Directed by Claude Berri • Drama • With Renaud, Gérard Depardieu, Miou-Miou • 1993 • 160 minutes
Winner of France’s prestigious César Awards for Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design, this epic film is based on the novel by Émile Zola.
During the Second Napoleonic Empire (the mid-19th century), Etienne Lantier finds employment as a coal miner in the northern French town of Montsou. He immediately encounters misery and degradation in the appalling conditions of the mine. There he meets men as unscrupulous as Chaval and, conversely, as generous as Maheu. In fact, a whole range of suffering humanity, laboring under the curse of capitalism. One day the decide to go on strike.
“The overall effect of the movie is much the same as the effect of Zola's novel: To present a time and place so realistically in fiction that the audience will be able to share the experience.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Up Next in "It's the Economy, Stupid!"
-
A Call to Action: The Freedom Budget ...
Directed by Jenny Alexander • Documentary • With Martin Luther King • 2023 • 7 minutes
“A Call to Action: The Freedom Budget of 1966” tells the story of a little-known grassroots push for guaranteed income during the civil rights movement.
-
Time Thieves
Directed by Cosima Dannoritzer • Documentary • 2018 • 85 minutes
Who hasn’t come across the situation where an airline has us printing our own boarding passes and checking in our own luggage, saving the company a fortune in working hours? Who hasn’t spent hours assembling a piece of furniture, o...
-
The Outsider
Directed by Christophe Barratier • Drama • With Arthur Dupont, François-Xavier Demaison, Sabrina Ouazani • 2018 • 117 minutes
Before the subprime mortgage crisis began unfolding in 2008, causing chaos in world markets and misery among millions of homeowners, another financial apocalypse was alre...
