Matewan is a 1987 film directed by John Sayles. The characters in John Sayles' Matewan exemplified courage when they stood up to the company and made personal sacrifices for, The Economic Structure of Matewan But the United States seems, time and time again, keenly capable and intent on burying that trauma as best as possible. all about understanding. The essential film about grassroots union movements. There are those who spent “The American Century” comfortable and those many masses who could not. Like the Italian immigrants who have already been brought to Matewan, the black miners haven't known of the strike possibility until their arrival. Everything Carrie Coon Watched During Quarantine #QuarantineLife, Every Film Ever Nominated For An Academy Award In Any Category, See You at Mao's: the theory and praxis of class struggle, class consciousness, anti-imperialism, national liberation, people's war, radical feminism, and cultural revolution, Letterboxd’s Top 1,000 Narrative Feature Films, (almost) every title from worldscinema.org. Company thugs killed coal miners and their supporters. For millennia, those with have sought directly or indirectly to destroy those without rather than share what they have.

Matewan is a mining town in West Virginia dominated by the Stone Mountain Cole Company.
""all we got is our misery... and the least we could do is share it. But this town has a darker, bloody history, making it the most fabled city in West Virginia. The limited budget does occasionally show in scenes that might better have been reshot for narrative continuity and common sense. My intro to Sayles was only earlier this year with the equally meaningful "Brother From Another Planet." this was fucking amazing. War in the Mines MATEWAN, written and directed by John Sayles; director of photography, Haskell Wexler; edited by Sonya Polonsky; music by Mason Daring; produced by Peggy Rajski; released by Cinecom Entertainment Group and Film Gallery.

Needless to say this was more than enough for an extra push to check out the rest of his catalogue of work. If it is a Western, it is a revisionist one, where the country’s idealized virtues are corrupted and its promises of prosperity are hard-won, and the working-class people of Mingo County are exploited and dehumanized. Sayles shows how the company acted as a feudalistic lord. But in the town of Matewan there is something going on that is more terrifying and inhumane than a psychopathic killer on the loose who is killing out miners one by one. Re-watched on this Seventeenth day of October, in the memory of my grandfather who passed this morning... this film was one of his favorites and I can’t seem to shake the utter perfection of emotion I submit myself to when I witness Haskell Wexler’s stunning photography…. In both situations the people are partaking in a form of labor market, where they are selling their time and energy. Chris Cooper also gives an incredibly powerful performance here (can't believe this is one of his first). This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. In the film, Matewan, director John Sayles paints a 1920’s picture of a small, West Virginia coal-mining town. In turn, the Stone Mountain Coal Corporation hired their own enforcers, the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, dubbed the "Baldwin Thugs" … John Sayles, the writer and director of the film Matewan, demonstrates an understanding, albeit possibly an unconscious one, of the struggle between two economic systems.

This is an incontrovertible fact.

This…, Sally Jane Black Sunday 107 films 1,906 325 Edit, Films that support actual existing socialism, oppose imperialism, raise class consciousness or are emphatically in support of workers, support proletarian…, A list of films with history, characters, references or themes that are related to the subject of Anarchism, or produced…. Joe... Chris Cooper; Danny... Will Oldham; Elma... Mary McDonnell; Few Clothes... James Earl Jones; Hillard... Jace Alexander; Sephus... Ken Jenkins; C. E. Lively... Bob Gunton; Ludie... Gary McCleery; Hickey... Kevin Tighe; Griggs... Gordon Clapp; Bridey Mae... Nancy Mette; Sid... David Strathairn; Cabell... Josh Mostel; Hardshell... John Sayles.
Everything he does in the church and the house is insane and defining. What is difficult is to be morally convicted in something, that is ultimately beyond yourself, and to see this through to the bitter end, no matter what…. This idea of union, The Feudal Society of Matewan But I am here to tell you all tonight that Matewan, in all it’s pure-bred, gritty, beautiful Americana has taken back that title. Mr. Sayles's screenplay goes back to Shakespearean fundamentals in its use of such devices as purloined letters and conversations overheard by chance. The company practically owns the town, reducing workers' wages while raising prices at the company … Keeping Matewan’s residents fearful of their future, fearful of change and fearful for their lives, the Stone Mountain Coal Company retains absolute control over the town of Matewan. I suspect, however, that this seeming artlessness is a conscious choice. He recognizes that good intentions sometimes leave as many victims dead on the street as greed. Matewan, founded in 1895, was a small independent town with only a few elected officials. Matewan was only one battle in the Great Coal Field War in which the mining companies sent thousands of armed guards and strikebreakers (scabs) to West Virginia. The employees of Stone Mountain were under a bondage contract with the company. Stone Mountain, as the town was called, existed for mining exclusively. Because a single large company owned everything in Matewan, it was nearly impossible to rise out of the feudal relationship, especially since preaching the ideals of capitalism could easily result in losing all of one's property and material possessions. It just works so well and the performances are amazing. Film data from TMDb. Fucking amazing. Starring: Chris Cooper (union organizer Joe Kenehan), Will Oldham (preacher boy Danny Radnor), Jace Alexander (Hillard), Ken Jenkins (Sephus Purcell), Bob Gunton (C.E. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. While feudalism can easily be written off as a economic and. Copyright © 2000-2020. Union organizer, Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper), a scab named "Few Clothes" Johnson (James Earl Jones) and a sympathetic mayor and police chief heroically fight the power represented by a coal company and Matewan's vested interests so that justice and workers' … ''Matewan,'' opening today at Cinema 1, is so direct in its sympathies and so unsophisticated in its methods that it seems to be an intrusion on our awareness of everything that's happened to complicate the American labor movement between then and now. This is to be wholeheartedly welcomed. Sayles has such insane compassion and patience with this story and finds an incredible amount of tangible and metaphysical beauty in a story of radicalization and revolution. Haskell Wexler’s cinematography is extraordinary as usual. Yet it's this awareness that gives ''Matewan'' its poignancy and separates it from the old, optimistic, in-unity-there-is-strength movies made in the 1930's. The company creates most of the labor opportunity in town, providing positions for unskilled laborers as miners. Somehow as a society we got it in our head that if we're rich, all our troubles will melt away, and we'll live our best life, but instead, all the fucking monsters that become billionaires discover that they're more miserable than before, so they try to keep making more money in the hope that they will finally be happy, whiches causes everyone else to suffer horribly, and the billionaires reach the end of their lives in a back alley surgery clinic screaming as their dicks gives them a heart attack. At it's heart is the basic belief of all men created equal and free, and the never changing battle against corporatism.


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