This is "based on a true story" of the shoot out in the coal-mining town of Matewan, West Virginia, in 1920. The townsfolk are more or less in thrall to the Stone Mountain Coal Company. The company pays its workers in company-issued scrip, not cash, which can be redeemed only at company facilities like the store and the workers' housing. The workers themselves, laboring under dismal and dangerous conditions, must pay for everything a la carte, including their work tools.
The miners don't care for the arrangement, nor for the "scab" laborers -- blacks and Italian immigrants -- that the company brings in.
Enter the union man Chris Cooper, a Christ-like figure preaching brotherhood and non-violence. He has his hands full getting the townsfolk to work together with the alien black and the Guappos who use corn meal to make something called polenta instead of good old-fashioned corn bread. It gets especially difficult when the Stone Mountain Coal Company hires a couple of mean goons -- Kevin Tighe and Gordon Clappe -- to evict troublesome families from company housing, forcing most of them to live in tents. Sheriff David Strathairn is on the side of the workers and forbids any confrontations in the town.
I don't want to get into the plot in too much detail. It's a bit complicated and it leads to a more or less accurately depicted, but nevertheless familiar, shoot out between a dozen or more company thugs and the men and women of the town, with casualties on both sides.
It's practically an object lesson in Marxist theory. The people of Appalachia aren't like Southerners. They were yeomen farmers. No big cotton plantations. They didn't object to strong liquor. And when they drink, it's not even bourbon. When the despicable traitor to the cause pours himself a drink, it's a clear liquor. And it's not vodka or gin, it's shine. And the mountain folk weren't wedded to slavery either. That's why we have a "West Virginia" as well as a "Virginia." During the Civil War the governors of one or two Southern states had to send troops into the mountains to quell rebellions against the Confederacy. The "hillbillies" didn't necessarily want to remain in the Union. They wanted to be left alone.
Their allegiance seldom extended beyond the local community or "Holler", sometimes not farther than the extended family. As a union organizer, this makes Chris Cooper's job of implementing Marxism that much more difficult. The general idea is to persuade people that their misery isn't their own fault, not due to bad luck or laziness, but to their limited conception of power. Power lies not in loyalty to one's family or small community or ethnic group or race. Marx called that "false consciousness." To liberate themselves, exploited laborers must make the transition to "class consciousness" by realizing that "we're all in this together" and have to exercise collective power.
The movie dramatizes this conflict pretty well. It's a bit slow at the beginning but the tension grows quickly after we get to know the principles and their situations.
Haskel Wexler's photography adds to the appeal, and the production design is splendid. Note the widow hanging up her laundry. The wooden clothes pins are old, worn, and dark. And she's hanging up a patchwork quilt, a signature artifact in the Mountain South. Even the dialect is fairly accurate. The narrator uses the regional "hit" for "it" -- as in "Hit was in 1920 that the massacre happened." You won't hear that extra "h" in Charleston.
The movie uses an assortment of symbols too. In the opening scene, we watch two disgruntled miners tamp a stick of dynamite into the wall of a coal mine and wait at a distance as the fuse burns down. (Get it?) The villagers near the beginning are seen playing a slow, not particularly catchy folk tune on guitar and fiddle. Later, one of the imported black men, James Earl Jones, joins in with a bluesy harmonica. By the end an Italian is playing along with them on a mandolin. (They're all playing the same tune now.) And the approaching train bringing the army of company goons emits great billows of ominous black smoke. (Well, I don't have to draw anybody a picture.)
Chris Cooper has a sensitive face and thoughtful demeanor. He's the kind of actor who can -- and has -- gone either way, towards goodness or evil. A marvelous performance from Kevin Tighe as the smiling, confident, slimy villain. The guy has a great big, unashamedly Irish face. He's one of those suave heavies, charming when he's not committing murder. If he were a British heavy he might be James Mason. The poorest -- or let's say least convincing performance -- is from Will Oldham as Danny, the boyish nascent preacher. One winces when listening to him. He doesn't have the accent down, and neither do most of the others. Highland speech is really distinct, still. "Bread" becomes "braid", and a "tomato" is a "mater." James Earl Jones always radiates good will and is both comfortable and comforting. We don't get to see much of the Italians.
It's propaganda, of course. Sayles' loyalty is never in question. But it' well-done propaganda and possibly a necessary memento of how bad things can get when Mining Companies are left to their own devices, able to make their own rules about the workers' safety and welfare. Not that the "other side" is endorsed without reservation. At one point, some miners are saved by the intrusion of a strange group of armed and ragged hunters called "Foothill People." They don't hold with cars. They call them "machines" and curse them. And they say things like, "The only law 'round here is the law of nature." I hope the writers didn't intend that as an admirable take on the character of justice.
The miners don't care for the arrangement, nor for the "scab" laborers -- blacks and Italian immigrants -- that the company brings in.
Enter the union man Chris Cooper, a Christ-like figure preaching brotherhood and non-violence. He has his hands full getting the townsfolk to work together with the alien black and the Guappos who use corn meal to make something called polenta instead of good old-fashioned corn bread. It gets especially difficult when the Stone Mountain Coal Company hires a couple of mean goons -- Kevin Tighe and Gordon Clappe -- to evict troublesome families from company housing, forcing most of them to live in tents. Sheriff David Strathairn is on the side of the workers and forbids any confrontations in the town.
I don't want to get into the plot in too much detail. It's a bit complicated and it leads to a more or less accurately depicted, but nevertheless familiar, shoot out between a dozen or more company thugs and the men and women of the town, with casualties on both sides.
It's practically an object lesson in Marxist theory. The people of Appalachia aren't like Southerners. They were yeomen farmers. No big cotton plantations. They didn't object to strong liquor. And when they drink, it's not even bourbon. When the despicable traitor to the cause pours himself a drink, it's a clear liquor. And it's not vodka or gin, it's shine. And the mountain folk weren't wedded to slavery either. That's why we have a "West Virginia" as well as a "Virginia." During the Civil War the governors of one or two Southern states had to send troops into the mountains to quell rebellions against the Confederacy. The "hillbillies" didn't necessarily want to remain in the Union. They wanted to be left alone.
Their allegiance seldom extended beyond the local community or "Holler", sometimes not farther than the extended family. As a union organizer, this makes Chris Cooper's job of implementing Marxism that much more difficult. The general idea is to persuade people that their misery isn't their own fault, not due to bad luck or laziness, but to their limited conception of power. Power lies not in loyalty to one's family or small community or ethnic group or race. Marx called that "false consciousness." To liberate themselves, exploited laborers must make the transition to "class consciousness" by realizing that "we're all in this together" and have to exercise collective power.
The movie dramatizes this conflict pretty well. It's a bit slow at the beginning but the tension grows quickly after we get to know the principles and their situations.
Haskel Wexler's photography adds to the appeal, and the production design is splendid. Note the widow hanging up her laundry. The wooden clothes pins are old, worn, and dark. And she's hanging up a patchwork quilt, a signature artifact in the Mountain South. Even the dialect is fairly accurate. The narrator uses the regional "hit" for "it" -- as in "Hit was in 1920 that the massacre happened." You won't hear that extra "h" in Charleston.
The movie uses an assortment of symbols too. In the opening scene, we watch two disgruntled miners tamp a stick of dynamite into the wall of a coal mine and wait at a distance as the fuse burns down. (Get it?) The villagers near the beginning are seen playing a slow, not particularly catchy folk tune on guitar and fiddle. Later, one of the imported black men, James Earl Jones, joins in with a bluesy harmonica. By the end an Italian is playing along with them on a mandolin. (They're all playing the same tune now.) And the approaching train bringing the army of company goons emits great billows of ominous black smoke. (Well, I don't have to draw anybody a picture.)
Chris Cooper has a sensitive face and thoughtful demeanor. He's the kind of actor who can -- and has -- gone either way, towards goodness or evil. A marvelous performance from Kevin Tighe as the smiling, confident, slimy villain. The guy has a great big, unashamedly Irish face. He's one of those suave heavies, charming when he's not committing murder. If he were a British heavy he might be James Mason. The poorest -- or let's say least convincing performance -- is from Will Oldham as Danny, the boyish nascent preacher. One winces when listening to him. He doesn't have the accent down, and neither do most of the others. Highland speech is really distinct, still. "Bread" becomes "braid", and a "tomato" is a "mater." James Earl Jones always radiates good will and is both comfortable and comforting. We don't get to see much of the Italians.
It's propaganda, of course. Sayles' loyalty is never in question. But it' well-done propaganda and possibly a necessary memento of how bad things can get when Mining Companies are left to their own devices, able to make their own rules about the workers' safety and welfare. Not that the "other side" is endorsed without reservation. At one point, some miners are saved by the intrusion of a strange group of armed and ragged hunters called "Foothill People." They don't hold with cars. They call them "machines" and curse them. And they say things like, "The only law 'round here is the law of nature." I hope the writers didn't intend that as an admirable take on the character of justice.