American Dream (Q&A with Barbara Kopple)

Playing prior to Harlan County USA presented by Ocean Vuong on June 28.
Winner of the 1991 Academy Award for best documentary, Barbara Kopple’s American Dream unflinchingly details the explosive 1985–86 labor strike against Hormel Foods in Austin, Minnesota, a city ripped apart in the tumult. Fed up with dangerous plant conditions and drastic wage cuts, Austin’s Local P-9 conducted a nearly yearlong walkout. But as the strike dragged on, some workers found themselves desperate to make ends meet, dividing a community already betrayed by a once progressive company and roiled by blockades, riots, and the intervention of the National Guard. Following up her landmark documentary Harlan County USA with another engrossing report from working-class America, Kopple poignantly portrays organized labor amid the unchecked corporatism of the Reaganomics era.