Matewan
David Webb Peoples, the screenwriter for Unforgiven (1992), drew the bulk of his research For that film from a book called The Shooters (1976).
Among many misconceptions that the book debunks about the Old West is
that of The Outlaw. The typical convention around outlaws in the
movies basically follows this path:
1. Outlaw comes to town.
2. Timid townsfolk don't want any trouble.
3. Marshall steps in to say hello and communicate on behalf of the townies that they don't want any trouble.
4. Shortly thereafter, the trouble begins.
5. The Marshall takes action.
In the movies, the problem seems to stem when the term "outlaw" is
only applied to a working class type criminal. The reality in the Old
West was that some outlaws wore black hats and others worked in
mahogany paneled offices. The common man felt cheated and oppressed by
the rich and, therefore, celebrated outlaws who were viewed as exacting
a sort of Robin Hood type vengeance. Only in the Old West, Robin Hood
didn't pass along the spoils.
This common theme then comes up in the more factual accounts of the Old West:
1. Outlaw comes to town.
2. Town is ecstatic over being payed a visit by such a celebrity.
3. Outlaw tends to drink a lot and sleep with town's girls.
4. The town slowly realizes they need to get rid of the morally corrupt Outlaw.
5. The community takes action.
Throughout American history we have mythologized, for better or for
worse, the Little Guy who steps outside of the law to take on the Big
Guys. Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath immediately comes to
mind. A working man who is forced to make one of two choices: Step
outside the law and defend others like himself or work within the law
and have his inherent human dignity ground into dust.
But in John Sayles' film, Matewan (1987), another choice is explored. Many have criticized Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath as
sentimentalizing to heavily the sharecroppers plight. Some may make
the same criticism about Sayles' film which sympathizes with West
Virginia coal miners trying to unionize in 1920. In all fairness, I
too would probably sentimentalize the plight of the American
sharecropper or coal miner had I been around to stroll through their
shanty towns during the Great Depression. But rather than focusing on
the choice one man needs to make, in Matewan Sayles goes deeper into the power found in forging a community.
Before I get too lost sojourning through my own thoughts let me say,
See Matewan.
It delivered on so many different levels. So, so, so good. I sat
down after a full day's work and a full evening's baby caring and house
choring. I put in the disc thinking I would look at the first
half-hour or so, nod off to sleep, then decide in the morning whether
or not to keep it checked out. Two hours later there were two wrinkly
spots on my shirt where I had been clenching my chest.
That said, I realized why I cried during Finding Nemo.
It was in the final moments when the blue fish (Dorie?) gets caught in
a net with a big school of fish. Nemo goes into the net to tell all of
the fish to swim down. The thousands of fish in the net stop flailing
around to save themselves and collectively focus on swimming down
toward the ocean floor. Then the crane hauling the net up from the
water breaks and falls into the sea. That was when the tears started
flowing.
Why? I'm not totally sure. But it was resonating in the same place
as last night I watched the coal miners trying and failing and trying
again to organize a union. Every time they split their energies or
allowed racism to divide them, the union began to slip through their
fingers. Every time they reduced themselves to seeing each other as a
bunch of human beings sharing in one another's struggles, The Company
trying to bust up their union would wilt.
I'm thinking that my recent sensitivity to on-screen violence and my
sensitivity for hopeless masses overcoming the odds by working together
are some how married. It was in each miner finding respect in the
other man's humanity where they could join together to become
something altogether more powerful than any one man could be alone.
Like those fish caught in the net. Each one had to hold prisoner his
own instinct to save himself and realize that his survival could only
be found with the fish surrounding him.
If I can't find
compassion for my fellow man, I can't possibly see him as an equal.
Then I pursue saving my own neck and the union falls apart.
(originally posted on my godinruins.com blog 7/29/05)