The land is screaming. Bartók is weeping. And coal is eating America alive.
“…It is a film that tells in hurried film sequences and a resonant musical score juxtaposing the sublime, funereal despair of Bartok agains tthe gut-bare tones of folk music. Gates has through his filming technique and meticulously selected mining sites, captured all the outrage and sorrow and indignity to the land and its people that strip mining represents. The film is one that all Americans should see, for it shows extremely well the price we have to pay for strip mined coal.” - Dale A. Burk, The Montana “Missoulian”
Score
Bartók's funeral despair colliding with raw folk lament.
Cinematography
Mining sites shot like crime scenes against sacred land.
Direction
Gates makes geology feel like witnessing a murder.
Director
Robert Gates
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Released during the 1977 energy crisis, the film captured strip mining's peak before regulation — making its urgency now feel like prophecy unheeded.
Gates reportedly spent months scouting 'active wounds' — mines operating so aggressively they changed between location scouts and filming. FREE
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