John Sayles’s Matewan (1987), an account of a coal miners’ strike that occurred in 1920 West Virginia, astutely balances the physical and rhetorical sides of its central conflict. Sephus (Ken Jenkins), the first miner shown, flicks on his helmet light, revealing a soot-stained face, and gets to work, his movements half-decipherable in the Haskell Wexler–lensed blackness of the underground. Sephus coughs; he pants; he chugs water; he mutters “Damn” as he repositions his body. Elsewhere in Matewan, words take center stage. In one early sequence, Sayles brilliantly cross-cuts between two nighttime harangues. At church, a Baptist preacher (played with frightening brio by the writer-director himself) inveighs against unions and communists, likening them to the devil. Meanwhile, the striking miners of the Stone Mountain Coal Company covertly meet at a restaurant to share grievances of overwork and unfair conditions, and to complain about the Italian and Black workers the company is hiring to outmaneuver the labor stoppage. Throughout the movie, Sayles similarly juxtaposes high-stakes conversations happening simultaneously across town—a technique that not only builds classical suspense but summons the notion of a war of ideas enveloping Matewan.
Sayles digs into the specifics of Stone Mountain’s control over every aspect of life in Matewan. The business owns much of the town’s land; supplies its workers equipment upfront, only to deduct the cost of those materials from their pay; and orders them to shop at the company-branded general store, leaving the men and their families at the mercy of Stone Mountain prices. Within this distressed atmosphere, Sayles foregrounds two personalities angling for change. Fifteen-year-old Danny Radnor (a commanding Will Oldham) fulfills multiple roles: helping his mom (Mary McDonnell) run her boardinghouse, joining his colleagues in the strike, even holding court at church as a preacher. National-level organizer Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper) arrives in town to help the workers strategize and steer them toward an interracial solidarity. In response, the company unleashes a campaign of intimidation enacted by a pair of Baldwin-Felts detectives (Kevin Tighe and Gordon Clapp)—dark-suited operatives who materialize from their train’s steamy wake like underworld henchmen.
For all its didactic sermonizing, Matewan contains a surfeit of vibrant touches. Kenehan’s initial stroll down Main Street marks a typically unshowy historical recreation, documenting the old-timey stores in his path: an apothecary, a hardware and furniture shop, the bank. Sayles also encourages actorly flourishes, allowing his characters surprising bursts of expression. Tighe puts forth a memorably evil performance, each tirade—whether over an eviction notice or a bowl of peas—a spectacle of theatrical menace. On a more humanist note, James Earl Jones delivers a riveting piece of acting during a fireside chat with Kenehan, as his marvelously named character, Few Clothes, wrestles with the burden of a life-changing secret. As unsubtle as a picket-line chant, Matewan nevertheless stirs with its rare combination of startling cinematic violence and prolonged, into-the-night talks about workers’ rights.
Matewan screens this afternoon, March 16, and on March 24, at Metrograph as part of the series "The People's History: Early Films of John Sayles."
