Customer Reviews

Harlan County War [VHS]

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Top rating deserved for subject matter and positive portrayal of unsung heroes, but falls short of hitting pure excellence in lack of research and failure to film in Kentucky. Holly Hunter would have won the Golden Globe if she had been allowed to spend any time in Kentucky before filming. The many Emmy nominations suggest true grandeur if the movie had actually been about the intended subject matter instead of Tony Bill deciding what he thought had happened.

The time line, scenery, and vocabulary were the most disturbing errors.

If they had gone to the actual place, they would have known that it does not take long for the women to get riled, and they take up sticks much faster than suggested. There are still laws on the books that compare the danger of a Kentucky woman with a stick versus two men with guns. Also, the incident of people walking up to each other and shooting them dead without comment was ridiculously downplayed. There was and is much more "just as soon shoot ya as look at ya" going on, and these are men of action not words.

Most painful was when Hunter looks out and comments that she has seen the same "mountains" all her life (and has only been to Lexington once). The scene shows a Canadian scene completely foreign to Kentucky instead of the Appalachians that are unusually beautiful in those parts. Everyone knows they are "hills" and that is what they are called. Lexington is referred to as the city, and young girls get out that way more often than once per lifetime. When a Kentucky woman looks out her kitchen window and says "its like heaven come right down to earth," it is obvious why she never wanted to be anyplace else, and that is what the movie lacks.

Other strange points include the presentation of hog brains as a delicacy. Maybe squirrel brains, but on the hog, the common thing would be the Rocky Mountain Oysters. Also, the repeated reference to "moon shine" although it is called white lightening or mountain dew (moon shining is bootlegging, and has a different connotation). The most ridiculous is when the one wife says her cover for sneaking out is to borrow some "pinto beans" from Hunter, but a pinto is a horse. I mean, everyone knows what "soup beans" are, but I do not think anyone ever heard the word pinto used to describe a bean in Kentucky. The director allowed several similar word choices that would have been corrected by having ever been there.

The movie has a wise old relative come up from Knoxville to remind the women that they used to call it Bloody Harlan. HELLO, Bloody Harlan & Bloody Breathitt, two of the four counties that never had to draft a man because they signed up 100% to go kill the enemy and still trade number one positions as the highest per capita murder rates in the nation. If the director had ever been there, he woulda knowed that.

Other than that, the movie was first rate. Whatever money was saved by filming in Toronto, would have been recouped by actually filming in Harlan.

I am from Harlan County KY, and I actually liked this movie. I think Holly Hunter did an excellent job! My father worked at Brookside, as well as my husband, only now the company is Manalapan. Coal miners and their families do have a tough life, then and now, I think the movie portrayed that very well.

My grand father and and uncles worked in the coal mines of Harlan County Kentucky. Black Mountain, Red Bud, Shields, Highsplint, Evarts, Loyal, Brookside, Baxter, and Insull mines. They lived hard and difficult lives.

I am 52 years old and can remember visiting them as a child when they lived in the coal mine camp housing. The mining companies owned everything including the grocery store. Tennessee Ernie Ford said it in his song, "16 Tons". "I owe my soul to the company store."

My grand father suffered from black lung. Two of my uncles lost thier lives from a cave in while working in the coal mines. This movie hits the nail on the head. It is actually toned down from the real bloodshed those people faced at Brookside, Ky..

Holly Hunter's acting and accent is so believable. This movie should have been awarded an Oscar for best picture. It's a must have for every DVD library.

I have seen countless movies that are either total documentary or based on facts of true events. Certainly Brando's "On the Waterfront" had as much impact on society and labor-management relations as any single film made. "Victory at Sea" and Ken Burns latest series "The War" are also superb presentations but factual. "Shoah" is best series on the Holocaust.

Harlan County War shows a battle that was bitterly fought and finally resolved. The union gave it but its tactics forced concessions from Duke

Power Co. and other firms. There is a movie about Hormel strike in MN involving Spam. Tactics used there were timid and there was no tie-in

plot. "Norma Rae" a great film comes close yet her 'solo' effort with the union organizer loses a bit of the big picture.

Holly Hunter can't be held down once she sees her father die from black lung disease and her husband laid off, along with scores of others. The

company's spy and goon tactics were revealing and true. "Hoffa" shows some of these. Harlan County War involves a whole community, united in

a solo cause. When only three men can picket the mine entrance, women and their children lie on the roads. When some miners' homes are bulldozed and others vandalized, all stick together. Community cohesiveness is

outstanding. The plot and acting are superb. So is the photography and direction. And when there is a final cruel act near the film's end, even the company recognizes some concessions must be made. Then the miners go back to eating coal dust while performing back-breaking work. The film

has a beginning, middle and ending, although the solution to one problem leads to another. Family respect is shown clearly: This is something vastly lacking today.

I rate this film 5*****. I have not seen a better one of its ilk.

I will watch it again and can share my copy.

doctork

organizer

This is a fictionalized version of the documentary, Harlan County USA. It's okay, but highly staged... the "mountain dancing" scene was a little too theatrical. For some reason, the director felt it was necessary to include a gratuitous sex scene, so it rules out showing it for educational purposes in school or church. Not bad, though.

Watch the documentary "Harlan County, USA" by Barbara Kopple instead.

This Showtime TVM directed by Tony Bill is reminiscent of Norma Rae, with a dash of the Jane Fonda The Dollmaker. Set in Kentucky in 1973, it tells the true story of the Brookside coal miners strike over the Duke Power company's refusal to agree to a union contract. When managment fires the male workers, it is the wives who form a "women's club" to populate the picket line, to bypass the legal trespassing injunction signed against the men, using the constitutional freedom to gather for their meetings as a defence. Strikes with picket lines are always demonstrations of strategy and whilst the intial psychological one-upman ship is interesting, the length of the strike and the accumulative frustration and anger of both parties leads to more violent confrontations. These confrontations, particularly a climactic act, show the moral complications that such activities create - does one action justify a response, or a response of greater ugliness? What is notable about the teleplay by Peter Silverman is the representation of the strike action as only part of the lives of these people, without diminishing their commitment to the cause, and the insight that when the strike is inevitably over that the inhabitants of the county will have to continue working and living together harmoniously. Silverman also uses Holly Hunter as the leader of the women's club as an example of how uneducated people still have common sense. Bill however disappoints with his cliched presentation of noble hillbilly's filmed in heroic slow motion, and coating the soundtrack with syrpy music. A parallel is made between the strike and Vietnam, presumably with Silverman equating the American invasion with Duke Power, underlined by black and white TV footage and Bill decolouring his footage to be matching TV news. As in Norma Rae, the reversal domestic sex role reversal emasculates the man and empowers the women, where a man sits around drinking in the time his wife used to exhaust herself with home duties. And the suggestion of attraction between Hunter and Stellan Skarsguard as the union man is also underplayed, though Bill doesn't match the swimming scene in Martin Ritt's film. Thankfully the heroine isn't textbook "politicised". She is someone both ordinary and extraordinary, an everywoman who is nervous at the prospect of public speaking, one who takes pleasure in the new opportunities the adventure provides yet is portrayed as being resourceful and wise even before the strike began. Hunter underplays and is all the more admirable, and I admired the journey of the scene she has with Ted Levine as her former-miner husband when he accuses her of changing and she replies it is he who has changed. I also liked the way Bill has her defends herself from someone who patronises her as an ignorant hillbilly yokel, and Skarsgard's inability to stomach the local cuisine.

Top rating deserved for subject matter and positive portrayal of unsung heroes, but falls short of hitting pure excellence in lack of research and failure to film in Kentucky. Holly Hunter would have won the Golden Globe if she had been allowed to spend any time in Kentucky before filming. The many Emmy nominations suggest true grandeur if the movie had actually been about the intended subject matter instead of Tony Bill deciding what he thought had happened.
The time line, scenery, and vocabulary were the most disturbing errors.
If they had gone to the actual place, they would have known that it does not take long for the women to get riled, and they take up sticks much faster than suggested. There are still laws on the books that compare the danger of a Kentucky woman with a stick versus two men with guns. Also, the incident of people walking up to each other and shooting them dead without comment was ridiculously downplayed. There was and is much more "just as soon shoot ya as look at ya" going on, and these are men of action not words.
Most painful was when Hunter looks out and comments that she has seen the same "mountains" all her life (and has only been to Lexington once). The scene shows something foreign to Kentucky instead of the Appalachians that are unusually beautiful in those parts. Everyone knows they are "hills" and that is what they are called. Lexington is referred to as the city, and young girls get out that way more often than once per lifetime. When a Kentucky woman looks out her kitchen window and says "its like heaven come right down to earth," it is obvious why she never wanted to be anyplace else, and that is what the movie lacks.
Other strange points include the presentation of hog brains as a delicacy. Maybe squirrel brains, but on the hog, the common thing would be the Rocky Mountain Oysters. Also, the repeated reference to "moon shine" although it is called white lightening or mountain dew (moon shining is bootlegging, and has a different connotation). The director made word choices that would have been corrected by having ever been there.
The movie has a wise old relative come up from Knoxville to remind the women that they used to call it Bloody Harlan. HELLO, Bloody Harlan & Bloody Breathitt, two of the four counties that never had to draft a man because they signed up 100% to go kill the enemy and still trade number one positions as the highest per capita murder rates in the nation. Anyone who has ever been there knows that.
Other than that, the movie was first rate. Whatever money was saved by filming in Toronto, would have been recouped by actually filming in Harlan.

Loved this movie, although I understand from reading the other reviews that it's not completely accurate. Most things aren't, and we often don't perceive truth clearly no matter how it's presented. But this work does present a fascinating character, played by Holly, who starts off (I would say) passive and becomes activated by her situation, to the benefit of her community. I thought the interchange between her and her husband after her violence was especially great - wish more entertainment would explore such moments of true struggle. This has a very particular flavor. It leaves a particular impression - and the knowledge that the bad guys don't *always* win!

Well-acted. Great accents. A bit of a history wrapped up in 104 minutes. Thoroughly enjoyed watching Holly do her thing in Harlan County, Kentucky.