94m; U.S.
Director: Michael Curitz
Cast: Paul Muni,
Synopsis: An immigrant coal miner finds himself in the middle of a bitter labor dispute between the workers and the mine owners.
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Black Lung: A History (2009)
28m
Synopsis (WV Div. of Culture): Using archival footage, the story of this 1960’s populist uprising in West Virginia is told in cinema verité style. Interviews with several miners with black lung are mixed with comments by many West Virginia experts on coal mine safety to tell a compelling story of their success fighting their own union, the State Legislature, and the U.S. Congress. Their victory was the much-heralded Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969. Congressman Ken Hechler, primary author of the bill, is shown addressing miners in Kanawha County. Doctors, labor leaders, and government officials of the day are also interviewed.
Contact: MSHA Printing & Training Materials Distribution, http://www.msha.gov/TRAINING/prodintr.htm
Belfast, Maine (1999)
245m; U.S.
Director: Frederick Wiseman
Synopsis (from NYT): Frederick Wiseman, one of the giants of American documentary filmmaking, spent a month in the fall of 1996 shooting 110 hours of footage of life in a small New England town, and this four-hour-and-eight-minute feature was the result. As is his custom, Wiseman has added no narration or explanatory titles and prevents his camera from intruding any more than is necessary; the result is a lively and direct look at how a community functions. The city of Belfast, Maine has suffered an economic downturn in recent years, and the town is gearing up for a new business (a credit card collection facility) that it hopes will give the local economy a boost. In the meantime, the people of Belfast go on with their lives, trapping lobsters, canning fish, making doughnuts, teaching school, handling court cases, helping the poor and indigent, staging a local production of Death of a Salesman, celebrating holidays, and trying to make the most of their evenings and weekends. Belfast, Maine enjoyed an enthusiastic response in its screening at the 1999 Montreal Film Festival and was scheduled for broadcast on PBS early in 2000.
The Blue Eyes of Yonta (1992)
90m; Portugal
Director: Flora Gomes
Cast: Jorge Quintino Biague, Marcelo Cabral and Jacquelina Camara
Synopsis: A beautiful, intelligent and flirtatious young girl, Yonta, is secretly in love with a friend of her parents, Vicente, a hero of the war of independence. Vicente is unaware of her passion as she is of the love of a young man who sends her anonymous love letters.
Blue Elephants (2010)
14m; Germany
Director: Moritz Siebert
Synopsis: This short documentary shows the dire labour conditions of migrant workers in the Malaysian electronics industry. Men and women from Nepal, Indonesia and other countries come as contract workers to work for Dell, HP, Intell and other well known brand companies. Migrant workers pay several thousands of dollars in commission to labour agents to get work permits. Workers often engage in heavy debts to obtain such permits which may grant them a stay in Malaysia for five year maximum. Time to pay off these debts is limited, while pay is low. Migrant workers face discrimination in Malaysian society as well as on the work floor, and have to accept bad housing conditions. The work load is heavy, and when worker fail to meet set targets, they risk immediate dismissal. When workers get pregnant or fall ill, they are sent back home at their own expenses. The documentary has been produced by Moritz Siebert in cooperation with World Economy, Ecology, development (WEED), for the European Procure IT Fair campaign.
Contact: http://www.vimeo.com/18617196
Blue Collar Trap (1972)
50m; U.S.
Synopsis: Study of the modern assembly line worker. Although he is better educated, more affluent and has more leisure time than his predecessors, the sense of purpose and meaning in life an individual is able to maintain is questioned.
Blue Collar (1978)
114m; U.S.
Director: Paul Schraeder
Cast: Harvey Keitel, Richard Pryor
Synopsis: A band of auto workers decide to rob the local union office. They find $600 and a ledger book. The book reveals that the local has been loan sharking, so the workers decide to blackmail the union officers. The local first announces that $10,000 had been stolen and the figure later rose to $20,600 in an effort to cheat the insurance company.
Where to watch: Available for rental on iTunes, Google Play and other streaming platforms.
If you’re looking for something more tart than inspirational for your Labor Day viewing, the directorial debut of Paul Schrader will do the trick. (Back then he was best known as the writer of “Taxi Driver”; now he’s the provocative éminence grise behind “First Reformed.”) Set and shot on location in Detroit, the movie stars Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel and Yaphet Kotto as autoworkers thoroughly disillusioned with being exploited on the assembly line. Schrader’s analysis of their plight is informed by Marx but also exposes racial inequality. The movie is excessive, profane and relentlessly angry, with some comedic detours that fall flat. But it’s also razor-sharp in its examination of how working people can be turned against their own interests, and each other, by the crassly manipulative forces above them. GLENN KENNY (NYT)
The Blue Angel (1930)
124m; Germany
Director: Josef von Sternberg
Synopsis: Immanuel Rath, an old bachelor, is a professor at the town’s university. When he discovers that some of his pupils often go into a speakeasy, The Blue Angel, to visit a dancer, Lola Lola, he comes there to confront them. But he is attracted to Lola. The next night he comes again–and does not sleep at home. This causes trouble at work and his life takes a downward spiral.
Blow for Blow (1972)
90m; France
Director: Marin Karmitz
Synopsis: A film about a worker’s strike at a textile plant, written and enacted by the actual striking workers. This film was a collaborative and collective effort. Videotapes of upcoming scenes were discussed by the workers, and camera angles as well as dramatic refinements were agreed on before any film was exposed. Given that the film presents the worker’s point of view and is a largely amateur effort, reviewers found it surprisingly effective as a dramatic piece. One interesting feature of the film, and of the strike itself, is that it was organized and led by women. While there had been male union leaders, they were bypassed or ousted for their lack of leadership, understanding, or negotiating skills. A small textile factory, like many others. At the beginning, women in a clothing or weaving workshop. Some of them are young, some of them are old and others are middle-aged; they come here, every day, to produce in the heat, forcing the pace, enduring their tiredness. As well as can be expected, each of them lives her life : 8 hours in the factory, a new workday begins at the way out : shopping, housework, children, husbands. New financial or affective concerns. Anyway, so many women’s life. But in the workshop, things are progressively changing. They less and less can stand to be oppressed : they sabotage machines, they stop working… The boss reacts quickly and roughly: agitators are fired. To obtain two womens reinstatement, they are all going to unite. Unite to find every kind of action which could make them attempt their goal. From union speech to the final sequestration they are going to manage a terrible fight.
Bloodbrothers (1978)
116m; U.S.
Director: Robert Mulligan
Cast: Paul Sorvino, Tony Lo Bianco, Richard Gere
Synopsis: A young man is torn between following in his brothers’ footsteps or striking out on his own.
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