BeSummers Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

geomylo One of the best documentaries i have ever seen. Totally 99% for all the brave US occupiers. Saw it in a festival in Athens back in 2004 (i think that was the year) and still remember it. To me it was an introduction in early 20th century American labor history, for which i knew nothing about.Archival footage mixes with deftly deployed inter titles. The music is great as well. The lyrics to traditional mining songs are accompanied by music from William Oldham, Jim O'Rourke, and the band Low, producing an appropriately moody, effulgent, and strangely out-of-time soundtrack. The result is a unique film/video hybrid that combines painterly images, incisive writing, and a bold graphic sensibility to produce an articulate example of the aesthetic and political possibilities offered by filmmaking in the digital age. The way the film links the history of the mine with the present environmental nightmare in the area is charismatic.Since then i am a William Oldham fan as well...I will try to purchase the DVD now, off i go...(https://www.facebook.com/georgia.mylonaki)

jgm8530 Although not the best film I've ever seen, scarcely could one call it a dud. If one truly has an appreciation for avant-garde aesthetic, the film is a treat. Most of what Wilkerson presents can be corroborated in the bibliography on the Wobblies. However, in the case of Wilkerson's film, the aesthetic approach is very intriguing when compared to straightforward historiographic accounts, and thus, most welcome. It is representative of WWI working class life in the mines (focusing more on corporate espionage) and the collusion of corporations and the state in suppressing social justice. The leftist discourse in the film is drawn directly from the IWW personal journals, diaries and local newspapers, not Wilkerson himself.

LanceThruster I would have to say that I "enjoyed" this production very much because I felt it was truthful regarding what happened during that time and the aftermath. Especially telling was the evolution of the Sedition Act from a tool of local control to one used nationally. As far as I was concerned, everything worked for me to set the tone the material deserved; the music, and protest songs, the narration, and the use of photographs and screen text. I cannot remember the line exactly but it went to the heart of what was being fought for; a recognition of unsafe condition for the miners, a lack of fairness in wages, and the denial of the right to bargain collectively. The line was something along of this; "How can we discuss if we cannot speak?" It was meant to highlight that the miners were not even allowed to talk about the issues at hand because it was determined that for a strategic war industry (copper mining), any protest or dissension hurt the war effort and was tantamount to treason.I think there are quite a few parallels to what is taking place today. The Patriot Act comes to mind as well as mainstream media acting as administration lackeys.

John Seal This documentary about the miners and capitalists of Butte, Montana, is pretty good, considering it's part of someone's dissertation. Comprised mostly of lingering landscapes, stills, and narration, the film details the efforts of IWW activist Frank Little to organize the workers of Butte in 1917. The film also takes some surprising diversions regarding novelist Dashiell Hammett and McCarthyism and ends with a brief update on the dire condition of Butte and its environs in the twenty-first century. Though imperfect--the deadpan narration is a little too self-important, the utilization of Butte mining songs disengaging, and some camera shots tend to linger several seconds too long at times--this is a fascinating document of a little known period of American history. The soundtrack, provided by artists such as Low, Dirty Three, and Will Oldham, is particularly noteworthy.