Word: matewan
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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John Sayles is a filmmaker at home everywhere in the world--mythical South American countries (Men with Guns), Texas border towns (Lone Star), West Virginia a long time ago (Matewan). But wherever he goes, he finds ordinary people who turn out to have extraordinarily complicated back stories--stories that often have kinks in them that even they are unaware...
While the students had been prepared with reading lists (Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals) and video lists (John Sayles' film Matewan, about a coal miners' strike), some found themselves reluctant to embrace the gamut of militant tactics. There were nervous titters during training when Quynh Nguyen, a Vietnamese-American organizer, mentioned "Dumpster diving"--searching through company trash for information. And when hotel workers laid out plans for street theater during a wedding reception at the New Otani, many had misgivings. "I don't want to protest at someone's wedding," said Ramos, the Brown University student. "That's their...
Crossing a picket line can indeed be morally repugnant. But this baseball strike wasn't exactly Matewan, not when the players, who average more than $1 million a year, weren't even willing to man their own picket lines. Ostensibly, the players were worried about security, but more probably, they were worried about having to sign a lot of autographs. Disdain for the public is one thing the owners and players have in common...
...from writing screenplays such as Clan of the Cave Bear, the proceeds from a five-year Mac Arthur "genius" grant and funds from private investors, he has turned out a succession of impressive films. Among them: The Brother from Another Planet (1984), the adventures of a black extraterrestrial, and Matewan (1987), a historical saga about striking West Virginia coal miners in the 1920s. His most ambitious project, Eight Men Out (1988), a retelling of the 1919 Chicago Black Sox scandal, cost just $6 million, or about half what Bruce Willis commands for starring in a movie. "The way that...