By BILL LYNCH
Charleston Gazette-Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Part of what drew director John Sayles to the story that became the movie “Matewan” was that he’d never heard it.
(Submitted photo)
Sayles, who appears Saturday with film producer Maggie Renzi at a 30th anniversary screening of “Matewan” at the LaBelle Theater in South Charleston, explained that in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he was hitchhiking across the country and passed through West Virginia and Kentucky a couple of times.
Shortly thereafter, Yablonski, his wife and daughter were murdered as they slept.
Sayles said when he rode with the miners, they talked about the violence and the trouble swirling around the union.
“They were all kind shaking their heads and saying this was as bad as the days of the Matewan Massacre,” Sayles said.
The story had barely made it out of West Virginia.
“So I started doing a little bit of research and realized it was a great condensation of where the labor movement was at the time in America,” Sayles said.
He also thought it made for a really good movie.
“The story literally ended with a shootout on main street, like ‘High Noon,’” he said.
Sayles knew about labor struggles. He’d grown up around them in Schenectady, New York.
“That’s where the General Electric Company was originally based — until they moved their labor out to other countries,” he said. “I was very aware of the push and pull between big companies and their employees.”
After Sayles went to Hollywood and established himself as a writer and director, it was years before he realized his vision for “Matewan,” and even then, it almost didn’t happen.
“We had the funding for the film three years before we made it,” he said. “But it fell through.”
The budget for “Matewan” was set at $3.5 million dollars, which was huge for an independent film in the 1980s.
Losing funding was discouraging, but then Sayles caught a break. He was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, a “Genius Grant,” after his films “Baby It’s You” and “Lianna.”
The director used the grant to make “The Brother From Another Planet,” an odd, science-fiction film about an escaped alien slave who finds refuge in Harlem.
The indie film was a critical hit and earned over $4 million, more than 10-times what the film cost to make.
The success of “The Brother From Another Planet” helped pave the way for “Matewan.”
He also caught a break with his cast. The studio let him cast whoever he wanted to make the movie he wanted.
“Matewan” earned rave reviews for several performances, but, at the time, only a few of the actors were really known to film audiences. The closest thing to a celebrity they had was James Earl Jones (arguably, best known to most audiences as the voice of Darth Vader), who had a supporting role to “Matewan’s” star, Chris Cooper.
Cooper became one of the country’s most recognizable film stars, appearing in dozens of films, including “Lone Star,” “American Beauty” and, most recently, “Live by Night,” but up until “Matewan” Cooper had only worked on stage.
Sayles said they had the story he and the producers wanted, the cast they wanted and they got to film where they wanted — in West Virginia.
Renzi, one of the producers of the film, said people told them they couldn’t do that.
“You’re a bunch of northerners,” she said they told her. “The people down there won’t have anything to do with you.”
Renzi said they’d been told much the same when they filmed “The Brother From Another Planet” in Harlem.
People weren’t going to talk to them because half the crew was white.
“We had a great time in Harlem,” she said. “We thought maybe it would work out the same way in West Virginia, too.”
It did.
Renzi said the people living around Thurmond, where much of “Matewan” was filmed, were kind and generous. They sort of adopted the project as their own, contributing props and participating where needed.
The experience was a good one, Renzi and Sayles said. They believed for everyone.
“Matewan” earned critical praise and was nominated for an Academy Award, but it wasn’t a commercial hit. The film lost money at the box office.
“It did have a nice life after the fact,” Sayles said. “The film shows up, not in film classes, but in history classes, particularly when they’re teaching about labor history.”
This pleased the director. It’s a different kind of success.
Sayles said his only real regret with the film is that he didn’t get to make a sequel.
“That would have been about the Battle of Blair Mountain,” Sayles said. “It’s an incredible story and Matewan was kind of the catalyst for that, but you’d need airplanes and thousands of extras.”
The Battle of Blair Mountain was the biggest insurrection since the Civil War, and the director said outside of Appalachian coal country, barely known.
“I hope somebody, someday can make that movie,” he said. “And I hope they make it well.”
Want to go?
Want to go?
West Virginia Mine Wars Museum presents a 30th Anniversary screening of “Matewan.”
WHEN: 3 and 7 p.m. Saturday, October 7 (includes screening and Q&A session after)
WHERE: LaBelle Theater, 311 D St., South Charleston
TICKETS: $10
INFO: 304-663-2202 or wvminewars.com
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