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Right now in Los Angeles and New York, actors and writers are walking picket lines. They’re on strike to secure such reasonable demands as ownership of their own images and residuals from streamers that approximate what they receive from networks. It has already been a long strike, and the end is not in sight. If the workers need encouragement, they could watch John Sayles’ Matewan, a 1987 historical drama about a 1920 coal miner’s strike that ended in bloodshed. The irony is that the film, once available in video stores across the country, isn’t available to stream. They could watch a pirated version on YouTube, which right now might feel more like an act of defiance than one of theft, or they could make their way to Suns Cinema on Saturday night and avail themselves of a rare opportunity to see it on the big screen.
In the small West Virginia town of Matewan in 1920, the coal miners are already on strike when a train arrives bearing a carful of Black workers to act as scabs and two union-busters (Kevin Tighe and Gordon Clapp), all of whom were hired by the Stone Mountain Mining Company. Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper in his film debut), a union organizer from Pittsburgh, is also on the train. While there is initially much rancor between the White strikers and the Black scabs, these conflicting forces quickly sort themselves out. Kenehan works hard to unite the Black workers with the native West Virginians, relying on his authority as a young veteran of the nascent labor movement and his skilled rhetoric to forge common ground. The union-busters have no friends but management; Sayles, with his keen eye for human evil, frames them as creatures of myth, slithering through the tall grass, leaving trails of poison.
With such clear morality and political purpose, Matewan is buoyed by its deep roster of character actors, including Mary McDonnell as the operator of a boarding house where the union-busters are staying; James Earl Jones as the emerging leader of the Black workers; and a young Will Oldham as a teenage preacher with an oratory gift and a heart for labor—he might be the standout in a stacked cast. Particularly memorable is David Strathairn as lawman Sid Hatfield, whose embodiment of stoic morality would have made him a natural fit in a classic Western, a genre from which Matewan derives its cinematic power. Good guys and bad guys face off in a nascent, semi-lawless town that stands in for an entire country.
It’s a film whose animating spirit permeates every scene, shot, and frame. Sayles had already proven himself by this point—with groundbreaking films like Returns of the Secaucus 7 and The Brother from Another Planet—to be an actors’ director who treats his cast like equals, giving them ownership over their roles and inviting them to be part of the creative process. In Matewan, the form matches the function, and, with its pro-labor themes and spirit of collectivism, you can see why film artists from all corners of the industry would seek to be involved. It’s more than a film. It’s a statement. Released in the waning days of Ronald Reagan’s second term, it also served as a refreshing antidote to the culture of union-busting that dominated America at the time.
Sayles is a true American independent, a multiple Oscar nominee who makes nearly all his films outside the studio system. For Matewan, he and his longtime partner Maggie Renzi raised the funding themselves, then sold the film to studios for distribution. With a $4 million budget, Matewan was Sayles’ most ambitious film to date, and he made it count. He hired Haskell Wexler, who lensed the jittery counterculture docu-drama Medium Cool, as his cinematographer, and together they captured the slow rhythms of the era through a stationary, largely motionless camera, With its sooty night skies and charcoal gray faces, Matewan creates a mood of pending death, while visually demonstrating how the town and all who reside in it are beholden to the mines.
While it occasionally sags under its own importance, the film builds to a conclusion that feels both inevitable and heartbreaking. It’s a strong vision brought to life by an impeccable cast and crew, evidence that you don’t need a huge budget to make a period piece that looks great and feels real. You just need people who know the story they’re telling. And you have to treat them with respect.
Matewan screens at 9 p.m. on Aug. 19 at Suns Cinema. sunscinema.com. $12.
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