In Harlan County, USA by Barbara Kopple, the film explores the Brookside mining strike of 1973 in Harlan County and shares the history of the mining people of the area. Kopple follows the story of the strike as it turns from protests to residual violence, and provides input from the County people on their perspectives throughout the documentary. The narrative of Harlan County places the viewer as a looker through the lens of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) and specifically the strikers of Brookside mine workers. The film elevates the viewer's experience through documentary form and stylistic characteristics similar to ethnographic film. Harlan County shares multiple characteristics that may categorize itself as a documentary with ethnographic quantities through modes of direct cinema, immersive …show more content…
Additionally, the linear structure of this sequence places the UWMA meeting as the subject of the camera and brings the viewers to the attention of the old man discussing the life of Lawrence Jones. This scene demonstrates that the subject is not Kopple illustrating a narrative for Harlan County, but Harlan County illustrating a narrative for its own story and Kopple filming to record the events of the Brookside strike. In this way, there is a connection to ethnography because of the observation of events. In this case, the viewers observing and Kopple documenting the strike is similar to the way that ethnographers observe and document cultures. Furthermore, the use of immersive storytelling integrates the viewers into the culture of Harlan and amongst the townspeople of the Miner community. This stylistic characteristic within the documentary film helps create a relationship between the viewers and the characters on screen. Kopple intends to document the story of Harlan and how the strike has changed the community over
The novel, “Shiloh” by Shelby Foote is a fictional recreation of the bloody battle. The story begins with the soldiers of the Confederate Army heading towards Pittsburg Landing. The men are marching in terrible conditions. It is pouring down rain and they are dragging their tired legs through the mud. The troops come to a halt so the commanders can talk to General Johnston. General Johnston says the only way they might have a chance is if they plan a surprise attack. As the sergeants hand the men their guns, they are told to check the powder in case it got wet in the rain. A group of soldiers test their guns out on a deer running close by. At the same time the shots were fired, the sun came out and the soldiers started to scream and cheer. These noises combined were more than enough to alert the Union soldiers of the Confederates advance. Palmer remembers what his life was like before going to war. He attended the Louisiana State Military Academy when the Confederacy seceded from the Union. One of his professors predicted the south did not have a chance of winning the war. That night Palmer dreams of holding Sherman at gunpoint making him admit that he was wrong. Prior to the battle, the commanders create a battle plan. Palmer is assigned a part in this process. When the plan fails, Palmer learns that planning a battle is more difficult than it seems because the commanders on the ground face challenges that do not exist on paper.
Historians have viewed the idea of white dominance as a key element to the legacy of slavery. Losing this dominance with the concept of emancipation was mind boggling. However, the admission of California into the Union required it to enter as a free state according to the Compromise of 1850. Losing white dominance in the newly acquired regions in the West frightened Southern slave holders. Leading to the long trek of individuals from both the North and the South to ensure their version of destiny in the West.
Storming Heaven is Denise Giardina’s second and award winning novel, published in 1987. The historical novel is a fiction-based recount of the bitter labor conflict that took place in southern West Virginia during the early 1920s, otherwise known as the West Virginia Coal Wars. The author tells the story of the real conflict faced by miners through the eyes of four main characters, each from different walks of life, with their own different point of view. The story told about the real life hardship faced by coal miners and the ensuing conflict is a subject narrowly covered by The American Journey. Although the story that is told through the main characters is fictionalized, it provides a historically accurate portrayal of the events that unfolded during the early 1920s. The book does a great job of covering not only how the coal miners cohesively withstood the hardship placed before them by the invasive coal companies, but also the tactics used by the coal companies to ensure their business interests took precedence over more humane living and working conditions.
Stories of Scottsboro. By James E. Goodman. (New York: Vintage Books. c.1994. pp. 274. $16.00)
Eudora Alice Welty practically spent her whole life living in Mississippi. Mississippi is the setting in a large portion of her short stories and books. Most of her stories take place in Mississippi because she focuses on the manners of people living in a small Mississippi town. Writing about the lives of Mississippi folk is one main reason Welty is a known author. Welty’s stories are based upon the way humans interact in social encounters. She focuses on women’s situations and consciousness. Another thing she mostly focuses on is isolation. In almost all of Welty’s earlier stories the main character is always being isolated. Throughout her short stories, a hidden message is always evident. Eudora Welty does a wonderful job of exposing social prejudices in the form of buried messages.
There are many ways in which we can view the history of the American West. One view is the popular story of Cowboys and Indians. It is a grand story filled with adventure, excitement and gold. Another perspective is one of the Native Plains Indians and the rich histories that spanned thousands of years before white discovery and settlement. Elliot West’s book, Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to Colorado, offers a view into both of these worlds. West shows how the histories of both nations intertwine, relate and clash all while dealing with complex geological and environmental challenges. West argues that an understanding of the settling of the Great Plains must come from a deeper understanding, a more thorough knowledge of what came before the white settlers; “I came to believe that the dramatic, amusing, appalling, wondrous, despicable and heroic years of the mid-nineteenth century have to be seen to some degree in the context of the 120 centuries before them” .
Plight of the African Americans After Reconstruction in Neil McMillen’s Book, Dark Journey: Black Mississippians in the Age of Jim Crow
This quote from the book, Lone Survivor, shows the incredible resolve that the Author and protagonist of the story, Marcus Luttrell has. The book is all about the horrors that he endured in the Hindu Kush mountain region in Afghanistan when he went on a mission with 3 other Navy SEALs (Sea, Air, and Land), Danny Dietz, Matthew “Axe” Axelson, and Michael Murphy. The book, Lone Survivor was set in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, details the fight for survival against the Taliban, and has a theme of hospitality.
The Ghosts of Mississippi (1996) is a court trial movie that was released in 1996 and its setting is in Mississippi during the early 1960's. This movie is directed by Rob Reiner and produced by Castle Rock. This film is created on a true story. It relates to Byron De La Beckwith’s final trial, a white supremacist who is alleged to have shot and killed Medgar Evers- a civil rights activist. According to Smith, “race relations during the 1960’s were an area with potential for violence even though a lot of black leaders such as Martin Luther King stressed non-violence in the quest to end racial segregation” (Smith 67). The main highlight of this movie is the decision by Myrlie Evers to reopen as well as pursue this case, along with the opposition
Our story takes place on an oil-rich Native American town, called Watona, on a reservation in Oklahoma. The course of the story extends from 1918 to the mid-twenties.
Leroy and Norma Jean in the short story, “Shiloh” by Bobbie Ann Mason, are a married couple, and they experience a series of events, which shapes them and determines there future. The final setting, Shiloh, works well to highlight the battles of war to the battles between Norma Jean and Leroy. Throughout the story Mason is focused on the persistency of grief, the instability of gender roles, along with the distance and lack of communication separating Leroy and Norma Jean from each other. Mason illustrates how marriage can be a struggle striving to work out to the very end.
The movie opens up with rural images of thousands of migrant workers being transported in trucks with a short introduction by Edward Murrow and some occasional interventions of parts of an interview made to the secretary of labor after he saw the impacting images, and to the different people who have seen the lives the workers lead. Most of the secretary’s commentaries depict the exclusion that these people have since they are basically people who are silently crying out for assistance to stop harvesting the fields of their shame, or at least to hope for potential raises and better work conditions. From Florida to New Jersey, and from Mexico to Oregon, these people including women and children travel around the states following the sun and the demand from the seasonal goods while working around a hundred and thirty-six days earning and average of nine hundred dollars a year.
Filmmaker Barbara Kopple records intimate footage beyond the picket lines to capture the spirit
As a viewer, the documentary’s intention to inform is more completely fulfilled by research conducted beyond the scope of the camera lens. Had I never written this paper, for instance, the reason for all the violence embedded within the subject matter would remain as enigmatic as the documentary itself.
2. Nichols, Bill. ‘Documentary Modes of Representation (The Observational Mode).’ Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary. Bloomington & Indianapolis; Indiana University Press. 1991. 38-44