Very often, we’re reminded of the virtues of looking honestly and openly, without judgment. And if a documentary can do this, it’s special. But there must be room for social justice, central to the impulse to pick up a camera in the first place. Barbara Kopple’s staggeringly dense record of a Kentucky coal-mine strike is the ultimate example of crusading art: a chronicle of personal pain and sacrifice as ingrained as the soot in these workers’ palms. Duke Power Company drove its employees to the brink of ruination, an existence plagued by black-lung disease, insufficient wages and squalid housing. When productivity ground to a halt, pickers found themselves targeted by armed thugs. Kopple captures it all, bringing the drama to a head while finding room for the rich local culture of bluegrass.—JR