AMERICAN DREAM (1990 CRITERION)

The award-winning film of American lives, American courage, and the…

Winner of the Best Documentary Feature Oscar, Barbara Kopple's American Dream details the tumultuous 1985–86 labor strike against Hormel Foods in Austin, Minnesota. Fed up with dangerous plant conditions and drastic wage cuts, Austin's Local P-9 went against the advice of its parent union and, aided by an activist campaign to damage the meatpacking giant's reputation, conducted a nearly yearlong walkout. But as the strike dragged on, some workers found themselves desperate enough to cross the picket line, dividing a community already roiled by blockades, riots, and the intervention of the National Guard. Following up her landmark documentary Harlan County USA with another uncompromising report from the trenches of working-class America, Kopple captures the human and political costs of one of the most significant setbacks to organized labor amid the unchecked corporatism of the Reagan era.

Special Features and Technical Specs:

• NEW4K RESTORATION, supervised and approved by director Barbara Kopple, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Interview from 1992 with Kopple
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by film programmer Thom Powers