Directed by Barbara Kopple • 1976 • United States
Barbara Kopple’s Academy Award-winning HARLAN COUNTY USA unflinchingly documents a grueling coal miners’ strike in a small Kentucky town. With unprecedented access, Kopple and her crew captured the miners’ sometimes violent struggles with strikebreakers, local police, and company thugs. Featuring a haunting soundtrack, with legendary country and bluegrass artists Hazel Dickens, Merle Travis, Sarah Gunning, and Florence Reece, the film is a heartbreaking record of the thirteen-month struggle between a community fighting to survive and a corporation dedicated to the bottom line.
This documentary features new interviews with producer-director Barbara Kopple, cinematographers Hart Perry and Kevin Keating, associate director Anne Lewis, and three people featured in HARLAN COUNTY USA: United Mine Workers organizer Houston Elmore, miner Jerry Johnson, and strike activist Bess...
Producer-director Barbara Kopple and her crew shot hundreds of hours of film for HARLAN COUNTY USA. Presented here is one outtake, edited slightly for length, from the HARLAN COUNTY USA archives at the University of Kentucky, Lexington.
