The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

112 Steve James
later. It’s so true to her personality. She’s the kind of person who as a person
and as a filmmaker can talk anybody into doing an interview or sharing
their opinion because she’s so open in the way she approaches a subject and
approaches people. She’s very curious, and she doesn’t approach people in a
judgmental fashion. You see glimpses of that in the movie.
Tell me about your favorite moment.
James: There’s one moment in the film where this guy who’s a union buster for
the company drives up in a truck. It’s the first time you see him in the film, his
first encounter with Barbara and her film crew. He asks, “Who’re you with?”
She has some bogus press credential thing that she’s got, maybe not bogus.
He says, “Well, let me see your card.” Then she starts just talking to him,
saying, “Who are you?” He says his name. She says, “What do you think of
all this?”
He starts to answer, and then he’s like, “I don’t think I want to talk about
this.” He goes, “I need to see that press credential.” She goes, “Well, could
I see yours?” He goes, “I don’t have it with me.” She goes, “I don’t think I
have mine either.” It’s a very funny exchange, and you can see in the guy, he
clearly perceives her right away as someone who’s in league with the miners.
There’s this quality in that brief encounter; you see her ability to engage
with people, even people who have every reason to be suspicious of her. She
ends up getting access to him—not the kind of intimate access she has to the
striking miners, but she does end up getting access to him.
That’s a quality she has as a filmmaker and is known for, and you see it on
display in this movie. It’s her ability to look beneath the surface of the rhetoric
and passions to understand some of the complexities of what’s going on. In
this case, in this movie, it’s not about the two sides as much as it’s about the
fissures within the striking miners. You see some eruptions of anger within
the group. You see some of the pressure that striking is putting on them. She
shows all that. These folks, you see the pressure they’re under and how they
turn on each other sometimes. She’s always had this focus on people at the
center of these stories, not just the politics or the social commentary.
Just a little background for people: The miners even in the early 1970s
had really bad living conditions. They lived in company towns, some