Matewan

This 1987 film aims to document real events that concerned a small coal mining community (called Matewan) in West Virginia in 1920. The miners are trying to organize a union, much to the dismay of the company that employs them. All of the acting is great, including, in the starring role, Chris Cooper, (the Kansas City native who was the abusive father from American Beauty and who starred in another fantastic Sayles film from 1996, Lonestar), David Strathairn as the good-natured but stern police chief, and, in his only theatrical movie role ever (here at 14 years old), indie-folk legend Will Oldham, of Palace Music and Bonnie Prince Billie fame. He plays a preacher-in-training in the film, and does such a great job that it seems damn unfortunate for all of us that he didn't continue his acting career--though he would go on to make some great music, and continues to currently. It also features James Earl Jones, aka Darth Vader.

Anyway, the film is very honest, subtle and exquisite. You don't feel, as you do with many films churned out by Hollywood, that things have been altered and embellished for the sake of making it interesting--it's very natural, and it seems very real. You're confidant that Sayles is giving you the truth here, as best he can, through his visual style, restrained, natural dialogue and engaging historic atmosphere.

It's movies like this that renew my faith in period pieces. Important historical films at their best are able to capture a period and bring the audience as close as possible to experiencing the 'feel' of that time--I guess that kinda goes without saying though.

Looking back to 1987 I have to wonder why this masterpiece was not nominated for Best Picture. But then again, this is the same institution that voted for films such as Braveheart and Forrest Gump. Is the Academy afraid of John Sayles?

See Matewan for its wonderful portrayal of the events that occurred in West Virginia in the 1920's. See this film for its phenomenal cast. See it for its beautiful cinematography. There is an ethereal glow that envelopes the characters and buildings of Matewan.

There is also an underlying allegorical depiction of Christ and his followers. Chris Cooper is a saint. He reminds me of Gary Cooper a little bit. He has such an unusual handsome face. He is the protagonist joined by James Earl Jones, Mary Mcdonnell, and Will Oldman. Perhaps the most fascinating character is that of the Sheriff portrayed by Strathairn. He is the angel on the black horse who carries with him the wrath of God. Just watch him stand up against the bad guys.

The main antagonistic characters are pure evil. They terrorize the inhabitants of Matewan with juvenile antics.

Please see this film and be prepared to have it imbedded in your mind for the rest of your life. This is what great film making is about

This is a powerful film depicting both the conditions under which most mineworkers labored and the social conditions existing in the 1920-1930 era of our American history. It accurately portrays the manner in which powerful industrial interests manipulated the worker's economic dependency using 'script' issued in lieu of lawful and legal tender and controlled the acquisition of basic needs such as shelter, food, and clothing. By "owning" the stores, controlling employment, threatening the physical well-being of its employees, and hiring of thugs to intimidate individuals and their ability to implement any organized mutual assistance, these wealthy and powerful companies sought to (and succeeded in ) maximizing their profits by using the labor of the poor and impotent at almost no cost to the company.

One needs to search intensely to finally reveal the true history of our period of industrialization. It is of great credit to the producer's and director's of such films as "Matewan" that we can see clearly the history and ongoing great struggle between the working class and the wealthy elite to obtain their proper share of "profits."

This is a film where one enters a theater to be "entertained", but leaves having the stirrings of compassion and outrage raised in their hearts. It reminds us that there is a human price paid for economic gain.

You might say we have it pretty good today, we don't have to pick up a rifle to form a union. This movie is based on the Battle of Matewan that took place in Matewan, West Virginia in 1920.

The conditions these workers faced were brutal. Miners had to pay for all their own equipment, their housing was owned by the mining company and they also paid for it, workers were also paid in credits which they could only use at the mining company store. Workers who went strike were subsequently evicted from their homes.

This movie is great. It's a page from history which should be told much more often. James Earl Jones is terrific as a black miner who is signed up as a scab but he's actually a union sympathizer who encourages the black scabs to strike with the West Virginia workers.

Chris Cooper is also great as a union organizer. I think he's a highly underrated actor. He was very good in American Beauty as the hick next door neighbor and he's great in Matewan as well. Proof, I believe that he can really take on any role.

Bob Gunton is also a great actor. This movie was made long before he was playing every two bit villain of the week. I think that was due to his role as the warden in The Shawshank Redemption where he just let it all out.

I liked one scene in particular early in the film where the union men on strike try to weed out Cooper by finding out how much he knows about union history. Where was Joe Hill buried? In which eye was Big Bill Haywood blind in? Cooper also quips, "I was a Wobbly, back when that meant something" But he does support the notion of One Big Union. The IWW will rise again!

After a streak of Godard films that left me a little exhausted, I was looking for a big narrative to immerse myself in, a film where artifice does not jump to our attention but is transparent and the world of the film believable. I immediately remembered about John Sayles and his nouvellas of cinema. With Lone Star I bemoaned the lack of a visual imagination, but coming to a Sayles film for a narrative like I did with Matewan, I leave completely satisfied. The man excels in telling us stories with scope and values of importance.

What a lovely world he creates here, among the derelict shacks and cabins of the Pennsylvania foothills of Matewan a moral struggle is fought, flawed characters with faces blackened by coaldust fumble with great ideals and big hopes for a better future, and the one thing that stands between them and justice is their own prejudice. I like how the film suggests that for the collective to be reformed the individual must be reformed first, that we need to look inwards first before we make a stand. The stand in the film is heroic but also desperate, a bit of a lawless old West on the way to emancipation. John Sayles is a leftist and this comes across loud and clear in Matewan, but unlike a Godard film like Week End, Sayles doesn't call for blood, he calls for social justice.

The narrative here sprawls in and out of log cabins where sullen faces plot strikes and discuss ideals, in and out of makeshift tents and muddy town streets where coalminers live and die and sing, now a fiddle or harmonica is calling out from the dark the sad tune of a life of suffering, and the finale is sealed with a shootout filled with tragedy and hope. Sayles' camera doesn't intrude in any of this, rather it's invited in and hankers down out of way to quietly listen or conspire.

Matewan makes a great doublebill with Martin Ritt's The Molly Maguires, another forlorn drama of the oppressed that speaks of moral devastation in the Pennsylvania coal fields, but more, it stands by itself as one of the great American narratives of the 80's.