Harlan County USA
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Synopsis
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.
Picture 6/10
The Criterion Collection’s
original DVD edition of Barbara Kopple’s Harlan County USA presents the
film on a dual-layer disc. The standard definition presentation comes from a
high-definition restoration, scanned from a 35mm blowup. Oddly, this film
source is in a widescreen ratio of 1.78:1, cutting off the tops and bottoms (recent
4K and Blu-ray editions are in the proper 1.33:1 ratio). On that note, it’s
been enhanced for widescreen televisions.
For DVD, it looks pretty good, but
that’s about it. It’s a very pasty looking presentation, with weak colors and
muddy blacks. Detail levels are fine, though not all that impressive, and it
really does struggle with the grain. Of course, DVD wasn’t terribly good at
capturing and rendering those fine details like grain, but that grain can be particularly
rough here, looking especially noisy in those darker shots.
There are a few minor blemishes, but the restoration has otherwise cleaned the image up impressively enough. The widescreen framing doesn't help, though, cramping things in the frame at times where more headroom would help.
At
the time I’m sure it looked fine enough, but now its flaws stand out far more,
and it pales significantly in comparison to the recent restoration.
Harlan County USA - Screen Captures
Audio 6/10
The film’s soundtrack is delivered in Dolby Digital 1.0 mono. Voices are clear, the music sounds decent enough, but it is flat and a bit edgy in places. Ultimately fine for the time.
Extras 8/10
Criterion put together a decent special edition for the film to mark its 30th anniversary, starting with an audio commentary featuring Kopple and editor Nancy Baker. The two explain how they came to cover the strike and recall their experiences after arriving, with a shooting occurring almost immediately (though it was apparently the result of two men fighting over a woman, and nothing to do with the tensions around the strike). They also share their war stories and provide additional context around several events captured for the film, particularly their dealings with Basil Collins, who was clearly not-at-all happy about their presence.
Despite how fascinating that
material proves to be, the track is still at its most interesting when the two
discuss constructing the narrative from the endless amount of footage they had
caught, primarily consisting of very little actually happening along the picket
lines. The track then concludes with the two talking about the film’s
first screenings and then its eventual Oscar win.
It’s a terrific track covering the
project’s genesis and construction, but it's all expanded upon in the
22-minute making-of documentary produced by Criterion for this
release. Kopple and Baker both return and are then joined by other crew members
and several miners who appeared in the film, all sharing additional stories. A
little more comes out about the scabs and Collins (whom, unsurprisingly, no one
seems to miss), along with the suggestion that the film crew’s presence may
have helped restrain Collins and the others, preventing the violence from
escalating further. It’s not all that long but still an excellent addition,
benefiting considerably from the participation of the film’s subjects nearly 30
years after the strike.
Following that are 6 outtakes running
about 26 minutes in total. These include more footage around singer-songwriter
Nimrod Workman, who sings a couple of his songs here, explaining their origins.
Sadly, the crew ran out of film during one performance. There is also
additional interview footage with several miners and their wives, including one
where it comes out how it sounds as though there were attempts at sowing
mistrust within the group of strikers. On top of that, Criterion includes a
12-minute interview with Hazel Dickens, who discusses how she came
to write music for the film after first covering her family and musical
background.
In a nice touch, Criterion brings
in John Sayles to discuss the film for six minutes. He talks
about how its narrative and music struck him, as well as how the documentary
became a reference point of sorts when he came to make Matewan. The
disc then includes a 14-minute excerpt from a 2005 Q&A with
Kopple, hosted by Roger Ebert, who laments how little had changed since the
film’s release.
The disc finally closes with the
film’s trailer, while the included booklet features a an essay by
Paul Arthur followed by another from Jon Weisberger covering the film’s music.
All in all, it’s a great set of
material reflecting on the film’s production while also providing updates on
where most everybody is now.
Closing
The presentation hasn’t held up but it’s still a decent special edition.
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