around the average, although I wouldn't necessarily say that the Unions are exactly winning now either, in fact their aren't any union mines in Kentucky anymore. The Brookside Mine that the miners were striking over, all non-union. The Eastover Mining Company that owned the mine, they still exist, although I doubt for long. Mining is a dying industry, even in Kentucky, so it's not necessarily the lack of the unions that helped raise the wage today, it's mostly the lack of a willing workforce to work for less, and in a sense that was created by the Unions fighting to get the advantages they got and leading to a modern-day workforce, especially one in such a life-threatening and dangerous profession, to expect a lot more for the job.

"Harlan County, USA" shows citizens overcoming struggles to achieve their goal, and even then, as many American stories are, it’s a sour and hollow victory. As the miners go back to work, they wonder for exactly how long before the company brakes their contract, again. The bluegrass music based soundtrack of the film, including most notably, songs by Hazel Dickens became popular after the film, but the film continues to be watched and studied as a seminal masterpiece of cinema verite, and one of the most fascinating films ever made, and it’s one of those rare movies, particularly among documentaries that are as relevant today as they were the time they came out, and as powerful. It’s a triumph of the human spirit, a sendup of the American dream, and of the unabashed fearlessness of those who risked life and limb to fight for it, and for it's director willing to record it.