MATEWAN IS ON TCM NOW 7:00 PDT

[montanacowboy]

First showing on TCM, mostly never seen film. A must see!

[appalachiablue]

1. Gracias, excellent film!

- 'Matewan,' 1987, 2hrs, 12 mins. Matewan is a 1987 American independent drama film written and directed by John Sayles, and starring Chris Cooper (in his film debut), James Earl Jones, Mary McDonnell and Will Oldham, with David Strathairn, Kevin Tighe and Gordon Clapp in supporting roles. The film dramatizes the events of the Battle of Matewan, a coal miners' strike in 1920 in Matewan, a small town in the hills of West Virginia...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matewan

[ret5hd]

2. my personal favorite line...

(maybe not an exact quote, but the best i remember)

the young man (boy) was thrown out of his lifelong church because he gave a sermon that supported the union…”…and that’s when the union became my religion.”

maybe not a blockbuster of a movie, but this one always hit deep for me.

another movie…documentary actually…that may interest those that enjoy this one is Harlan County USA…a brutal look at a coal strike in the 1970’s:

[montanacowboy]

4. Harlan County is a great flick

I am from that area, my grandfather was killed in the coal mines. When I was a kid I actually lived this stuff in real life.

[ret5hd]

6. every time i hear some business owner say...

“i risked everything to build this business…”

i spit
i curse
you didn’t risk shit except your money…i KNOW who risked everything.

on edit:
an hour or so drive from me is the site of the Ludlow Massacre

a half hour the other direction is Dawson NM…now a ghost town (and birthplace of Dolores Huerta, one of my personal heros)…site of a large cemetery with the graves of about 300 miners who lost their lives in two separate explosions.

[Tanuki]

3. If you're ever in Matewan, stop by the WV Mine Wars Museum

https://wvminewars.org/

[Sneederbunk]

5. You can also see it on YouTube.

[elleng]

7. A labor union organizer comes to an embattled mining community

brutally and violently dominated and harassed by the mining company.
Director: John Sayles. Cast: Chris Cooper, James Earl Jones, Mary McDonnell

[ms liberty]

8. A really great film. Not a happy movie, though.