Matewan (USA: 1987, 135 mins.)

Thursday February 5, 2009, 5:30pm & 8:00pm
(Note later starting time for second screening)
Written & Directed by John Sayles, Starring Chris Cooper & James Earl Jones
Nominated for 1988 Academy Award, best Cinematography

Ain't but two sides to this world: Them that work and them that don't.	Starring Chris Cooper and James Earl Jones, Matewan is director John Sayles’ powerful dramatization of the struggle to unionize the coal fields of West Virginia in the 1920s. Black and Italian miners, brought in by the company to break the strike, are caught between the two forces. Union activist Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper), sent to help organize the union, determines to bring the local, Black, and Italian groups together.
The drama is riveting, the music is beautiful and the camera work is gripping. Matewan was nominated for the 1988 Oscar for Best Cinematography.  But the film is deeper than most Hollywood action movies. It is a treatise on the tactics of political oppression, portraying the use of racism and xenophobia to divide the miners from each other. It superbly portrays the conflict and cooperation between black and white miners, and the debate among them over the use of violence.		I've been called nigger, and I can't help that's the way white folks is. But I ain't never been called no scab!
Presented in Conjunction with the 4th Annual Labor Film Festival. Discussions to Follow Each Screening. Please join us.

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