From the Collection: Harlan County, USA
Barbara Kopple’s Oscar-winning documentary Harlan County, USA has gotten a 4K upgrade from the Criterion Collection.
Barbara Kopple’s Academy Award–winning Harlan County USA unflinchingly documents a 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. With a haunting soundtrack—featuring legendary country and bluegrass artists Hazel Dickens, Merle Travis, David Morris, Sarah Ogan 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.
Here’s What the Disc Includes:
- New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Barbara Kopple, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
- Audio commentary by Kopple and editor Nancy Baker
- Making-of documentary featuring interviews with Kopple, crew members, and strike participants featured in the film
- Outtakes from the film
- Interview with bluegrass singer-songwriter Hazel Dickens
- Interview with filmmaker John Sayles
- Panel discussion from the 2005 Sundance Film Festival featuring Kopple and critic Roger Ebert
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Cover by Eric Skillman
- PLUS: Essays by film critic Michael Atkinson and musician and writer Jon Weisberge
Harlan County, USA has been on my watchlist for a while now. It is regarded as one of the greatest documentaries ever made and won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature at the 1977 Academy Awards. My expectations for the film were high, and somehow, Harlan County, USA blew them out of the water. This is an astounding achievement, and as good as documentaries get. It’s a towering, passionate American epic about the power of protest, the ugliness of greed, and the tragedy and triumph that comes with standing up for what you believe in. There are moments in this movie that are light and funny, and others that are horrifying and tragic. Some scenes will forever be seared into my brain, like the heartbreaking funeral scene, or the visceral and intense sequence when a gun is fired by one of the scabs towards the protestors and Kopple. Harlan County, USA is a powerhouse and an incredible piece of documentary filmmaking.
The Criterion Collection 4k restoration is perfect, and the disc is full of interesting special features, my favorite being the conversation between Kopple and film critic Roger Ebert at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. On the panel, they discuss the making of the film, modern labor struggles, and the evolution of documentaries. It’s incredible stuff from two of the best in their field.
The Criterion Collection is also releasing American Dream, another Barbara Kopple documentary about a protest, this time focusing on the 1985-86 workers’ strike against Hormel Foods Corporation. This would be an amazing double feature, and both can be purchased starting August 25th.
You can find Harlan County, USA on the Criterion Collection website or wherever you find Criterion DVDs.
More From the Collection
Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling
How to Get Ahead in Advertising
Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser
From the Collection is an analysis of non-new-release movies, whether viewed on DVD, streamed, or in theaters. It includes a brief history of the film, a review of the film, and content about the experience of seeing the film and/or the contents of the film’s DVD.
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