Barbara Kopple

Barbara Kopple
Kopple at the Montclair Film Festival, May 2015
Born	(1946-07-30) July 30, 1946 New York City, New York

Barbara Kopple (born July 30, 1946) is an American film director known primarily for her documentary work.

Life and career

Barbara Kopple in conversation

She grew up in Scarsdale, New York, the daughter of a textile executive, and studied psychology at Northeastern University, after which she worked with the Maysles Brothers.

Kopple has won two Academy Awards, the first in 1976 for Harlan County, USA, about a Kentucky miners' strike, and the second in 1991 for American Dream, the story of the Hormel Foods strike in Austin, Minnesota in 1985-86. She has directed episodes of the television drama series Homicide: Life on the Street and Oz, winning a Directors Guild of America award for the former. Kopple also directed A Conversation With Gregory Peck and Bearing Witness, as well as documentaries on Mike Tyson and Woody Allen. The latter film, Wild Man Blues, focuses on his Dixieland jazz tour and on Allen's relationship with Soon-Yi Previn.

Her first non-documentary feature film, Havoc, starred Anne Hathaway and Bijou Phillips as wealthy suburbanites who venture into East Los Angeles Latino gang territory, and was released straight to DVD in 2005. Kopple has recently ventured into advertising work that includes documentary-style commercials for Target Stores.

She was also among the 19 filmmakers who worked together anonymously (under the rubric Winterfilm Collective) to produce the film Winter Soldier, an anti-war documentary about the Winter Soldier Investigation. She has also done films for The Working Group, directing the 30-minute short documentary "Locked Out in America: Voices From Ravenswood" for the We Do the Work series. (We Do the Work aired in the mid-1990s on the PBS television series "P.O.V.", and Kopple's segment was based on the book Ravenswood: The Steelworkers' Victory and the Revival of American Labor.)

In the fall of 2006, she released a documentary, Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing, about the Dixie Chicks' George W. Bush-related controversy.

In 2012 Kopple released two new films. One is about Mariel Hemingway, the granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway, and the other is concerning the 150th Anniversary of The Nation magazine. The film on Hemingway, Running from Crazy, was shown at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and on the Oprah Winfrey Network.

In 2014 the UK's Sight and Sound magazine published a "Greatest Documentaries of All Time" list, in which Kopple's film Harlan County, USA (1976) was ranked 24th, tied with 2 other movies.^[1]^[2]

Kopple is a niece of the American playwright Murray Burnett.

When beginning to make the film Harlan County, USA she was promised a $9,000 grant then was later denied. This happened countless times until she was eventually given the money through funds.

Filmography

1972: Winter Soldier
1976: Harlan County, USA
1981: Keeping On
1990: American Dream
1992: Beyond JFK: The Question of Conspiracy
1993: Fallen Champ: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson
1994: Century of Women: Sexuality and Social Justice
1994: Century of Women: Work and Family
1997: Homicide: Life on the Street - The Documentary
1997: Wild Man Blues
1998: Homicide: Life on the Street - Pit Bull Sessions
1999: A Conversation With Gregory Peck
1999: Homicide: Life on the Street - Self Defense
2000: My Generation
2002: American Standoff
2002: The Hamptons
2004: Bearing Witness
2004: Dance Cuba: Dreams of Flight
2004: WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception
2005: Havoc
2006: Shut Up & Sing
2010: 30 for 30: The House of Steinbrenner
2011: Gunfight
2013: Running From Crazy

References

External links

Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Drama Series

1971-2000	Daniel Petrie for "Hands of Love" (1971) Robert Butler for "Dust Bowl Cousins" (1972) Charles S. Dubin for "Knockover" (1973) David Friedkin for "Cross Your Heart, Hope to Die" (1974) James Cellan Jones for Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill (Miniseries) (1975) Glenn Jordan for "Rites of Friendship" (1976) John Erman for "Second Hour" (1977) Gene Reynolds for "Prisoner" (1978) Roger Young for "Cop" (1979) Roger Young for "Lou" (1980) Robert Butler for "Hill Street Station" (1981) David Anspaugh for "Personal Foul" (1982) Jeff Bleckner for "Life in the Minors" (1983) Thomas Carter for "The Rise and Fall of Paul the Wall (1984) Will Mackenzie for "My Fair David" (1985) Will Mackenzie for "Atomic Shakespeare" (1986) Marshall Herskovitz for "Pilot" (Thirtysomething) (1987) Marshall Herskovitz for "Therapy" (1988) Eric Laneuville for "I'm in the Nude" (1989) Michael Zinberg for "Vietnam" (1990) Eric Laneuville for "All God's Children" (1991) Rob Thompson for "Cicely" (1992) Gregory Hoblit for "Pilot" (NYPD Blue) (1993) Charles Haid for "Into That Good Night" (1994) Christopher Chulack for "Hell and High Water" (1995) Christopher Chulack for "Fear of Flying" (1996) Barbara Kopple for "The Documentary" (1997) Paris Barclay for "Hearts and Souls" (1998) David Chase for "The Sopranos" (1999) Thomas Schlamme for "Noël" (2000)

2001-present	Alan Ball for "Pilot" (Six Feet Under) (2001) John Patterson for "Whitecaps" (2002) Chris Misiano for "Twenty Five" (2003) Walter Hill for "Deadwood" (2004) Michael Apted for "The Stolen Eagle" (2005) Jon Cassar for "Day 5: 7:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m." (2006) Alan Taylor for "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" (2007) Daniel Attias for "Transitions" (2008) Lesli Linka Glatter for "Guy Walks into an Advertising Agency" (2009) Martin Scorsese for "Boardwalk Empire" (2010) Patty Jenkins for "Pilot" (The Killing) (2011) Rian Johnson for "Fifty-One" (2012) Vince Gilligan for "Felina" (2013) Lesli Linka Glatter for "From A to B and Back Again" (2014) David Nutter for "Mother's Mercy" (2015)

Authority control	WorldCat VIAF: 10050931 LCCN: nr93023798 ISNI: 0000 0001 1467 6739 GND: 135814308 SUDOC: 163760470 BNF: cb140511248 (data)

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