An Injury to One

Image, sound and text are powerfully and effectively juxtaposed in this history of Butte, Montana, the copper mining town that inspired Dashiell Hammett's Poisonville in Red Harvest. Hammett was a Pinkerton man during the 1917 union agitation, and may have been involved in the murder of activist Frank Liddle. The film puts capitalism on trial, not just for Liddle, but for the exploitation of an entire town. While $25 billion is said to have been extracted from the mines, it was at a cost of 10,000 lives - with only toxic waste to show for it. A searing piece of must-see agit-prop.