Documentary cinema often struggles with the lag between the event and the edit, but Barbara Kopple’s work has long occupied what critics call a "persistent present tense." This week, the American Cinematheque’s third edition of its "This Is Not a Fiction" festival brings Kopple to Los Angeles to discuss new restorations of her two Academy Award-winning films: *Harlan County USA* (1976) and *American Dream* (1990). The screenings offer a renewed look at the raw, unmediated friction of the American labor movement.
*Harlan County USA* remains a foundational text of the genre. Documenting a 1973 Kentucky coal miners’ strike, the film bypasses the tidiness of retrospective summary in favor of immediate, often terrifying immersion. It captures a landscape of gun threats, corporate usury, and communal solidarity, punctuated by the haunting urgency of Florence Reece’s anthem, "Which Side Are You On?" Kopple’s lens does not merely observe the strike; it inhabits the precarious lives of those on the picket line.
The festival, which runs through April 24, features forty-five films and dozens of guest speakers, but Kopple’s work serves as a vital anchor. Alongside *Harlan County*, the restoration of *American Dream*—which follows the 1985 walkout at a Hormel meatpacking plant—underscores the cyclical nature of industrial strife. In an era of shifting labor dynamics, these films suggest that the struggle for dignity is never quite a matter of history, but an ongoing, lived reality.
With reporting from Criterion Daily.
Source · Criterion Daily
