Coalfields

Duration: 39

Year Published: 1984

Creator: B. Brand

Format: 16mm

Color: Color

Sound: sound

Description: A film made in the coalfields of West Virginia. While primarily a landscape, the film interweaves the story of Fred Carter, a retired coalminer and black lung activist, who was framed by the Federal government in order to undercut the black lung movement and to stop his bid for president of the United Mine Workers of America. His story is told through fragments of documentary interviews and by a poet whose own narrative is a counter-theme in the film. The West Virginia industrial landscapes are collaged through a series of mattes that transform the photographed scenes into a kinetic field of shapes and spaces.