They would continue in more roles for John Sayles. 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. Joe succeeds in getting the white miners to accept the blacks, led by ‘Few Clothes’ (James Earl Jones) and the Italians (represented by Fausto and Rosaria (Joe Grifasi & Maggie Renzi).

View production, box office, & company info. Mary McDonnell’s Elma is for the strike but terrified that her son will be killed; it’s all she can do to not break down under the pressure from her thug roomers.

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Supplements: Audio commentary featuring Sayles and cinematographer Haskell Wexler; new documentary on the making of the film featuring Sayles, producer Maggie Renzi, production designer Nora Chavooshian, and actors Chris Cooper, James Earl Jones, Mary McDonnell, Will Oldham, and David Strathairn; new interview with composer Mason Daring on the film’s soundtrack; new program on the film’s production design featuring Chavooshian; trailer. There’s only those that survive and those that don’t. In those thick hills, there often aren’t even good sunsets to look at. The wealth of extras gives us a wide range of production participants eager to remember the accomplishment of Matewan.

Matewan’s been out of circulation far too long, but those that remember it will give it a high recommendation. Matewan The story is told through Danny’s memories as an old man; he distinguishes between two kind of preachers by comparing them to turtles, as either ‘hardshell Baptists’ or Free-will ‘softshell Baptists.’ He must watch as the killers Hickey and Griggs sit at Danny’s mother’s dinner table, insulting her with obscene remarks. 1987 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 133 min.

Because he pays off his tale of oppression and frustration with a tension-releasing action scene, Sayles connects with audiences that might reject a liberal tragedy with a downbeat ending.

Filmed on a shoestring not far from the site of historical events, the pro- Union picture revs up viewer emotions, winding up as a moving, satisfying experience.

YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)

Title: When the local white workers go on strike, the company brings in scab labor: out-of-state blacks, and Italian-American immigrants that can barely speak English. Gun violence is threatened at every turn, and many strikers insist that nothing can be won without fighting back, especially local merchant C.E. When he witnesses the murder of his shady brother, he, the woman and the kid run to the wilderness. Movie: Excellent

Michael Cimino’s Casper Wyoming in Heaven’s Gate is an incredible construction accomplishment — but it comes across mainly as a gratuitous embellishment, a grandiose background to impress the viewer. The Criterion Collection 999 Folding insert with an essay by critic A. S. Hamrah. Coal miners, struggling to form a union, are up against company operators and the gun thugs of the notorious Baldwin-Felts detective agency. It reminds us that there is a human price paid for economic gain.

John Sayles’ coal strike epic is grand American filmmaking bolstered by fine Haskell Wexler cinematography, great performances by dedicated actors, and a screenplay that avoids the common pitfalls of liberal filmmaking — by assuming the structure of an action Western. |

How America’s workers ever side with management, I don’t know — in every strike confrontation, I’ve come up with accusations like that of the crabby old woman in Norma Rae by Martin Ritt: “You just don’t wanna work for a living.”.

While Kenehan and his story are fictional, the setting and the dramatic climax are historical; Sid Hatfield, Cabell C. Testerman, C. E. Lively and the Felts brothers were real-life participants, and 'Few Clothes' is based on a character active several years previously. They must borrow to afford the tools to work with, they can’t leave until the debts are paid off, and the system guarantees that they never get out of debt. In an economically devastated Alaskan town, a fisherman with a troublesome past dates a woman whose young daughter does not approve of him.

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Directed by John Sayles. Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case

UMWA organizer and dual-card Wobbly Joe Kenehan determines to bring the local, Black, and Italian groups together. A dramatization of the Black Sox scandal when the underpaid Chicago White Sox accepted bribes to deliberately lose the 1919 World Series. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 29, 2019 / 39.95 She’s in the middle of a guerilla war, but must get the sheets hung and the meals cooked. Maggie Renzi and production designer Nora Chavooshian proudly display artifacts explaining how they created the township without constructing it from scratch. When the time comes for violence, Danny is an old man at 16 years.

Sheriff Hatfield isn’t out to prove anything beyond his own refusal to be pushed around.

Action directors had been emulating Sam Peckinpah for a full decade, but neither John Milius nor Walter Hill put together an action scene as effective as this one. Criterion’s Sayles-approved 4K restoration, undertaken by the UCLA Film Archive, is in glowing widescreen. Original Music: Mason Daring His presence also lends Matewan a generic form that viewers can get behind, that of a Western. Written by After an accident leaves her a paraplegic, a former soap opera star struggles to recover both emotionally and mentally, until she meets her newest nurse, who has struggles of her own.

Was this review helpful to you? A fictional account of events during the Philippine-American War.

Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Chris Cooper is intensely likable, and we wonder if his Joe will gravitate to either Ma Radnor or the a-tad-too-available Bridey Mae.

| Whether you wish to call him an organizer or an agitator, he’s needed to keep the strike on course, something that’s almost impossible when informant/agents within the union are working against him. (note: Sayles himself plays the sold-out older preacher, who takes the side of the company.)

Everything looks convincing. | In a coal-rich corner of hill country, a mining company holds its workers in a state of economic slavery. In other words, we wind ourselves in the familiar situation of an old-fashioned do or die showdown.

They’re the only place workers can buy anything. Lively (Bob Gunton).

Anybody who ever needed a job will see what motivates these people. The wild card in the deck is the local Sheriff Sid Hatfield, played by David Strathairn, who was already part of John Sayles’ stock company. Coal miners, struggling to form a union, are up against company operators and the gun thugs of the notorious Baldwin-Felts detective agency. ). Viewers are immediately drawn to David Strathairn’s Sheriff Hatfield, a hard-nosed & belligerent backwoods lawman who is our only hope for a hero.

All trailers appearing on TrailersFromHell.com are the property of their respective owners. A federal crackdown on ‘malign foreign interests’ built up under cover of World War 1, putting in place setbacks that stood until the end of World War 2. Company outlets rent housing and run supply stores. Fontayne is enlisted by Bernice - her estranged old friend and current parole officer - along with a disgraced cop to search for Bernice's son, who went missing on the Mexican border.