Released in 1976, Harlan County, USA <\/em>chronicles a 1973 strike by coal miners at the Eastover Coal Company\u2019s Brookside Mine in eastern Kentucky. Director Barbara Kopple and her small crew embedded themselves with the miners and their families, stood on the picket lines with them, sat in on their strategy meetings. The end result is a frontline cin\u00e9ma v\u00e9rit\u00e9 account of the strike, relying only on minimal subtitles and eschewing any sort of traditional voiceover narration to contextualize the action unfolding onscreen. This story belongs to the people who lived it, a story that is told with the words of the miners, their wives, and their children. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I say traditional <\/em>narration because Kopple does employ music to offer context and commentary. Fittingly, the music comes from Appalachian natives, such as the West Virginia singer-songwriter Hazel Dickens<\/a>. \u201cRemember the disaster at the Mannington mine,\u201d one song goes, a montage of mourning mothers and widows on the screen, \u201cwhere seventy-eight miners were burned alive.\u201d Yet another song describes the lack of health benefits for the miners, with Dickens singing, \u201cYou\u2019re not even covered in their medical plans, and your life depends on the favors of man.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n This latter song, \u201cBlack Lung,\u201d plays over images of miners receiving treatment for coal workers\u2019 pneumoconiosis, the camera close enough that we can see the pain on their faces with every labored breath. Moments like these are numerous, as Kopple is unafraid to take the audience somewhere uncomfortable, from the black lung clinics to a funeral for a slain miner to the dark and danger of a mine, deep in the earth. These scenes play as reminders that, in Harlan county, death never feels far away, even on the picket line. In one climatic moment, coal company gun thugs attack the strikers with fists, pipes, and a barrage of bullets. Kopple herself is shoved to the ground. Screams fill the soundtrack. Still, the filmmakers prove unwavering in their mission. The camera keeps rolling, capturing the violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think that was the most important film in my life because I learned what life and death was all about,\u201d Kopple said in a later interview<\/a>. \u201cI saw people really standing up for what they believed in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The camera\u2019s steely gaze is matched only by the that of the union men and women fighting for a new contract. At one point, we go inside a stockholders meeting for Duke Power, the parent company of Eastover Coal. A striker stands up in the meeting and addresses Carl Horn, Duke Power\u2019s president. At first, the striker is shown in a medium shot, standing in the foreground of a packed room. Kopple cuts to Carl Horn\u2019s reaction before cutting back to the striker, staying on him until he finishes speaking, a close-up on his face. \u201cWell, I\u2019ll tell you, Mr. Horn,\u201d the striker says, ending his remarks, \u201cI\u2019m going to be standing on that picket line looking at you just as long as it takes.\u201d The camera stays on him a beat or two more, lingering on his fixed stare and punctuating the striker\u2019s determination. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1931, Florence Reece, the wife and daughter of a coal miner, wrote the song \u201cWhich Side Are You On?\u201d for the labor disputes<\/a> happening in Harlan county at that time. But forty years went by and miners were still fighting for a fair deal. Reece speaks at a rally in the film, her voice frailer in her old age but her words no less resounding. \u201cIf you go to Harlan county, there is no neutral there,\u201d Reece sings. \u201cYou\u2019ll either be a union man or a thug for J.H. Blair. Which side are you on? Which side are you on?\u201d With today\u2019s dwindling union numbers, the question feels just as pertinent. It\u2019s impossible to watch Harlan County, USA <\/em>and come away unmoved by the exposition of the evils of capitalism, the plight of workers, and the strength of a committed few. Unlike Reece\u2019s song, though, Harlan County, USA <\/em>doesn\u2019t just ask<\/em> us to pick a side. It demands it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Harlan County, USA” is streaming on Max<\/a> and the Criterion Channel.<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/harlan1-1024x576.jpg\")
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