Anybody know about Matewan

[Ernesto]

the movie. Watched (again) last night. Reminded me of Iraq: Peacefull religous people invaded by repuke energy thugs. The occupation forces humiliate and terrorize the locals until they pick up their guns. Next, the historic "Matewan, West Va. Massacre" takes place... A classic tale of good and evil!

[Scott Lee]

1. Matewan: When American laborers woke up to reality

That reality was that they needed to be prepared to go to arms in order to defend themselves from the Pinkerton thugs and the capitalist schemers that paid their salaries. It was the shot heard 'round the labor camps...second only, in my mind, to the Haymarket Square riot in Chicago that created the May Day commemoration.

In historical synchronicity, notice the Iraqi Resistance. Another example of people pushed too far, so they will take up donkeys and carts if necessary to drive out the agressor. This tale is actually as old as humans themselves.

[pnorman]

2. I have a fairly clean dupe tape of that movie.

I've watched it several times, but I just recently got it on DVD. Since I have a portable DVD player, I can view it anywhere I care to do so. (I'll do so this afternoon, now that you reminded me).

Here's an excerpt from an Amazon.com review:
"Matewan is one of my favorite movies. I grew up in WV so I can closely identify with the characters and the dialog/accents were easy for me to understand, which may be difficult for others. John Sayles used some artistic license to change the story a little for the movie, but the Matewan Massacre really happened. I believe the character of Joe Keenahan (Kenihan?) is based on Frank Keeney, UMWA District 17 president in 1917. The Baldwin-Felts guards were real. The gunfight at Matewan led to Mingo County being known as "bloody Mingo" to this day.

Life in the coal towns is portrayed realistically and the film color is a marvel. The guards really did throw people out of their homes. Around 1912 there is a documented story that during the Paint Creek - Cabin Creek strikes, one miner's wife, in labor, was thrown out of her house. She pleaded to be allowed to first have her child, but the guards threated to shoot her if she didn't leave the house. She gave birth a couple of hours later in a UMWA tent. So remember when you watch this film that other indignities and unspeakable acts occurred in these mine fields - Sayles gives you a good taste of the unfortunate circumstances."
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005Y7R6/ref=cm_rev_all_1/103-4718586-3751823?v=glance&s=dvd&vi=customer-reviews

[pnorman]

3. I just Google-searched "bloody Mingo",

and came up with several including the below:

"The most obvious film in this slim cannon is John Sayles' classic Matewan, the searing tale of the violence surrounding the United Mine Workers of America's (UMWA) efforts to unionize West Virginia's "bloody Mingo" County in 1920. Among some stirring performances -- Chris Cooper's square-jawed union man Joe Kenehan, Mary McDonnell's fiesty Elma Radnor, James Earl Jones' restrained Few Clothes -- emerges a distinctly human drama of folks fighting hard for the scraps of a square deal, for the chance to live with dignity out from underneath the thumb of Big Coal. "You know there ain't but two sides to this world," Kenehan tells the assembled miners when racial tension threatens to break the union: "them that work, and them that don't. And that's all you got to know." Sayles is clearly of the opinion that the coal company was one evil fuckin' behemoth and their gun thugs the most nefarious bunch of greasy, guileless, duplicitous bastards you ever saw, and I'd be hard put to dispute him. Matewan won't soothe you with a happy ending -- there weren't many happy endings in the coalfields, after all -- but it does bring back a time when socialists openly roamed the land, and union was something to die for. Add the music of Hazel Dickens to the mix, and you've got a movie that doubtless shows up in every Appalachian Studies course from Boone to Morgantown."
http://weeklywire.com/ww/07-20-98/austin_screens_scanlines.html

[Bushfire]

4. I just rented it Monday night

and it was one of the best movies I've EVER seen. If you want to understand the union movement, and how to beat capilalist pigs just watch this movie. They charged minority coalworkers, led by a excellent performance by James Earl Jones, for the train ride into Matewan along with everything other item under the sun that could be sold at the company store from their paychecks. How the union organizer who came to town brought the locals, minorities, and immigrants together was a marvel of union solidarity under the circumstances. You have to see it to believe it. Please do.

[Myra]

22. Yes! I think of that movie constantly as I watch the tactics used by TPTB

It's John Sayle's masterpiece IMO, which is saying a lot
'cause he's the daddy of the Indy film. But this is his
best, most ambitious, most epic in scale, and most affecting.

And for anyone who has tried to organize a union or a
rally or anything that the powers that be *don't* want
organized, you can watch the coal company's vile tactics
and see how they're still used today. The agitator,
the infiltrator, the whole works. Different time/locale,
same strategy.

It also features Sayle's best actors (he has certain
actors he frequently uses, Gordon Clapp for example),
and this marks the only time that his two best actors ,
David Strathairn and Chris Cooper, appear in the same movie.

And then of course James Earl Jones. My gawd, what can
I say about him that we don't already know? He's a fuckin'
magnificent actor. And I think this is best role since
The Great White Hope. I saw him interviewed about four
years ago on Charlie Rose and he was asked what role he's
most proud of. His answer: Matewan. Class act that man.

Sayle's also wrote a fantastic book called "The Making of Matewan."
It's about the technical aspects of making an indy film though,
not so much about the topic of the film.
In it he describes how Jones got involved, and it's so cool.

Sayles was having trouble casting that role and sent a script
to Jones as a super long shot, not expecting an actor of that
status to accept the incredibly low salary for the role, and
Jones immediately said yes. Showed up, was the most consumate
professional immaginable, and turned in a stunning performance.
Sayles summarized with "sometimes you just get lucky."

Oh, and for those unfamiliar with Sayles, he often appears in
his movies. And the role he gave himself in this one was his best:
that of the creepy preacher. He clearly had fun with that role.
And of course Sayle's longtime partner/producer Maggie has a role,
as she often does.

This film is the ultimate masterpiece. On my list of all time
favorite movies.

[NightTrain]

5. Terrific, terrific film! John Sayles rocks!

:thumbsup:

[pistoff democrat]

6. Check this out!

A young John L. Lewis had just taken office as President of the United Mine Workers of America when, in January of 1920, he announced the campaign in Bluefield, West Virginia: The UMWA would organize coal miners in the southern Appalachians. Lewis knew coal operators would resist to the bitter end, but that didn't matter. The miners wanted to organize; the UMWA had to have their memberships; even coal operators from the midwest favored the drive which might reduce the competitive edge the Southern Appalachian coal mines enjoyed with non-union mines.
---

The coal operators resisted as strongly as expected; when a miner joined the union, he was immediately fired from his job. If he lived in a company-owned home -- as most did -- he was told to move out. If he didn't move out, gun-bearing Baldwin-Felts "detectives" evicted him and his family, setting his furniture out on the road. Despite that kind of opposition, miners by the hundreds along the Tug Fork joined the union. By May 15, 1920, three thousand Tug Fork miners had joined.
---

Nothing angered miners more than "thugs" forcing women and little children from their homes at gunpoint. Word of the evictions spread like wildfire. Angry miners from Matewan and the surrounding area grabbed guns and rushed to the town as the detectives evicted six more families in dismal rainy weather. Hatfield led a group of miners to the Stone Mountain camp and tried to stop the evictions, but the Felts brothers refused his plea. When the detectives returned to Matewan that afternoon, having finished their jobs, Hatfield, surrounded by armed miners, tried to arrest Al Felts for conducting the evictions without proper Matewan authority. As he and Mayor Testerman glared at Al Felts and the other detectives outside the railroad depot, someone fired a shot, and the battle was on.
---

http://www.matewan.com/History/battle.htm

(that is just an incredible site!)

[Ernesto]

7. I got the DVD for my birthday recently

I'm a retired UNION man. While teaching apprenticeship classes durring the '90's, I showed the film every year. I forgot the impact the story had on young minds.... Think I'll buy a few more copies for circulation!

[ajacobson]

8. I visited Matewan

couple years ago, on the way back from North Carolina. Let me tell you, getting there was a twisty, turny, mountainy, white knuckle drive.

There was a number of historical marker type things about the Coal Field Wars, but much more stuff on Hatfield and McCoys. Yes, that's where that whole thing happened.

I asked relations on my mother's side, who all are from Charleston, WV and thereabouts, about Matewan. They said, "oh, we never really went down to Mingo County too much, too dangerous."

[cmd]

9. I am the coal miner's daughter

I learned all about the union from my dad. Since I read every word I could get my hands on, the United Mine Workers Journal helped to form me. Solidarity, brothers and sisters. Peace.

[The Magistrate]

10. A Fabulous Movie

And a piece of history that ought not to be forgotten.

It is worth looking back through old newspapers from the late twenties and early thirties; many things have been air-brushed from recollection. It is quite clear the country hovered on the brink of real revolution.

[kodi]

11. no better film about the labor movement in america

and the forces aligned against it.

great acting too.

[Kolesar]

12. I found some plot elements hard to follow, but I love labor history

I could not figure out what the young preacher's role was. It has been a decade since I watched the tape, so this is all pretty vague to me now. I recommend it nonetheless.

[Bushfire]

20. He was a miner, as well as a preacher

He was the son of rooming board house operator, and was pro union as well. This conflicted with the older preacher who was against unions. His slightly older friend was shot in the movie near the end when the two of them went to steal some coal to keep warm in the labor camp. He was against violence being a preacher, but later took up a gun near the end. He had a chance to shoot one of the Felts thugs, but then let him swim across the river as he was unarmed by then. Hope it helps somehow.

[Myra]

23. SpikeTrees, I PM'd you with an explanation of the young preacher

Because it has spoilers, so I didn't want to post it
in case anyone hasn't seen this *great* movie.

[carpetbagger]

13. Great place.

I've been there three times. Like the Silverchair song says, the only way to get there is to go straight down.

If there's ten places that tell the story of what America's about, that's one of them.

[NightTrain]

14. If you liked "Matewan"...

...check out "Bread and Roses" some time. It was made 2 or 3 years ago and is about Mexican immigrants trying to organize the cleaning company they work for.

[Ernesto]

15. Don't forget Norma Rea

for a more contemporary study of the American (US) workers struggle. Features big stars (Sally Fields greatest work).

[pistoff democrat]

18. No question about Sally Field!

That movie is one of my Top 10.

[ldoolin]

16. One of my favorite movies

I have it on DVD and watch it ever so often. It should be required viewing.

[Kat45]

17. That's an excellent movie.

John Sayles makes a lot of interesting movies.

[pistoff democrat]

19. If you or anyone else here is interested,

check out this site:

http://www.local2209.org/default121a.asp

[David Zephyr]

21. Great Film.

We have it on DVD. Did you catch the "test" in the film regarding Joe Hill and the Wobblies?

Better than the Molly McGuires with Sean Connery.

[sendero]

24. John Sayles....

... is great.

[Myra]

25. Truly

The daddy of indy films.
Generally funds them with his proceeds from
screenwriting. Luckily, he's a gifted and prolific
screenwriter, so he can do that.

[brainshrub]

26. Great movie. A must-see (nt)