Matewan (1987, John Sayles) with Jack Ryan - Criterion Collection Spine #999

"You walk out taking away an awful lot of knowledge of American history that you were never told."

In this episode of Why This Film?, I'm joined by film scholar Jack Ryan to explore Matewan, John Sayles's 1987 masterpiece and Criterion Collection Spine #999.

Matewan follows Joe Kenehan, a union organizer sent to a small West Virginia mining town in 1920 to bring together workers all kept apart by a coal company determined not to let them realize how much they actually have in common. Sayles builds the tension until the ultimate massacre most of us were never taught.

Jack Ryan brings his perspective as the author of John Sayles, Filmmaker (2nd ed., 2010), the definitive critical study of Sayles's career. Having spent years studying Sayles's entire body of work, Jack understands the patterns in how Sayles builds his films. This makes him the perfect guide for understanding Matewan not just as history, but as a film.

Together we move through the film scene by scene and discuss:

• Sayles as a filmmaker
• How direct contact with people of the region shapes the feel of a film
• Haskell Wexler's use of darkness and palette sans primary colors
• The role of music bringing people together
• Joe Kenehan's pacifist's philosophy
• Why the film refuses us any comfort at the end
• American labor history that schools don't teach

Whether you're discovering Matewan for the first time or returning to it, this conversation explores why a film about a massacre most of us never learned about became one of Sayles's most beautiful works and why it still matters.

Hollywood ManeStays - Not a pin, not a clip. Just Better.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:24

You walk out taking away an awful lot of knowledge of American history that you were never told.

Ron 0:31

Hello everybody, my name is Ron, and welcome to Why This Film, a podcast where we explore the artistry, cultural impact, and legacy of movies in the Criterion Collection. Each episode I sit down with experts in Cinephiles to ask, why was this film chosen for the collection? And why does it still matter today? Before we dive into today's episode, I want to give a special shout out to two people that have found the support the show link in the episode description. So thank you to Mary Beth and Lindsay for your support. In this episode, we're heading into the coal fields of West Virginia with Matewan, Criterion Spy number 999, the 1987 film from writer-director John Sales, part labor drama and part Western. Matewan follows Joe Kennahan, a union organizer sent to a small mining town in 1920 to bring together workers who have every reason not to trust each other. They're all kept apart by a coal company determined not to let them realize how much they actually have in common. Sales builds the tension until the ultimate massacre most of us were never taught. Anchored by Chris Cooper's film debut, alongside the powerhouse performance of James Owl Jones, David Strathairon, Merrick McDonnell, Kevin Ty, and Will Oldham, Maitwan remains one of Sales' most fully realized films. My guest today is Jack Ryan. Jack Ryan wrote the definitive critical study of John Sales' career. It's titled John Sales Filmmaker, the book that anyone seriously studying sales' work will eventually have to read. A graduate of NYU and Case Western, he currently serves as vice provost and dean of arts and humanities at Gettysburg College. Having spent years studying sales' entire body of work, Jack understands the patterns and how sales builds these scenes, making him the perfect person to break down Matewan. And with that, here's my conversation with Jack Ryan. What is it about sales that you were so fascinated with?

SPEAKER_04 2:14

Well, it started off, Ron, because I I was living in New York City at the time. So I was able to see a lot of films, one of which, of course, was Return of the Seacaucus 7, which is completely different than a lot of the movies that I was going to. I left New York and I went to Cleveland, Ohio to study for my PhD. And uh there's a great cinema series there called The Cinema Tech. And the Cinema Tech would just show all of Sales's films. And he he attended the Cleveland Film Festival once. So it started with Return of the Seacaucus 7, and then it just continued to grow and reading his novels, his collection of short stories. I've even read both of the plays that he wrote that were performed in an old theater once on the Hudson River. So I've just been somebody fascinated by sales and sales' career in all areas.

Ron 3:17

Is there anything that you found in your research that surprised you about sales? Something that stands out that you maybe weren't expecting?

SPEAKER_04 3:24

Well, I guess I should have expected this, but the main thing that I didn't expect is how quickly and with the level of quality that he brings to all of his writing. So it doesn't really matter if he's working for Roger Corman at New World Cinema and he's writing about piranhafish, or if he's working with his friend Joe Dante and writing about werewolves. There's always something about everything that he does that sort of goes beyond the genre, especially of the movies. I guess the book that really intrigued me was his first novel called Pride of the Bimbos. And uh like sales, maybe like you, a baseball fan. And so here's this story about a group of people traveling around the country wearing costumes that also has a crime element. There's a pursuit story built into that, but I found it to be very, very funny. Even the title story in Anarchist Convention, where you have these old intellectuals fighting each other on Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn. There's an awful lot of humor in Sales' work that I think is missed because his films are really so serious. Um certainly a film like Matewan. I think you see humor in Lone Star, uh, especially some of the oh, the people that that uh the young sheriff meets, you know, and they compare him to dad, you know, buddy deeds. It's available in everything that he does. But I I think he has a very rich sense of humor that that, as I said, sometimes is just passed over. The film that that came just before Matewan, Brother from Another Planet, is really funny because here you have the lead, Joe Morton. He can't even speak, and he finds himself in all of these humorous situations, especially with the men in black, sales and straighthair chasing him all over New York City. And then, of course, where do they find him? Well, they find him in a bar in Harlem at the time when Harlem was predominantly black.

Ron 5:41

I want to talk about his writing because he wrote I I try really thought hard about this, and maybe not hard enough because I couldn't think of another example of this, but he wrote a book to be released alongside the film. It's called Thinking in Pictures, the Making of the Movie Mate One. I can't I couldn't think of another director that has ever done anything like that before.

SPEAKER_04 5:59

Not a release at the same time. So there you can you can find a comparison in some things that Spike Lee has done. But you can you can find a companion book for Do the Right Thing, but that was after the film was released. Same thing with school days, but in sales's case, he released that book practically on the same day the film came out. It's broken into two parts. The first part is all about how an independent movie is made, step by step, incredibly logical. And then the second half of the book is the screenplay.

Ron 6:34

Does he talk about in that book too he when he was hitchhiking through West Virginia and Kentucky back in the 60s, I want to say, and hearing these stories about the coal mine?

SPEAKER_04 6:44

He does mention it, you know, especially like where where does this story idea come from? So he talks about his hitchhiking days and then hearing these stories about coal field wars, not specifically about Matewan, but he wrote a book called Union Dues. And in Union Dues, it's the McNutt family. The book did receive some attention. It was nominated for the National Book Award and the National Critics Circle Book Award. And it's about this young man from West Virginia who runs away from home. And he's his dad is still connected to the mining industry. So there's little bits in that book about mining uh in West Virginia, and what the young protagonist is trying to do, he's trying to find his brother uh who served in Vietnam, but who's been lost to the family, and he heard he's he live living up in Massachusetts. And then when his dad discovers that the youngster is gone, his dad pursues him. So most of the action takes place outside of West Virginia. It takes place around Boston.

Ron 7:54

It's hard to describe. I got home from watching Lone Star. It's hard to describe. I mean, I could describe it. I could give you the plot. I can describe the plot to you. Matewan, pretty straightforward plot. What's difficult for me to describe is how he's able to write the characters in a way, shoot the film in a way that you feel really connected to the people that you're seeing on the screen. So I got the sense that hitchhiking through West Virginia, Kentucky, hearing firsthand about the Coalfield Wars helped him shape not just the narrative, but the feel of the film itself. It's really hard. I I can't quite put a finger on what he does. It just he makes you feel so connected to these characters. I don't know what it is.

SPEAKER_04 8:32

Well, in in the case of Maitwan, it's certainly dedication to the location. So it's really his first film. It's not only a period piece, but it also involves a particular kind of landscape. So if you think of some of Haskell Wexler's shots, there's one scene where Danny and Hillard climb up this hill. And there's one moment where they're looking from the top of the holler and they're looking down at the Tug Fork River. And it's incredibly beautiful, and it's just well done the way that Wexler shoots it. So if you're just looking at it visually, you know, this could be Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer kind of plotting something. But then immediately Danny points out something down there, railroad trestle. That's where so-and-so is shot. He was 13 years old. So you see the beauty in the shot. You see these two youngsters, approximately 14 to 16 years old, a couple teenage boys. They're reflecting on the place they live, but then they're recalling the history of that area, which of course is just saturated in violence, especially when it comes to coal mining.

Ron 9:47

You mentioned Haskell Wexler. The way they shot this film, everything is almost a green tint. It's like a dust-colored palette. I don't think there's any primary colors in this film at all from start to finish. It really gives it a gritty feel. I I they were they were spraying these characters' clothing down with not actual coal dust, but things to make it look like they were just covered head to toe in coal dust all the time. The lack of those primary colors does a lot of the heavy lifting with the mood throughout the entire film.

SPEAKER_04 10:14

It definitely does. The photographic image that you're recalling is a woman named Cynthia Flint, who was the costume designer. So they're making sure that all the clothing that they're wearing looks like it's really been used. So you could compare it to some shots. Haskell Wexler won an Academy Award for filming Bound for Glory, you know, the Woody Guthrie story, which it's itself could have this dark palette. But most of the shots you recall from that film is David Carradine riding on the top of a boxcar out in the sunlight. In this movie, they really wanted to reduce the number of color options. Look at the way the movie begins.

Ron 11:00

Pitch black. Total darkness. Right. Right. And even the even the scenes that are during the day, it's like a cloudy day. It's there's not really a lot of happy weather days for these people in West Virginia.

SPEAKER_04 11:10

No, no. I mean, they I guess the happy moment is when they're playing that baseball game. That's a very happy moment. Yeah.

Ron 11:18

Yeah. Maybe in the beginning when they're finally getting off of work. Maybe maybe that's a happy, happy 30 seconds. But maybe that's because that's that's going to be tensier very soon.

SPEAKER_04 11:28

And it's a fascinating opening shot, too. So they're they're coming out of the mind of of uh seam number five, I think that's on the lentil above the drift mouth of the uh of the mine. And then they come out, they're covered in all that coal dust. And here you have somebody with a Gatling gun and an army rifle behind sandbags, watching all the miners come out. And then when the miners themselves come out, they walk in between two of the cars that take the coal away. They're pretty well empty, but they're completely compressed within the scene. And then they're all dark and they all kind of blend together. Then they walk out a little bit into the light, but they're still as dirty as they can be.

Ron 12:14

I think they filmed, they couldn't film in Matewan. They said it was more developed. They had to find somewhere else to film the town scenes in Matewan. I want to go back to Sales writing for a moment because I was kind of upset with myself that I missed that he was structuring the story like a Western. You have a series of confrontations, each one is ratcheting up and ratcheting up until that final showdown. You have men that are not from here that are showing up armed, ready to take over the town. It's like high noon. I missed it. I guess I was just so entrenched in the story and what I was seeing that I wasn't really picking up, like, oh, this is just like a this is like a coal miners western crossover thing going on here.

SPEAKER_04 12:52

Yeah, I guess I'll call it a gunfight western, where there's the culminating event at the end of the film. Even though, of course, he keeps his story going because then Danny is revealed as Pappy at the end. But he's also blending gunfighter western with social issue, if we're just going to look at genres. So you've got the two going at once. What happens to workers in America?

Ron 13:19

Well, he he talked about being in a number of different unions himself over the course of his life and interested in the question of what it takes to bring people from totally different backgrounds together. Is that something specific to Matewan, or do we see this as a through line through his his other work too?

SPEAKER_04 13:38

Aaron Ross Powell See it as a through line. The family that he grew up in, his parents were teachers, uh, but he also had people that were uh police or firemen. And before he had a story published, he was working in a meatpacking factory up in Boston. And then, of course, he would have been in every single guild that Hollywood has to offer directors, screen screenwriters. He would even be in the in the screen actors guild because of the work he did, not only for his own films, but also for Spike Lee and Malcolm X. But any of the movies, I mean, you really you can go back to the Return of the Seacaucus 7. I think one of the things that makes his work really important is he's always using an ensemble cast. Usually within that cast of people, you're gonna find somebody who is from the outside of the group itself. So if we go back to Return of the Sea Caucus 7, that's the Gordon Clapp character.

Ron 14:43

Well, he has a gift for it, that is for sure. Hatfield Lively and Few Clothes, they are drawn from real people. Whereas Joe, Danny, Elma, and Bridey May, they're all sales' own inventions. Why blend the invented characters with real ones instead of doing one or the other?

SPEAKER_04 14:58

Well, first of all, I think it it's a common element in creating history on film. There's a writer, his name is Robert Rosenstone. He wrote a book called Visions of History that's all about how history is depicted in the cinema. And what he lays out are a number of conventions that people interested in the cinema can use to judge uh the value of history on film. So these things would be compression, condensation, alteration, and the use of metaphor. So if we think of those four elements, the creation of these fictional characters allows sales more control over the story. And to get back to your original point where you're talking about the humanity that he invests in all of his characters, I think you're really seeing it come from his fictional creations. So Joe Kennahan in Matewan, he's our outsider character. You know, he's he's almost antithetical to everything that's going on there. He's not of that place. He's a pacifist. He's been in prison. He's trying to unionize people that he doesn't know. And he comes in as somebody who is, in a way, willing to sacrifice himself for this cause, this well, it's his big rock candy mountain that he's just trying to help create there in Matewan.

Ron 16:40

Well, let's uh let's jump into Mate One, shall we? The film opens to total darkness in a coal mine where a miner will later learn his name is a Cephas Purcell, played by Ken Jenkins. He lights the carbide lamp on his helmet, which I also learned that they were able to borrow a lot of different pieces of gear from miners from that time, which I thought was kind of cool. And a few minutes shouts of warning just before an explosive charge goes off. I found it really interesting that sales decided that he's gonna hand the film's opening moments to someone that is a minor character in the film. And from the Criterion essay from A. A. Samra, he says that this is a writer-director more interested in the drama of history than in movie stars, and that stood out to me.

SPEAKER_04 17:20

If you think of the opening of Return of the Sea Caucus 7, once we get beyond the credit sequence, which is an important thing to look at, but the first shot you see is a plunger in a dirty toilet bowl. That's what you see. First thing. You hear people talking, but it's kind of an announcement. Yeah, we're doing this on our own. We take care of whatever business we have to take care of. The same thing with the opening of Matewana. Every time I look at Matewana and watch that opening sequence, I think of the opening sequence that Sam Peckinpaw did for The Wild Bunch, which is a completely different kind of Western. William Holden, they're they're all in a bank and you're not quite sure what's going to happen. And he he stops the action quite a bit. Then, of course, uh William Holden is got a hostage, he's got a weapon out, and then he just says, if anybody moves, kill them. Then everything stops, and it says, directed by Sam Peckenpah. So sales, of course, doesn't quite go that far, but what he does do, if we think about the auditory aspect of making a film, he starts the movie with an explosion. Of course, Danny is whispering to everybody that the uh Stone Mountain company has changed the tonnage amount for the amount that they're going to earn while they're down there. And then it ends with a bang. So something is going to happen. It's almost an interesting way to add to the darkness that we're seeing in that opening shot. There's something there under the surface that people can't control. And of course, it will emerge, especially by the end of the film.

Ron 19:05

It's a movie about coal miners, but we don't spend a lot of time in the coal mine.

SPEAKER_04 19:08

Don't spend a lot of time in the coal mine, but you certainly get a close-up look at lives of coal miners.

Ron 19:15

100%. And it starts there. Later there's a scene where Fu Close is explaining to I I I think of him as the leader of the Italian section of the Fusto.

SPEAKER_04 19:25

Fusto. Thank you. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Ron 19:26

Where he's showing him how to be safe in the mine. But yes, it's it's not so much about the mine, it's about the humans that are working that mine and getting close to them in some way. And the only way to do that is to show what kind of danger these guys are in on a day-to-day basis, coupled with at the exact same time you're being shown the danger, you're showing how the Stone Mountain is going to screw them over. Because then you're later going to learn that they're probably going to raise the prices at the general store, which is the only place that you're allowed to buy anything. It rewards a second watch because you start to see all the different layers that are going into the storytelling. I love the opening scene. We then see, you mentioned earlier the scene where we see the miners that are off work and we hear the song playing Fire in the Hole. And Sales and there was a composer, uh Mason Daring, I believe.

SPEAKER_04 20:08

Yep. Yeah.

Ron 20:08

He co-wrote the opening song. So of course Sales has his hand in right. Now he writes music. What the fuck? He's so talented. He leans on music to do a lot of emotional work. He does it later with uh miners at the camp, which we'll get to later. I will touch on the points as we go, but I do want to get your take on the part that music will play overall in this film because it starts with this really great song. It's basically the theme song of the film, Fire in the Hole.

SPEAKER_04 20:36

Yeah, just a quick aside. So Mason Daring started out in the sales ensemble company as a legal help for Return of the Sea Caucus 7. And they they didn't have any money. Uh they only had about $60,000 to make the movie. And then he said, Hey, I play guitar. So there you had, and and of course, to this day, their careers have been linked. So Daring gave up his burgeoning legal career, maybe as small as it was, and became a film composer. The soundtrack itself is except for Hazel uh Dickens, it's really quite slight. You don't hear a lot of instrumentation. You hear a Dobro, uh a mandolin, a fiddle, and you hear a harmonica. And and those are the things that that add accents to the soundtracks. And you hear the three songs that she sings. The Galilee song at the end is something that she had recorded. She, of course, is uh, I don't know if she's still alive, she probably isn't, a resident of West Virginia. But the other two songs were, as you pointed out, music that was created for the film by Daring and Sales and Hazel Dickens. The interesting way that music is used in this film is how the separated camps, they've been balkanized, they're in their individual tribes, keep hearing songs or instruments playing, particularly at night. And then they're trying to figure out well, how how can I play that too? So you see the well, Tom Wright at the black encampment, and he's playing the harmonica, and he's listening to the song that's coming from the Italian mandolin. And then you hear the Appalachian fiddle player try to pick it up, and that that builds throughout the Movie until we get maybe three-quarters of the way through the film when they're in their strike camp and then they all start playing together. So sonically, it indicates separation, but it also indicates particular musical traditions, whether it's the Delta Blues that's coming out of the South, whether it's the immigrant music, Avante Popolo is the song, which is an old Italian union song or work song coming from the mandolin. And then the fiddle players are just sort of playing that mountain music, uh, but they're able to pick up the tune. And together, once they start playing together, unity, the unity that they want, Joe's big rock candy mountain, is happening as a musical performance.

Ron 23:19

It's beautiful. We're going to talk a lot more about that, of what Joe can't do that music does. Joe Kennahan, played by Chris Cooper in his feature debut, who is just absolutely dynamite. He is an ex-wobbly. Wobbly is a term for industrial workers of the world labor union. Did I get that? Did I get that right? Yeah. And he is sent by the United Mine Workers of America. We don't know this yet, but he is sent to Matewan. On his way there, he witnesses uh the train he's on is stopped. The black workers are forced off the train, saying they're they've arrived. And he witnesses a mob of local miners. They violently confront this group of black miners on the way to Matewan. I originally thought they were just additional workers coming. No, they're there's a threat of strike, so they're bringing in these uh, for lack of a better term, scab workers. Don't call Few Clothes a scab. He doesn't like that very much. We learned. And Few Clothes is played by James Earl Jones, who is just, I mean, everyone in this film is just so brilliant. Like James Earl Jones plays this role so so well. And they're brought into strike breakers. Few clothes kind of fights them off and and they get back on the train. Now Joe is leaning off the train and he's witnessing all of this. He's getting a sense of what he's in for. We also get a sense of how he feels about the ambush without him really actually saying anything. We don't really know. I I knew nothing about this movie before I watched it, by the way. Absolutely nothing. Yeah. So I'm watching it like, well, who is this guy? Who is who is Joe or who is Chris Cooper playing? How does he feel about what he just saw? We don't really know at that point. And when he gets off the train, he's met by Bridey Mae, poor Bridey Mae, Bridey Mae Tolliver at the train station, who seems to just kind of like be hanging out at the train stuff. Does she just hang out at the train station? She likes to see the trains come in. I I don't know. I feel so bad for this woman.

SPEAKER_04 24:58

Well, and of course we we find out why, you know, because both she and the proprietor of the hotel, uh Mary McDonald's character, they've lost their husbands early in life. So Bridey is she's devastated. She's really suffering from a post-traumatic experience that you never really until one night at the supper table, uh, it's explained to Joe, I think, what what happened to their husbands, how they were all lost in a mine collapse.

Ron 25:31

Yeah, Elma Radner is Mary McDonald's character name. She owns the or no, I guess she doesn't own it. She's running a boarding house. No, she doesn't own it. Stone Mountain owns everything.

SPEAKER_04 25:42

Well, it's the color, it's white and green. So you know that it's a Stone Mountain property. Well, I didn't notice that.

Ron 25:48

Okay, I have to watch it again. But you know, it doesn't take long before well, Bridy Mae and Joe, his name's Joe Kennahan. They have a little back and forth. Bridy May, as I think, is a little taken by the quite handsome uh Joe Kennahan. He says, I'll see you around as he's walking away. She says, I hope so. I hope so. Yeah. Oh, Bridey May. She's got eyes for Joe.

SPEAKER_02 26:08

You know uh Radner's boarding house.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Big White House, right on past the cold ox. She's a real sourpuss, though. Alma Radner.

SPEAKER_02 26:20

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

You're going to be in town long.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

Uh it depends. I'll see you around.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

I hope so.

Ron 26:37

It's not long before we realize that Joe is our hero because of how well he treats he treats Brady May with respect. He treats Elmo with respect. Hillard, he gets his nose broken, he was part of the attack on the strike breakers that were coming in on the train. And so is Danny. Danny was there too. Danny was in on it too. Well, when you look at it from their perspective, there is not a union yet. So then from their perspective, is well, if these people come in here and start working, we're not going to get paid. So, in a sense, I understand the reaction, but on the other side of the coin, not a good look to be attacking people of a different race that were forced off of a train. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:13

But it's a but it's a it's another invasion. So here you have mountain people. They've been invaded by coal companies. Yeah, I mean Stone Mountain has nothing to do with them. The Baldwin Phelps people will come in. Another invasion. And then this train is bringing oh, I can't really call few clothes naive because of his experience in the Spanish-American War. But he's lost his livelihood in Alabama because the mines are all used up. So now you have these two groups, the immigrants and the uh black Americans coming in to invade the holler.

Ron 27:54

If we think about their perspectives, they even have this conversation of, well, what choice do we have? We're here now. If we leave, they're going to claim that we owe them money and we don't have it to pay them. If we stay, we're we're they're between a, for lack of a better term, excuse the pun, they're between a rock and a hard place. They have nowhere to go. Stone Mountains call them the shots.

SPEAKER_04 28:12

Oh, yeah. That opening shot where they're trapped. They come out of the entrapment of the dark coal mine, and they're still boxed in by the cars and armed guards and everything around them. This place that used to be theirs, and they they no longer own it, and they've become prisoners.

Ron 28:32

Well, Joe is, he thinks he can, well, he hopes that he can help turn the tides because he's having dinner, a very nice and calm dinner. He's being very kind to everybody. We're gonna see the flip side of that coin whenever Hickey and Griggs show up. Cephas, who we met earlier, he swings by, he picks up Joe, he brings him to CE Lively's restaurant for a union meeting. Few clothes arrives uninvited, saying he heard this is a union meeting, and he's rejected. And Joe delivers this speech. Or if I were, I'm thinking, like, man, I'm ready to join the union. It's such a very, very powerful speech. It's the closest thing that the film, I think, gets to a political thesis statement, if you will.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

You think this man is your enemy? Huh? This is a worker. Any union keeps this man out, ain't a union. It's a goddamn club. Now they got you fighting white against colored, native against foreign, holla against holla. When you know there ain't but two sides of this world, them that work and them that don't. You work, they don't. That's all you got to know about the enemy.

Ron 29:41

And and if you look at all of the characters, does the film hold to that definition the whole way through? There's them that work and them that don't.

SPEAKER_04 29:49

Well, I mean, if we think in terms of uh of costuming, so think think about uh when Hickey and Griggs arrive, the way that they're dressed. They're not dressed to be in a West Virginia mountain holler. And uh Hickey, he right up front, uh he calls it a shithole. He calls Brighty May mountain trash. You're the prettiest mountain trash I've ever seen. Yikes now. Here she's looking for a companion. It's like all these guys are dressed nicely, but I would say that everybody is doing labor of some kind. That would even include uh the Baldwin Phelps characters, because especially when the the reinforcements come at the end, there's a quick conversation between two of them, and it and it sounds like they were unemployed and they saw this ad, and this ad was going to give them all of these tantalizing things. But of course, the ad didn't tell them what the actual work entailed.

Ron 30:51

They did the smile and Sid was waiting for him in May.

SPEAKER_04 30:53

Yeah, and a landscape, a geography that is baffling to them.

Ron 30:58

The group of men initially reject Fu Clothes and his group of people that just came in. And I think he even says, Union my ass. He says, anyone that walks out of the mine, they're welcome into the union. And this is our first little hint. CE lively looks at him and says, fat chance. And so it's it's a little comment. It's like, well, he's just one of many that are against the idea. So I didn't pick up on it right away that this guy is a prick. There are many, many moments from here on out that are going to show these different groups coming together. Many moments. This unfortunately is not one of them, but it does plant the seed of what's to come later. And Chris Cooper, for an introduction for a lead actor in his first film role, I think he knocked it out of the park.

SPEAKER_04 31:41

Oh, he he definitely did. I mean, look look look where he is today. He's nominated for Academy Awards and he's a recognizable face. Same with David Strathairn, but they they came out of uh John Sales' version of a Roger Corman studio. It was a training ground for an awful lot of uh talented people. In Cooper's case, I mean he's he's almost perfectly cast. So Barbara Shapiro was the casting director for sales at this time in sales's career. And I'm sure that they found Cooper performing in a theater someplace. One of the things that sales is very comfortable with is working with actors who have a solid theater background. Of course, it would include James Earl Jones, but it even includes uh Will Oldham who plays Danny Radner. So what that does for any sales production, it allows no rehearsal. So he's comfortable with people who can learn their lines and deliver their lines. And and Cooper really does that in this movie.

Ron 32:52

Uh sales seems like someone that knows what he wants and he has it in his mind and he knows what he wants. Like he seems like someone that is used to working quickly. I mean, this movie didn't have a large budget either.

SPEAKER_04 33:01

I think the real budget on this is something under 4 million, maybe $3.5 million. The staggering thing is with that amount of money, only $90,000 went so all of the set creation, all the clothes that people are wearing. They were able to go into thrift shops and places like that and find a lot of things on the cheap. That's probably the catering bill for modern Hollywood production for a day.

Ron 33:31

Oh, and this didn't do well in the box office either.

SPEAKER_04 33:33

No, it was terrible. It was terrible, probably for a well, it's what what do you have? You you've got a downbeat picture that doesn't really have a boisterous soundtrack. You don't have a hero like people who were popular at the time, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone.

Ron 33:54

That's a different movie. That's a completely different movie.

SPEAKER_04 33:56

It's a completely different movie. But but this is what people were watching. They were watching these uh uber heroic characters that, as violent as they were, they were the good people. There's no star to draw people into the theater. So a lot of things working against it. And at the time, independent films, of course. This is very much an independent film. But if you think of movies that were released around the same time, uh there's a James Ivory picture called Maurice, which would have drawn a lot of people into the theaters. And John Borman, the British director, he made Hope and Glory, which was very popular at the time, but both examples of small budget films. So really Matewan probably didn't stand a chance in those art theaters where movies like this first play.

Ron 34:48

Well, and if you say, Hey, I'm going to the movies tonight, do you want to go? Sure, what are you seeing? I'm seeing a movie about a 1920s coal miner or a coal miner. Coal mining community. Yeah. It's like you go have fun. It's interesting to look back, because I think this is now in the Library of Congress. It's obviously in the Criterion Collection, which is a, you know, that's a gold star in itself.

SPEAKER_04 35:06

In retrospect, I think it did it did pretty well, but it didn't, it didn't help Cinecom, who was the uh the money really behind the production, but they were just coming off of they'd made the talking head stop making sense and room with a view. So they were behind both of those. So they they had a bank account. Sales had a pretty prominent name. People really responded well to Brother from Another Planet. But but this is different because this is a period piece and it's gonna cost more money.

Ron 35:39

You mentioned uh David Strether in a few times. He plays Sid Hatfield, uh he's Matewan's police chief, and he's waiting for Joe when Joe comes home from this union meeting. He says he'll protect the town, and if you bring trouble, you know, you're a dead man. Kill you. Yeah. So well, in real life, he refused payoffs from the coal companies to look the other way. But before we know any of that, the film introduces this character as someone that's threatening who we are now fully behind because we see how he's trying to bring the groups of people together. This is a nonviolent man who's here to do some good for the people of the town. Now we have the police chief coming and threatening him, the person that we're supposed to love. Is that meant to cross us up?

SPEAKER_04 36:17

Well, the first time we see him is when Fuel Clothes is walking along the main street, such as it is in Matewan, and Sid is above him on a platform walk, and we see him in silhouette. Yeah, he's just walking along. The camera is down below. So, of course, Straight is above James Earl Jones, so he has the power position in the shot. He's all dressed in black, he's got that hat on. You can't really see his weapons, but you know that whoever this person is, he's representative of the violence that's connected to this place. And I think few clothes is looking around because he might be trying to find that secret union meeting.

Ron 37:01

The Baldwin Feltz agents then arrive. That's uh Hickey, played by Kevin Ty and Greg's Gordon Clapp. They are there to evict the miners from company-owned houses. So the company's buying up all this property and all these homes. And if there's a threat of a union, they're gonna just go and evict all these people. Sales lays it on quite thick in showing who our villains are to be. As soon as they show up, I mean, they're real, they're real pieces of work. They shove their way into Elma's Inn. They call Bridey Mae Mountain Trash. They're wearing, like as you said, they're dressed quite differently. Joe arrives, treats Bridey May with respect, has dinner, treats the family with respect. Hickey and Griggs show up, and it is the complete opposite. They then go to evict people from these homes. And a lot of miners are there. Joe is there, and now here comes Sid Hatfield. And I love how David Stratthair plays this so well. He's so good. Hadfield says, You can't do what you're doing, and Hickey says, You and what are we? And he turns around and he just deputizes everything. He says, If you have guns, go get them. You're all deputies. And the legal route, the legal route that Sid is taking, he exercises it a few times in the film. It seems to be the only leg that they have to stand on, which is a pretty terrifying prospect of the power of this Stone Mountain company. I mean, what else are these townspeople supposed to do? Where else are they supposed to go?

SPEAKER_04 38:13

The line that I love in that scene is where Hickey is talking to Sid, and he says that he has the authority of Mr. Phelps. Oh, yes. And then Sid says, I've met Mr. Phelps. I wouldn't pee on his heart if it was on fire.

Ron 38:32

Right. Yes. I'm glad you point that out because that's the line where you then realize I'm on his side. The mayor is also there, who's trying to stand up to them, but he's way more docile and timid. The criterion essay, I I pointed out earlier. It also points out that despite everything that Hatfield does in the film, sales doesn't make him one of our two main heroes. I look at the film as as Joe and Danny are our two main protagonists. And even with all that history, he doesn't choose to make Sid the main focus. What's your take on that choice?

SPEAKER_04 39:04

First of all, it's not really a Western. If we go back to High Noon, the sheriff is is gonna take care of everything. But if we think of Shane, it happens in Shane, the man who shot Liberty Valence. So of course, Hickey is in with Jack Palance and Lee Marvin as this stony bad guy. Uh but of course sales doesn't do what those other filmmakers did when it comes to really taking care of the bad guy. I mean, look, look who gets to execute Hickey, not Sid. And that's very deliberate. But I think the reason they don't focus greatly on uh Sid is because Sid's a man of violence. Every time you see him, especially in the daylight, you know that he's carrying two sidearms. So this is somebody who's ready to fight at a moment's notice. Plus, I imagine even most people who've seen the film would recognize or oh, I've heard the name Hatfield before because that Hatfield and McCoy's is part of American mythology, even though most people probably don't even know that they were from West Virginia. Is Sid related in some way? And oh yeah, in reality, he's part of that family lineage, so he's one of those people from that hollow. That's why when he says to Joe, these are my people, he means it. And and he means it when he talks to Hickey and Griggs. Look at what he does at the end. Essentially, by himself, he goes and stands in front of about a dozen guys.

Ron 40:42

Yeah, yeah, with and with it with in next to him is an unarmed mayor.

SPEAKER_04 40:47

Isn't the poor unarmed Josh Mustell? Yeah, yeah.

Ron 40:52

Poor guy. Mayor Testerman. They they they do hold the real character.

SPEAKER_04 40:57

He was a real person, too.

Ron 40:58

Real man. Uh Sid marries his widow. That's a whole other story. The miners initially they vote to keep out the black men and the Italians out of the mine, out of the union, I should say. And uh Danny goes running and reports that they're trying to sneak people in to work at night. And Fuchlose throws down his shovel in protest. Italian miner follows. It's a big celebratory type of moment. Now, Fuchl's does this in the face of a damn machine gun. I can't imagine the immense pressure that he felt and the weight on his shoulders he was carrying to just continue walking into the mine. Is courage under a direct threat of violence the only way to earn respect?

SPEAKER_04 41:37

Well, I think when Fuch Close, when they arrive, I think he already has the respect of all the people that he's with, even though we don't meet a lot of them. The Tom Wright character helps him up onto the train because he's older than they are. His stature, there's a uh an old poet, his name is Louis Altmeyer. I kinda probably have that last name wrong, but he wrote a poem about few clothes. So he sort of turned him into this mythic figure, almost Paul Bunyan-esque, the way that uh people respected him. When he appears in the movie in the beginning, he doesn't really say a lot. You know, and he, of course, he's in the store or CC Lively's store restaurant, and somebody says something to him, and he immediately says, you know, shut up, Peckerwood. And everything stops. Yeah, it gets really quiet. It gets really quiet right away. Who is this guy? You know, he's he's outnumbered 20 to 1 and he's not going to stand for this.

Ron 42:41

I guess I mean there's that type of act the only way he can get respect from the other groups of people that he's not already a part of.

SPEAKER_04 42:48

Well, I think when he throws down the shovel and he says, Oh, I think you own this. Now, of course, they all know because they're renting their equipment from Stone Mountain. Well, then, of course, Joe intercedes and he starts talking about strike support that's out there, but they have to go through he calls it a democratic process in order to get the money. And then they all they all agree to do it. But it few closes the person who had to throw down the shovel for both groups, both the black group and the immigrant group, to turn their backs on work and to begin to think, at least think about a union.

Ron 43:25

It's a very brave act. They then are building their own camp, tent city.

SPEAKER_04 43:31

Yeah.

Ron 43:32

They do this because the company owns every house in the town, presumably. Yep. And they have to live in tents. The Baldwin Feltz agents of Griggs and Hickey now attempt to buy Hatfield and Mayor Testerman.

SPEAKER_06 43:44

Mr. Phelps has authorized me to make it more attractive for you gentlemen to cooperate. Town ain't for sale, Mr. What about you? Just for bargaining power. Or are you gonna be stupid too?

SPEAKER_05 44:10

Either you should hug lift a finger and down limits. I'll put you away. Damn Hill Billy's always gonna do it the hard way.

Ron 44:20

I imagine everyone else accepts the bribe. Maybe that's what Baldwin felt that's what they've grown accustomed to. What makes Sid and Mayor Testerman different? In this case.

SPEAKER_04 44:30

Well, I think on one level, it has to do with this geography of West Virginia, how those hollows themselves, the physical landscape, kept people together in a place. Whether there was a coal mine there or a town there, it could just be a village there. You know, they all knew each other and they all supported each other. And because they supported each other, they helped each other. And then you have this invasion, as I said before, and it's in the form of uh Baldwin Phelps, led by Hickey. And then if they were to take a bribe, what would that mean to their legacy in that community, no matter what happens? So they they don't do it because of their backgrounds, because they're people of the mountains, and they stuck together until they got to this point in their lives where things have changed. There's a town there, there's buildings there, you can eat there, granted it's owned by an outside entity, but there's still a community there. So they just stand on moral ground. They make the decision that uh they have to make because they can't betray their fellow West Virginians.

Ron 45:43

I think as much as Hickey and Griggs look down on the people of this place, those feelings are mutual. The way Sid speaks back to them, I think, okay, so you think I'm stupid for not taking it. How stupid could you be to think that I'm going to accept it? Sid has just as much disdain and disgust for them as the Baldwin Phelps agents have for them.

SPEAKER_04 46:01

Well, yeah, Hickey is the cynic. Hickey's just like, yeah, this is what we do. We buy you off, we shoot you, we take what you have, and then we go on to the next thing. You know, and then of course we find, and it was the American army who trained me to do this in the trenches of World War I. And I kind of like that. Griggs, on the other hand, is just the thug. He's the sociopath. He's the one who kills Hillard, you know, with a straight razor.

Ron 46:28

He pulls his gun on Danny at dinner time because he won't pass the damn peas.

SPEAKER_04 46:32

Because he won't pass the peas. Unmannered, unmannered pair. Those those two guys are.

Ron 46:38

You're being very kind, unmannered.

SPEAKER_04 46:41

Well, I do like Kevin Kevin Ty.

Ron 46:44

Oh, he's great. He's great.

SPEAKER_04 46:45

Have you seen one one battle after another?

Ron 46:47

Yes, I have.

unknown 46:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:49

Did you see him in that?

Ron 46:50

Yes, I have. Yeah, he's great. Yeah. I mean, well, let me take that back. The acting is great. The character's not so great.

SPEAKER_04 46:57

No, no, I know. Let's get that out.

Ron 46:59

Let's get that out there.

SPEAKER_04 47:00

As soon as I saw him appear on the screen, Paul Thomas Anderson definitely saw mate one. That's why he casts this guy in this film.

Ron 47:08

I love it. Yeah, you're right. Damn. All right. I guess I know what I'm watching whenever we hang up here. This is the point now where their camp is constructed. And the second time now the film is showing different groups coming together and they're bonding through music. You touched on this earlier. There's really no dialogue and nothing really that moves the plot forward. But this is what I think is one of the most memorable passages in the film. It's twice now that the film shows our hero, his method of talk and logic and nonviolence. Like he has these ideals that he thinks is going to bring these people together, but it's not necessarily what's bringing them together is music and building their relationships not as workers but as people. Am I way off on this? That Joe's talk is not the thing that's going to bring them together.

SPEAKER_04 47:54

No, no. And food too. Oh, yes. Yes, yes, of course. When Hillard's mother, she's always belittling uh Maggie Renzi's character. She doesn't want to look at her. She thinks it's going to curse her or something if she's going to curse her because she's got her her Virgin Mary and she's got flowers, and also, of course, is the language barrier. Um, but but finally she'll come around, you know. Well, we have Rabbit, you know, the power of music and food.

Ron 48:21

I guess if you've ever traveled anywhere in a place where you don't speak the same language, music and food is what brings you together.

SPEAKER_04 48:27

And the children, too. I mean, one of the things Hillard's mother talks about is the child, the baby, the infant that Maggie Renzi's character has.

Ron 48:36

Yeah, I think she makes a comment. I'm not going to let your child, your children go hungry.

SPEAKER_04 48:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she she gives food that the Italian woman recognizes, and then she invites her to sit, even though they can't exchange words. She just invites her to sit down.

Ron 48:53

You know, now that I'm now that we're talking about it, poor Joe, because I don't want to skip to the end, but when you think about it, he's there trying to do something that is morally just. He's trying to do this in a nonviolent way. It ends violent anyway. Joe is a major catalyst here. I'm not underselling the major role that Joe plays in bringing these people together. But his talk of nonviolent striking is not really the thing that makes people gain respect for each other. Yes, they are together in their plate. They're together in we are not going to work for Stone Mountain, we're not going to go into that mine. But it's all these other things, all these other interactions that people now start to grow to respect each other. They're cohabitating for God's sakes. They're sleeping feet away from each other. They're not in separate camps. In the beginning, we see that they're all in their separate spots. They're all separated.

SPEAKER_04 49:40

Well, I mean, there is that tribal aspect, but then they come together. Then if you if you get a chance to see City of Hope, it's all about urban tribes. And those people seldom, seldom come together in that movie. And not the way they do in Mate One.

Ron 49:55

Well, unfortunately, they're also bonded together because they are fired upon at night. They're all sitting in their tents and people just start shooting at them. And then the next day, Hickey and Griggs show up in this really nice car and they are going to try to confiscate company property. Joe obviously challenges that, saying, Well, how do you know what's company property, what's not? Like, where's your list? Obviously, Hickey and Griggs don't really they don't care. They're going to do what they want to do anyway. And then these armed local hill people, their land was taken by the coal company. And this is the second time in the film that Stone Mountain's men have been forced back. So they show up to do something, and Sid says, no, not today. They show up to do this and start taking property. This other group of people shows up and says, Nope, sorry, not today. Is that sales showing us how thin that these people's safety actually is?

SPEAKER_04 50:45

They heard the interaction. Of course, there's another wonderful line in there where Griggs confronts one of the Hill people. He talks about the guy's weapon. So I think it's a shotgun. Where'd you get that World War I? No, the war between the states. Then he kind of shoves it up into Griggs' face. So they know right away, as well armed as they are, that these are people in a moment's notice will just wipe them out. Hickey, of course, at least has this the good sense to know when to back off. Griggs, I'm not so sure. He would have backed off if Hickey hadn't been there.

Ron 51:23

What are the Baldwin Phelps agents even successful at accomplishing in this entire film? I mean, they get backed off twice. They can't buy anybody off. They end up getting killed at the end of the film. Like, what are they doing that they are being successful with?

SPEAKER_04 51:36

Historically speaking, this is one place where they weren't successful. But if you look at the history of the Baldwin Phelps agents, they were places like Ludlow, Colorado. You know, they were really able to exert their muscle there. And they did some really dastardly things.

Ron 51:53

They set a camp on fire, they killed women and children in a camp. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:57

Burn burn down camps, take everything. All the things they try to do in this movie, they were able to do it in other places. If you read interviews uh with sales from that time, he's responding to people saying that that Hickey and Griggs are too one-dimensional. And he'll say, Well, you know, I tried not to make them as nasty as they really were. And the example that he uses is Baldwin Phelps agents stopped a Red Cross milk delivery truck and put kerosene in the milk. The milk, of course, was meant for children. As bad as Hickey and Griggs are in this movie, the real Baldwin Phelps people were probably far worse.

Ron 52:39

Yeah, I guess it sounds like sales really tamed it down for this picture, I suppose.

SPEAKER_04 52:44

A little a little bit until we get to the shootout.

Ron 52:47

Yeah, then he lets it he lets loose a little bit. They there is a night shootout with agents and miners, and Cephas, Cephas is popping up again. Maybe I said he wasn't a main character, but he does move a lot of the plot forward. He discovers CE Lively is an informant. We talked about disgusting. You just mentioned something quite disgusting that the Baldwints agency pulled. This is also a disgusting act because Lively is looking for a way to discredit Joe. I think that they're starting to feel that Joe is gaining some momentum with these people. And so he's looking for a way to discredit him. I guess they he's looking for a reason to completely take him out in general. He intercepts a letter that Bridey May, who we said earlier, seemed to be a little taken with Joe. I mean, it's a very handsome Chris Cooper. He lies to her, saying that Joe is making fun of her to all the people at the camp, which completely crushes Bridey May. And he coerces her into falsely accusing him of rape. And then he plants a forged letter, making Joe look like he is the actual company spy. I found myself wondering: the forged letter alone is going to frame Joe as a spy, probably enough to get him out. And that's really all that Lively needs. Why go those extra steps further and pile on with this disgusting rape allegation on top of it? And now you're dragging Bridey May into the mix, too. Why not just stick with the letter? Unanswerable question, perhaps?

SPEAKER_04 54:05

No, I don't think so. I mean, it's a good question. The story is a complicated story, but of course, what happens? It allows Danny, who is going through this conversion, to really decide what he wants to do. So in this case, he decides he needs to, by himself, to save Joe. Prior to his second return to the pulpit, he's he's there with a gun and he has a quick conversation with Joe, and he essentially goes through this thumbnail sketch of people coming to this place and taking advantage of these people. And he lumps Joe in with these outsiders who are coming into West Virginia hollers and taking advantage of the Appalachian people. So then he gets, of course, he goes back to the church. Sales himself is not there as the hard shell Baptist preacher. And you've got Danny now choosing to be the soft shell Baptist preacher. In the beginning, when he's having this well-mannered dinner with Joe, he says he hasn't made up his mind whether he's going to be hard shell or soft shell. Yeah. And then Danny gets back up and he tells the Joseph story from the Old Testament that's all about betrayal. And then, of course, it's starting to register with everybody in the church. And here we have Except for Except for drunk now. They they drank the bottle that they had with them there at the almost holy dinner table. They're loaded, they're yucking it up. They think that they've really done something that's going to help them do what they had to do so they can get the hell out of there. But it Danny's message registers.

Ron 56:00

What impressed you more? The fact that a 15-year-old kid pulled off a warning smuggled into a sermon, or the miners catch it fast enough to stop Joe from being killed.

SPEAKER_04 56:09

Well, I always wonder how it registered with the miners, but we have to give them credit for abstract intelligence. So they they they realized that Danny is trying to communicate something with them. There are a lot of cutaway shots when CE Lively's explaining all this that, you know, maybe some of the miners think this is true. Even when they draw straws, and and of course it's Fucklose who has to be Joe's executioner. There's sort of a tone in the way that that sequence is shot, that they they're not quite buying what's going on. And then then they they know that few clothes has to shoot him. So sales cuts between the two sequences. Out in the dark, you know he has the gun. Joe is talking to Fu Close. Fuck close is hesitant to shoot him. You know, they he talks about how he became a pacifist. He tells the stories of the Mennonites handcuffed in Leavenworth prison, having to stand on their tiptoes so their arms weren't damaged by the handcuffs that the guards put around them. And then, of course, no man can stand on his tiptoes for eight hours. So everybody knows what that meant and how they were physically damaged, yet they never gave in. They never said, All right, I'll go to France and fight in the trenches. They they refused to do it. And of course, this is all registering with Fuchlothes. And then Danny's telling his story, and then he finally reaches everybody, and then I forget who they is. I think Hillard gets out, yeah. Hillard's still alive, so they send Hillard up, and then and then Fuel Close is completely happy.

Ron 57:59

And then CE Lively has to flee because uh Cephas has finally made it back to town and he burns down the restaurant.

SPEAKER_04 58:07

Yeah.

Ron 58:08

And we see Lively fleeing then. I did learn C.E. Lively's real fate. He died in his, I think he lived into his 70s, and he never received actual like penance for all the terrible things that he he did. A part of me wishes that sales went against history and wrote in some sort of punishment for Mr. Lively. I I I'm okay with it in this case.

SPEAKER_04 58:26

Well, you know, we do hear at the end there where lively shot uh Sid in the head with one final bullet after he'd already been perforated 15 times. So yeah, lively is the real despicable character. And of course, the fact that he lived. I think it's important to the story because these miners never really unionize. The story is about them thinking about joining a union and the union coming to them and trying to educate them in what it would mean to have a union, how they would be protected, you know, what what it would mean in terms of wages and how they could work together for a common goal. But the president, Harding, it would have been he's gonna send in federal troops and he's gonna smash all this. And nothing will really happen in terms of unionization, probably until the 1930s or the 1940s.

Ron 59:28

It was uh worried. Yeah, it was Warren G. Harding, he put the entire state of West Virginia under martial law, and it wasn't until FDR's New Deal in 35. Yeah, 1935, that union he made that made union organizing legally protected. So when you like 1921, the miners union breaks, and this film takes place in 1920, makes the story even more heartbreaking when you think about all the life lost.

SPEAKER_04 59:54

In the movie, they talk about the wobblies. We we know that Joe was a wobbly, but they they never say, well, what happened you know to the International Workers Union? But there's the I love the scene where they bring Cephas brings Joe to the door of Lively's place, and they're not quite sure who he is, so he has to answer the questions. Who wrote Iron Heel? Yeah, Jack London. So here you've got this socialist, and we're where big Bill Hayward's ashes spread everywhere because he is everywhere. And then they talk about Frank Little, he was murdered out in Colorado during a strike. But the wobblies, they were wiped out essentially.

Ron 1:00:37

It's a sad film, and it's even more sad whenever you learn about the fate of just the region, the people of the region, like things that they had to go through, and then all of all of this being really for not, whenever Harding comes in and says, actually, we're gonna control what's going on here.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:55

Made him say, so is Joe Hill's ashes is everywhere, and big Bill Hayward. I guess he was blind in one eye. So that those were the four questions.

Ron 1:01:03

I wasn't fact-checking you.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:06

It's just it just it just it just dawned on me. But but I really like starting off with Jack London. The first time I saw the movie, that really caught my attention.

Ron 1:01:15

So unfortunately, we're gonna have one of our sad character deaths in the film here now. Danny and Hillard are caught by Balden Feltz agents. They're stealing coal. They are going to I hate to say torture, but they really scare the Ever Lovin' out of Hillard. They're shooting around him, they end up nicking his throat with the knife to try to get him to give up five men. He gives five names of people that were killed earlier in a a mining accident that included Elma's husband, included Bridie May's husband. Yep. And they end up killing him anyway. And we have the funeral that's held for him, and we have the very talented Hazel Dickens who sings the song at this funeral. And it's uh it's sad, but it's quite beautiful. It's uh yes, it's uh sad but but beautiful. I'm sure if I were on that set, I may have shed a tear standing there while she was belting that out. I imagine they did. And we arrive now finally to the Baldwin Felt's reinforcements have arrived. I'm sure Hickey and Griggs have said, you know what? We need more people here. We can't handle this on our own. And Mayor Testerman, he's attempting one last negotiation. You said something about when they show Sid in the daytime, you can always see he has his two guns on him. And this is one of the times they show him at night before this meeting. He's actually cleaning his guns.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:31

What a great piece of silent filmmaking. You know, he's just got his guns, he's got his bullets, he's contemplating his own death. If it if it were a real Western, he'd have a bottle of whiskey in front of him, but he doesn't.

Ron 1:02:45

The next morning, presumably the next morning, Testerman is attempting to negotiate. And Sid, I don't think Sid had anything else in his mind of what of how this was gonna go down. Joe has woken up at the camp of, hey, all these people are in town, you need to get over there. And Joe being a nonviolent man shows up. He's trying to stop this violent from happening. And just as he's turning the corner, Sid pulls out his his two pistols and shoots and kills two men standing in front of him.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:12

You all have no right to come to this here town with all these people and drawing guns and terrorizing the rich you have are not bound for this town. You can't get murdered.

Ron 1:03:21

No, no, no, and then you have these this gunfight erupts, they these agents are standing in this on this open space, and it looks like these armed townspeople were just waiting for them. You see people roll out from under a train, there's people up in in windows, and they're firing down from rooftops, and it's a total ambush. Sid survives this somehow standing in front of all these people, and Joe, unfortunately, is killed. Now, in the real shootout, seven Balbenfeld's agents are killed. Mayor Testerman is killed, and two local miners were killed. And Joe spends this entire film arguing against exactly this outcome. He dies trying to stop it, but not as a combatant. So is his death the film contradicting his philosophy that the gunfight was not avoidable?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:05

Well, I think in terms of the story, and obviously in terms of the real history, of course, the gunfight could not be avoided. But then Danny, of course, picks up the narrative, and Danny picks up the philosophy of nonviolence, because of course he learned from all of this, you know, that that it's not going to come to anything. No union was formed. So nothing was really solved, except now you have dead people from both Nate Wan and the outsiders just strewn all over those train tracks. So the the the fight itself, the ultimate battle uh couldn't be avoided. But violence can be avoided. Then we hear from Danny and how Danny, who will become Pappy, tried to keep the idea of non-violence alive, even though he has to tell us in voiceover exactly what happened to Sid Hatfield and how nobody was prosecuted. So, of course, that leaves us questioning well, where's there justice in any of this? And I guess the pivotal scene there, of course, is when Danny has a rifle that doesn't look like a hunting rifle, and he has the river to his back, and one of the fresh Baldwin Phelps agents just keeps running up to him. You know, and as film goers, what do we expect? He's just gonna, in Sam Peckinpaw fashion, blow this guy's head off. But he doesn't do it, he just lowers his gun and lets him go.

Ron 1:05:32

Meanwhile, his mother, Oma, Hickey finds his way back to that boarding house and she's stayed out of this conflict. She's not a miner, she's not part of the Stone Mountain company. She's she's just somebody who is tied to this town. And is that moment satisfying for you when she puts Hickey puts Hickey down?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:50

She hates it all though, too. I mean, she hates the fact that the drift mouth of the mine took her husband. She hates the fact that her son is back in the mine. She hates the fact that mining is the only way that people can work in this part of West Virginia. And she, I think, does not like what has become of everything that's going on. So that would include Hickey and Griggs. And of course, in the scene, Hickey is using his revolver, he's training his revolver on a miner who doesn't realize that he's being. Uh obscured by the sheets until he until he hears the click of the shotgun. And so is it satisfying? Well, she shoots him once, and it's a gut shot. You know, the pellets have gone through him. We see it very briefly on the screen, and then for good measure, she shoots him again. So she's certainly his head enough of Mr. Hickey and his compatriots from the Baldwin Phelps agency.

Ron 1:06:54

I was satisfied that he met his demise. I wasn't satisfied of who had to carry out that act.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:00

But this is everything that Joe talks about. Everybody will be pulled into this. He keeps saying, this is what they want you to do. At one point he says something, well, there's Baldwin Phelps, then there's state, and then there's federal. So he's talking about people who have a great deal of firepower available to them. And if they initiate a firefight, and even if they win, it's not going to stop because state authority will come in, and if that's not enough, the federal authority will come in. So with Hickey knows all of this.

Ron 1:07:31

He even says something to Sid in the bar. He says, You can't win.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:34

Yeah. And Sid Sid knows it himself. But of course, well, Hickey's character when he terrifies Danny and tells Danny what he did in the trenches in France and how he actually enjoyed what he did, to the point where he would go back and just, yeah, these bodies are here. Maybe I'll stick them all again. Just in case that he was willing to kill anyone.

Ron 1:07:59

Well, clearly, Joe's message got through to Danny's. Danny does have a choice and he chooses mercy. The reveal of Joe's death crushed me because you don't see the death happen on screen. You just see Danny staring and Elma slowly walking in. Who at first you kind of go through a lot of different thoughts. You think she's distraught because of what she just did. She may be in shock. It takes a few seconds to realize before they show Joe it's gut-wrenching. It's gut-wrenching. The man who was all about keeping guns out of this ends up being shot and killed in the end.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:31

Then she shows her mature feelings for Joe. Right. Of course, it's far too late. She drops to her knees and she starts crying. Because here, here, here's somebody that might have been able to offer something else, not only for her, but for her son. She really wanted Danny out of the mind and out of the holler. But you that that's not an option. That's not an option for people who had to live that life.

Ron 1:08:56

Mayor also later dies of his wounds, as was the case in reality. His widow Mary's Hatfield. I noticed when I found that out when I watched it again. I noticed there is a line in the bar, and Sid asked the mayor how his wife is. Did you catch that?

SPEAKER_04 1:09:09

It's a a nice, subtle, sales in touch. It's a small thing. It's innocuous. And certainly the first time you see the movie, you wouldn't think anything about it. I didn't. I didn't. One of the things that he does for all of his films is he creates these little, I shouldn't call them little, they're sheets of biographies of the characters. Cool. And then he gives those sheets to the actors so they can understand who these people are, whether they're real people, like some of the characters in this movie, or whether they're creations like Joe and Danny and Alma.

Ron 1:09:47

We should credit sales with another little piece of writing here. I saw there's a scene where Joe and Danny are playing catch. He asked him who his favorite pitcher is, Todd Eller. And Eller pitched for the Reds in the World Series against the White Sox in the 1919 World Series.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:03

Eight men out is gonna follow Matewan, even though they were they they were probably already starting to think like, well, where are we gonna make this movie? Yeah, who's got a baseball stadium we can use? Right.

Ron 1:10:17

Pat Field, we mentioned he marries the uh the mayor's widow, but he's gunned down in broad daylight on courthouse steps. He's unarmed, and CE Lively delivers the coup de gras. CE Lively. Uh no one's ever tried for that murder. And uh the narration then at the end reveals that the storyteller has been Danny all along.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:36

That were the start of the Great Coal Field War, and us miners took the worst of it like Joe said we would. It's just one big union the whole world over, Joe Keenihan used to say. And from the day of the Nate Wan massacre, that's what I preached. That was my religion. We buried Joe Keenyhan with her own. My mama, she thought he wouldn't never stay. But now he's with us for always. Laying up here in these West Virginia Hills.

Ron 1:11:09

Do you take any comfort in the film's ending? I was left feeling a lot of sympathy for the people of the region. And then the more I read about the aftermath, I felt even more sympathy for the for the people of the region. Do you find any comfort in the film's ending? You're not meant to, I suppose.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:24

No, not not at all. Well, Danny is a fictional character, as we've already established, and he has this conversion, but there wasn't any other conversion. And of course, unionism is not going to reach them until, as you said, FDR gets elected, you know, decade decade and a half later. Uh so no, I mean, I guess it's another reason why people probably didn't go to the movie. It's like, boy, this movie's a downer.

Ron 1:11:51

No, no, it's uh you don't walk out feeling super happy, do you?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:54

You do not. So that that's the big advantage of Matewa, but you're not going to walk away with any optimism. I mean we can go back to high noon. Yeah, yeah, the sheriff and his bride are riding away. It's Gary Cooper, but they're riding off to a new life. Nobody has a new life at the end of Matewa. Everybody goes back.

Ron 1:12:16

I mean, they should Danny is the voiceover, he's walking out of the mine. He's just he's just back working in the mine.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:21

Yep. Blackface from the cold dust, the same way it was in the beginning of the film. Nothing has changed. Just people have died.

Ron 1:12:28

We close every episode, and the guest gives their answer to why this film. So why Matewan? Why does it deserve its place in the Criterion Collection?

SPEAKER_04 1:12:36

So Mate One is in the uh national registry. Second film, Return of the Seacaucus 7, is the first film. Really, they're both there for the same reason because they're examples of American independent cinema making. Mate One at a much higher level than Return of the Seacaucus 7, which essentially was made as a calling card for Hollywood Studios to show off sales's screenwriting ability, acting ability, directing ability, and editing ability. It's kind of a master work, I'll call it, in terms of American independent cinema. The other reason that it's in criterion is sales' skilled direction. Working with people who are non-professional actors, working with professional actors, and working with young people, in the case of Will Oldham, who had never acted beyond the stage before in his life. The writing is top-notch. The music, as spare as it is, adds another significant metaphoric layer to the film itself. And it's so well done. With a budget of three million plus dollars, you can't go out and get songs the way that he could in Baby It's You. Yeah, I'm gonna use Frank Sinatra and I'm gonna use Bruce Springsteen. That wasn't available. You've got to make original music. The cinematography. I mean, Haskell Wexler did an incredible job. He was nominated for an Academy Award for cinematography. It was the first sales film that would receive an Academy Award of any kind. But the way that Haskell Wexler can work in the dark and still create images that can be seen is really phenomenal. He did uh Days of Heaven uh for Terrence Malik. Uh there were two cinematographers on that, but any of the night scenes that you see in Days of Heaven, especially when the locusts come to where that big house is, and then they have to set the fields on fire, that's all Wexler. And you see it again here in Matewan. The ability to work in the dark to create a thematic palette that communicates the story. Um, we've covered the acting, you know, so it's elevating Chris Cooper, elevating Mary McDonald, elevating uh Will Oldham, although he would step away until he started working with Kelly Rickert, certainly elevating David Strathairn. And also Gordon Clapp. I should mention Gordon Clapp, who plays the villainous uh Griggs. Even Ken Jenkins, who played Cephas, he would go on to television and play one of the main characters in Scrubs. You're also learning about American labor history that's not taught in school. Nobody learns about it. My father worked for a union, so I knew about unions. Uh, and he would talk about some of these places, especially in the state of Pennsylvania, where people were killed, like the Molly McGuire's. But this brings a different story to American theaters. You know, sales works outside of the United States, but he's really taking a close look at America and what it means to work in America as a citizen, and how labor and capital have always been at odds. And it's only by a collective unity were workers able to be recognized. You know, we always hear about history, we hear about the legislation, you know, what politicians did, bills they passed. But here we see the real people working to make those changes happen.

Ron 1:16:18

Thank you again to Jack Ryan for taking the time to speak with me about Matewan. If you'd like to support the show for as little as $3 a month, you can do so by selecting the support the show link in the episode description. You can follow the podcast on Instagram for updates and check out whythisfilm.com for additional resources. Next time I'll be joined by Michael B. Gillespie to discuss deep cover. Thanks again for listening. Please be sure to follow, share, and keep an eye out for the next episode.