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Summary Of The Film Harlan County USA

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Summary Of The Film Harlan County USA
Harlan County U.S.A. was evaluated as one of the top 20 documentary films ever by some media, and it won the Oscar documentary film in 1976. The director of this movie is Barbara Kopple, who had advocated for worker’s rights for her whole life. And she also directed another movie named American dream which also won the Oscar documentary film for her in 1991.
In this movie, Barbara displayed the great tenacity and unyielding of the miners and their families by the realistic pictures, which moved and inspired audiences a lot. She went to Harlan County and witnessed a series of events that took place over 10 months strike in 1976. Barbara created this movie through a film-style narrative method, which caused a huge society sensation back then.
This movie is about a serious society issue, labor problem. USA has already possessed well developed regulations for protecting miner’s right by now. However, the situation was really bad before 1970s. The strike recorded in this movie showed how the miners and union fight for their rights with the mine owners and government. Strike also happened 1930s before, which was overwhelmed by the government troops and policemen. And the miners did not get any payment increase but to continue their miserable life. The situation began to get better only after 1930s when the unions are formed gradually. In 1970s, human …show more content…
The union influenced the strike a lot, even the strike was organized by union. To clarify how the union worked, Barbara arranged time in the movie for a campaign of national union of miners, in which the leader was elected by votes. However, the candidate who truly stood for the miners was killed by conspire of mine owners and previous union president. And in the second union campaign, the previous president was arrested by the police with charge of murdering the opponent. The new president of union became the true leader of the miners who stood for them
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