In a small West Virginia mining town in 1920, local miners are struggling to organise against their employer, the Stone Mountain Coal Company.
The arrival of organiser Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper) offers hope to the community, but their troubles are only beginning.
The mining company has imported their own hired guns, from the Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency, to bust the young union before it can put down roots.
The stage is set for a showdown…
John Sayles is a filmmaker who I have known about for years but only recently have I been able to actually watch his films.
My entree to his work was reading about American indie cinema and genre movies.
I loved his career trajectory.
Having the integrity of making a consistent body of work mostly outside of the studio system.
At the same time, he was making a living writing horror movies for Roger Corman, or script-doctoring big Hollywood movies like Apollo 13.
It was inspiring.
Part of the reason why I did not watch his films for a while was access. For a long time, the only Sayles film I had seen was Piranha.
I watched Passion Fish a couple years ago (great), but did not feel like tackling more of his work until now.
Sayles is not a visual filmmaker, and I think that is a big reason why I did not tackle his work earlier.
In the case of Matewan, this is not a bug but a feature.
That lack of an overtly stylised approach, or a more straightforward dramatic framing, is key to the film’s themes and politics.
One could see a version of this movie that was more conventional: a western-style thriller based around the Sheriff standing with the miners against the mining company’s hired goons.
Instead we get a document of all the events building toward the final conflagration.
The film lives up to the ethos espoused by Cooper’s Joe Kenehan - one can only tell this story by centering all of the people involved.
This is the story of a community - of what it means to come together and fight for a common goal. And this film takes exhaustive pains to show the intricacies and complications of the miner coalition, from the racism between white and black workers, and the xenophobia surrounding the Italian immigrants who have been brought in.
It is not an easy, singular task that can fit a traditional Hollywood narrative.
This is a movie about how small actions may feel incremental on their own but can build up with a united sense of purpose.
Sayles adopts a broad canvas, covering the various groups within the miners, and the internal struggles they face as they try to organise against the increasingly brutal tactics of the mining company.
There are times where that lack of technique undermines the drama.
The shootout at the end is chaotic, but geography goes out the window and there is some attempt at quick-cut edits which come off a tad clumsy.
Part of the issue is that in order for these shots to work, they need to be framed as compositions so the viewer can put them in context, but they feel like coverage of bodies in movement.
The lack of technique hurts but is not detrimental.
The movie’s lack of dynamic visuals is matched by a set of unshowy naturalistic performances.
In his debut film performance, Chris Cooper anchors the movie. Quiet and watchful, he is a pragmatist with principles. Cooper brings a world-weariness to the role, but it is clear that Joe still has fire in his belly.
The rest of the cast fit into the fabric of the piece - Bob Gunton as the union-busting spy C. E. Livey; James Earl Jones as ‘Few Clothes’ Johnson; Mary McDonnell, later star of Passion Fish, as a local widow.
Kevin Tighe, blessed with a gloriously punchable face, gives maybe the biggest performance of the movie, but his smug asshole is still set at a simmer.
Made in the middle eighties, as the hardwon principles the battle was fought over were being dismantled, Matewan was an important counter to the ethos of the times. It is even more relevant today.
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