Harlan County U.S.A. (1976)

I was first acquainted with the documentary Harlan County U.S.A. (1976) when hearing Hazel Dickens singing a song called "Black lung" which is included in the film and on its soundtrack. Watching the film was quite a weird experience. It evokes a world I am not familiar with. Hard, physical work, political struggle, a society in which conflicts and class struggles are openly acknowledged and brought forward. It's a film about a community for which the word "Union" stands for real political hope. I have very limited knowledge about the union movement in the US so this movie taught me many things. Two more interesting things about the film. The director - Barbara Kopple - is a woman, and a quite large part of the staff are women, too (this is interesting because there are few famous female documentary directors). The other interesting thing is that the film won an Oscar. I don't know how it was regarded then, but at least when watching it now, in 2009, the film is obviously political and it accounts for events with a clear political committment. This is not to say that Kopple made an overstated, simplified movie, like Michael Moore's. Kelpe takes her subject seriously and she take seriously the people she chronicles, too. A telling fact revealed in the film is the huge gap between the company's profits & the very modest increase in workers' salaries. A few other telling scenes include footage of corrupt union leaders promising that they will stay in power for a very long time.

Harlan County follows a miner strike against Eastover Mining Company in 1973. Harlan is a community in Kentucky. The strikers fight for safety; better labor conditions, fair salary and fair treatment of workers. Later on, they fight for the right to strike, too (the company threatens to assert a no-strike clause). Kopple bravely follows the action on the picket line and the debates on union meetings. A large part of the movie is dedicated to female activists who apparently were very important in this strike and very outspoken about the injustice that they witnessed (an Eastover company boss complains that is not the sort of behavior he desires from American women). There are also statements by union bosses and power company bosses. The strike drags on and gradually it gets violent; the tension between striking miners, their wives, mothers and daughters, the police and the "scabs" (company representatives, strikebreakers) endend in several violent encounters. One striker was murdered.

Not only is this movie interesting as a testimony of political events and as a very revealing account of union activism in the US. It is also a very well executed project (a project that apparently changed underway) in which people, ordinary people, are allowed to talk. The first part of the film features lots of music (I must admit sometimes too much), often performed by women. A moving moment includes Florence Reese at a meeting. She approaches the microphone, talks about the hardships, then and in the thirties, of "bloody Harlan". In a hoarse and unsteady voice, she sings "Which side are you on?" It's a thrilling moment of the film. The women portrayed in this movies are respected; their accounts and their solidarity seems to have been appreciated.

Aesthetically, the film also has lots that speaks for it (cinematography, a very nice way of using sound, lack of traditional "narrative"). All in all, it's a film well worth watching - for several reasons.