Harlan County USA

Harlan County USA (1976) is a beautiful poetic documentary by Barbara Kopple’s which follows the Kentucky Miner’s strike, and shows that the bad old days of company intimidation and violence are still with us. In the finest tradition of the documentary genre, director Kopple shows us the close-knit ties and stoic humor of this exploited community in Kentucky. Surely no film has more graphically spelled out the ugly side of capitalism , or the moral right of working people to protect themselves from it. Combined with the music from Hazel Dickens, Merle Travis and David Morris, this is a must see documentary.