Episode Description
"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.
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