Barbara Kopple
Barbara Kopple is an American film director known primarily for her documentary work. She is credited with pioneering a renaissance of cinema vérité, and bringing the historic French style to a modern American audience. She has won two Academy Awards, for Harlan County, USA, about a Kentucky miners' strike, and for American Dream'','' the story of the 1985–86 Hormel strike in Austin, Minnesota, making her the first woman to win two Oscars in the Best Documentary category.
Kopple gained acclaim for the film Bearing Witness, a documentary about five women journalists stationed in combat zones during the Iraq War. She is also known for directing the documentary films Wild Man Blues, A Conversation With Gregory Peck, My Generation, Running from Crazy, Miss Sharon Jones!, and Desert One.
She received a Primetime Emmy Award for Fallen Champ: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson, and directed episodes of television drama series such as the NBC police drama series Homicide: Life on the Street and the HBO prison drama series Oz, winning a Directors Guild of America award for the former.
Kopple received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences on September 28, 2023.
Early life and education
Kopple was born in New York City, and grew up on a vegetable farm in Scarsdale, New York, the daughter of a textile executive.Her uncle, Murray Burnett, was a co-author of Everybody Comes to Rick's, an unproduced play, that was the basis for the film, Casablanca. Her mother and maternal grandparents grew up in Peekskill, New York, the latter of whom publicly criticized the attempted censorship of singer Paul Robeson in 1949.
At Northeastern University, she studied political science and clinical psychology, and for a clinical psychology course, she made her first film, "Winter Soldiers," about Vietnam veterans, instead of writing a term paper. While working among lobotomy patients at Medfield State Hospital with Northeastern University, she decided she wanted to be a filmmaker instead.
"I realized when I was studying psychology that nobody would probably ever read what I wrote"
— Barbara Kopple
Kopple's political involvement started in college with her participation in antiwar protests against the Vietnam War.
Career
Kopple attended the School of Visual Arts, where she met documentary filmmakers Albert and David Maysles through a classmate."I really wanted to learn about documentaries, so I went to SVA. I took this class in cinéma vérité. There was a woman in the class who said: "I work for these people, the Maysles brothers. They're just finishing a film and they could use some help. Would you like to come?" So I said, "Yes, are you kidding?" And I never went back into that class again. "
— Barbara Kopple
She assisted them on their documentary Salesman, and then did camera work for their film on the Rolling Stones, titled Gimme Shelter. Reflecting on her time working with the Maysles, Kopple said "the wonderful thing about working for Alan and David Maysles was that they were the first company that treated women as equals...everybody attended all the meetings; everybody's opinion was important."
She subsequently worked as an editor, camera operator, and sound operator on numerous documentaries and then started production on Harlan County, USA in 1972. She also created a production company in 1972, Cabin Creek Films, through which she would continue to direct and produce features and television projects, in addition to documentaries. Notable intern alums from her production company, Cabin Creek Films, include Jesse Moss, Kristi Jacobson, and Jan Ackerman.
''Harlan County, USA''
Kopple first became aware of the plights of the Appalachia miners while studying at Northeastern University. In 1972, Kopple started her own production company, Cabin Creek Films. It was during this time that miners walked off the job in Harlan County, and Kopple began the filming Miners for Democracy movement led by Arnold Miller. When Tony Boyle was ousted from the union leadership and miners began striking for union recognition, Kopple moved to Harlan with a crew of five and a loan of $12,000. Kopple and her crew lived with the miners, filming even when they ran out of film because the presence of a camera "kept down violence.""In 1973, I went with Barbara Kopple to Harlan County, Kentucky as associate director and assistant camerawoman of Harlan County, U.S.A. That experience radically changed my approach to filmmaking. I had been working on the film syncing dailies and reviewing material. Then a call came from the United Mineworkers that they needed someone to film in Harlan County or there would be a killing. Barbara, Kevin Keating, Richard Warner, and I flew to Knoxville, loaded into a station wagon with all the 16 mm gear, and drove across 2 lane roads to the picket line. We arrived at 5 am. On one side of the road there were about 30 state troopers looking mean. On the other side, there were an equal number of tough-looking women with clubs. Within an hour, we were filming violent arrests and women being dragged...."
— Anne Lewis
"The scene I love the best of me being in Harlan County was when Basil Collins stopped his truck and said, "Come over here, honey." After I did, he said, "Who do you work for?" And I said, "United Press." He said, "Let me see your press card." And I yelled for Anne Lewis to go in my purse and get my press card. I actually did have one. He had guns in the car, and I asked him questions like, "Who are you and how do you feel about these people picketing up here?" I said, "And what's your position?" And he said, "Mine foreman." And I said, "Do you have any identification?" He said, "Well, I may have lost mine." And so he said, "Well, where is your press card?" I said, "Well, I may have misplaced mine." Then he zoomed off. The people who were on the picket line said: "Easy. He's the chief gun thug. He's the one who could take your life at any point." But I wasn't afraid...."
— Barbara Kopple
Harlan County, USA took four years to make and cost over $200,000. Continuing production was financially demanding on Kopple and her small crew, who regularly moved back-and-forth between Harlan and New York to collect financial backing from grant proposals and odd jobs, even writing letters for money from miners' homes. When she ran out of money, Kopple would "come back to New York and take whatever job I could, editing, sound, until I got enough to go back." Kopple also accepted donated money from her parents, friends and others in order to continue financing the project; she eventually placed herself into great debt for the film, utilizing her personal credit card for many expenses.
Kopple was threatened by mine owners during filming, being told that "if I was ever caught alone at night I'd be killed." She reportedly carried two pistols while filming in Harlan.
Harlan County, USA debuted at the New York Film Festival in October 1976, where it received a standing ovation. The film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, Kopple accepting the award "on behalf of the miners of Harlan County who took us into their homes, trusted us, and shared their love with us."
After Harlan County, USA, Kopple didn't finish another documentary until 1990. Kopple instead took her political focus on unions to television, directing the 90-minute television drama Keeping On.
''American Dream''
American Dream, Kopple's next feature-length documentary captured the 1985–86 Hormel strike, a two-year-long workers strike against Hormel Foods. Kopple was first turned onto the subject matter in the early 1980s while working on starting a different documentary project. While driving in Worthington, Minn., Kopple heard a new radio broadcast on developing strikes amongst workers in meatpacking plants of Austin. Kopple reportedly started driving towards Austin immediately; "that was the beginning," said Kopple, "And I never left."American Dream proved to be even more difficult for Kopple to produce than Harlan County, USA, despite her previous documentary's success. Budget for the film was tight, and Kopple found it difficult to obtain funding due to its subject matter. It took five years for Kopple to obtain financing for the film, and mentions her personal belief that her previous Oscar win hindered funding support.
Unlike Harlan County, which had Kopple very much on one side of the battle, Kopple intentionally aimed to be much more objective in depicting the differing perspectives of the Hormel Strike in American Dream. "I cared about the people in Austin, Minn., very much," Kopple reflected, "but if we were ever to look back at , we had to have the full story."
American Dream premiered at the New York Film Festival on October 6, 1990. It eventually earned Kopple her second Academy Award the following year. Kopple continued to exclusively make documentaries for nearly the next decade and a half, exploring new subject matters such as crime procedurals and the lives of celebrities.
''Shut Up and Sing''
Directed and produced in tandem, Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck debuted Shut Up and Sing in 2006. The film follows musicians the Dixie Chicks as they face backlash for comments against the Bush administration and the invasion of Iraq. She was on tour with the Dixie Chicks when lead singer Natalie Maines criticized the Iraq War. The film, Shut Up and Sing, debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. It went on to win a Special Jury Prize at the Chicago International Film Festival, and two Audience awards.Kopple's style is evident in use of candid clips of the performers discussing the fallout combined with a focus on what their daily lives look like. While the musicians maintain grace whilst getting death threats for their remarks publicly, Kopple and Peck show the burden it places upon them at home. It is truly mimetic of a "fly on the wall," a trademark of Kopple's filmmaking. Critical reception of the film was mixed at the time. The left-leaning outlets praised the documentary and the Dixie Chicks for their bravery. Right-wing media continued to criticize the group and to criticize Kopple and Peck for their decision to cover such "traitors."
In years since the premiere, many news outlets have come back to the documentary, writing about why it is such a landmark film for its political nature.