Matewan (1987) is an American drama film by John Sayles, illustrating the events of a coal mine-workers' strike and attempt to unionize in 1920 in Matewan, a small town in the hills of West Virginia.[1]
Based on the Battle of Matewan, the film features Chris Cooper, James Earl Jones, Mary McDonnell, David Strathairn, Kevin Tighe, Will Oldham, and Jace Alexander.
Plot
It was 1920 in the southwest West Virginia coal fields, and, as the narrator recalls, "things were tough." In response to efforts by miners to organize into a labor union, the Stone Mountain Coal Company announces it will cut the pay miners receive, and will be importing replacement workers into town to replace those who join the union. The new workers are African Americans from Alabama and are coming in on the train, but the train is stopped outside town and the black men are told to get off. Derided as "scabs", they are then attacked by the local miners, but manage to get back on the train and continue their journey.
Witnessing the attack is Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper), a passenger on the train and an organizer for the United Mine Workers. He arrives in Matewan and takes up residence at a boarding house run by a coal miner's widow, Elma Radnor (Mary McDonnell), and her 15-year-old son, Danny (Will Oldham), who is also a miner and a budding Baptist preacher.
Radnor (McDonnell) and Joe Kenehan (Cooper).
As Danny goes to preach that night at the Missionary church (the hardshell congregation, headed by an anti-union minister, played by John Sayles), Kenehan goes to meet the miners, who quiz him on his bona fides (where is Joe Hill buried, what eye is Big Bill Haywood blind in, etc.). Kenehan says he was once a member of the "Wobblies" and wins the tentative confidence of the men. One of the black miners, called Few Clothes, bravely comes to meet the union men and declares that while he can not help it if white people call him a " nigger", he takes vigorous exception to being called a "scab". Kenehan then explains to the local miners that accepting the blacks and the Italian miners is what the union is all about. If all the men are united and refuse to work, the company will not be able to operate, he says.
Kenehan and the local leader, Sephus, then go around to meet the rest of the black miners as well as the contingent of Italians and try to bring them into the union, and are met with reluctance. But later, caught between the company's guns and the local miners, the blacks and the Italians throw down their coal shovels and take up the union cause.
C.E. Lively, an agent provocateur for the coal company who has infiltrated the union, tries to goad the miners towards violence, which Kenehan says will only weaken their cause. The infiltrator also pens a note to the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, which provides gun thugs to the coal company, saying there is a "Red" organizer in town.
The next day, two Baldwin-Felts men, Hickey and Griggs, show up in town and take up residence at the Radnor boarding house. Danny at first refuses to give rooms to Hickey and Griggs, but Kenehan voluntarily moves to the hotel, freeing up a room for the two men and averting trouble for Mrs. Radnor.
Hicky and Griggs then start their campaign against the union by forcibly evicting miners from company-owned houses in town. Mayor Testerman and Police Chief Sid Hatfield refuse to let them be evicted without eviction writs from Charleston, West Virginia. Hatfield deputizes all the men in town and tells them to go home and come back with their guns.
The Baldwin-Felts men then turn their attention on the strikers' camp outside town, where the miners and their families are living in tents. At night, the gun thugs fire shots into the camp, injuring some strikers. The next day, they enter the camp to demand that all food and clothing purchased at the company store with scrip be turned over to them. But then some armed foothill people, whose land was taken by the coal company, enter the camp. After expressing disdain for the noise caused by the gun thugs' automobile, the hill people's armed help compels the Baldwin-Felts men to leave. The leader of the hill people wields a gun from the "War Between the States".
The union is starting to take hold at other mines in the area, but the slow arrival of the union's relief funds tests the patience of Danny and other miners, who become disillusioned and turn to violence, in spite of Kenehan's warnings.
Sephus and some other miners are involved in a night-time shootout with the gun thugs. Sephus is injured and is rescued by some hill people, but he sees that the infiltrator is C.E. Lively.
C.E. Lively tries to drive a wedge between Kenehan and the men by convincing a young widow, Bridey Mae Tolliver, to tell a false story of sexual assault against Kenehan, and he plants a letter which makes Kenehan appear to be the infiltrator. Danny Radnor overhears Hickey and Griggs talking about the scheme but is caught and held by the two men. The agents intend to keep a watchful eye on Danny, but become drunk and are not paying attention that night when Danny, while preaching at the Freewill (softshell) church, relates a parable about Joseph that convinces the miners that they have been deceived by a false story. One of the miners hurries to find Few Clothes at the camp, who had drawn the short straw during the decision of who would kill Kenehan for his assumed treachery. Meanwhile, Few Clothes tells Kenehan he is there to guard him when he comments on the gun the black miner has. Asked whether he knows how to use it, Few Clothes says yes, that he was in the Spanish-American War of 1898. Kenehan tells him that he was in Fort Leavenworth Military Penitentiary in 1917, and saw Mennonite prisoners there imprisoned for refusing to bear arms passively resist having their beards shaved and rip the buttons off their prison clothes, since all these were against their religion (they were probably from the Hutterite church.) They were punished by getting handcuffed to cell bars for eight hours per day, until the cuffs had cut into their wrists and caused gangrene (brothers Joseph and Michael Hofer both died from this after the war had ended). Despite it all, they ripped off re-sewn buttons with their teeth, not one giving up. Kenehan says he never saw braver men, and ironically they were in there for refusing to fight. This passionate tale of bravery and injustice has Few Clothes torn, delayed by listening to him, now unsure. A miner runs up and tells Few Clothes what happened, who is happy to learn Kenehan is framed—the execution is called off just in time. Sephus, meanwhile, has made his way back to town and informed the others of C.E. Lively's betrayal, furiously burning down his restaurant. Lively flees town by swimming across the Tug Fork River.
Later, Hillard Elkins, a young man and a friend of Danny's, is kidnapped by the Baldwin-Felts men. He is tortured for information about union organizers, and reveals some names, and is killed. C.E., who has joined the Baldwin-Felts men, reveals that the men that Hillard named were actually killed in a fire years earlier.
The situation between the Baldwin-Felts men and Chief Hatfield comes to a head with the arrival of reinforcements with orders to carry out the evictions. The mayor tries to negotiate, but Kenehan comes running to try and stop the fight. The sudden movement sets off a climactic gunfight between the exposed mercenaries and the hidden, armed townspeople. Hatfield brings down at least two men with his pistols and survives the battle, but Kenehan is killed and the mayor is shot in the stomach. Griggs is brought down, while Hickey escapes to Radnor's boarding house; there, he is shot and killed by Mrs. Radnor herself. Seven Baldwin-Felts men and two townspeople are ultimately killed.
In the epilogue, the narrator (revealed to be an elderly Danny Radnor recalling those days in "Bloody Mingo"), says that Mayor Testerman succumbed to his wounds and the mayor's wife married Sid Hatfield. However, Hatfield was later gunned down on the steps of the McDowell County Courthouse in Welch, with C.E. Lively stepping in to deliver the coup de grâce.
Cast
Critical reception
The staff at Variety magazine lauded the acting in the film, writing, "Matewan is a heartfelt, straight-ahead tale of labor organizing in the coal mines of West Virginia in 1920 that runs its course like a train coming down the track. Among the memorable characters is Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper), a young union organizer who comes to Matewan to buck the bosses. With his strong face and Harrison Ford good-looks, Cooper gives the film its heartbeat...Most notable of the black workers is 'Few Clothes' Johnson (James Earl Jones), a burly good-natured man with a powerful presence and a quick smile. Jones' performance practically glows in the dark. Also a standout is Sayles veteran David Strathairn as the sheriff with quiet integrity who puts his life on the line."[2]
Film critic Vincent Canby lauded the acting and the cinematography in the film and wrote in his review, "There's not a weak performance in the film, but I especially admired the work of Mr. Cooper, Mr. Tighe, Miss McDonnell, Miss Mette, Mr. Gunton, Mr. Strathairn and Mr. Mostel. They may be playing Social-Realist icons, but each manages to make something personal and idiosyncratic out of the material, without destroying the ballad-like style. For the most part, Haskell Wexler's photography doesn't go overboard in finding poetry in the images."[3]
Critic Desson Howe liked the look of the film and wrote, "Cinematographer Haskell Wexler etches the characters in dark charcoal against a misty background. You get the feeling of dirt, sweat and -- despite the story's mythic intentions -- the grim grey struggle of it all. And Sayles, struggling for authority from Return of the Secaucus Seven through The Brother From Another Planet, has finally tapped the vein."[4]
The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 100% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on seventeen reviews.[5]
Locations
The film was made in West Virginia with the town of Thurmond standing in for Matewan. Other scenes were filmed along the New River Gorge National River.[6]
Soundtrack
The film score features Appalachian music of the period composed and performed by Mason Daring, who frequently works on John Sayles' films. West Virginia bluegrass singer Hazel Dickens sings the film's title track, "Fire in the Hole," and appears in the film as a member of the Freewill Baptist Church who leads the congregation in a cappella hymns and also sings over the grave of a fallen union miner.[7]
See also
References
- ^ Matewan at the Internet Movie Database.
- ^ Variety. Film review, August 28, 1987. Last accessed: January 17, 2008.
- ^ Canby, Vincent. The New York Times, film review, August 28, 1987. Last accessed: February 25, 2008.
- ^ Howe, Desson. The Washington Post, film review, October 16, 1987. Last accessed: January 17, 2008.
- ^ Matewan at Rotten Tomatoes. Last accessed: February 25, 2008.
- ^ IMDb. Filming Locations Section, ibid.
- ^ IMDb, Soundtrack Section, ibid.
External links
