Group 5: The American Working Class: Labor and Laborers
On the Waterfront. 1954. U.S. Labor History (Longshoremen). Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, Karl Malden, Rod Steiger.
One of America's great films, remembered for Marlon Brando's “I coulda been a contenduh.” It was also the film debut of Eva Marie Saint. I used this film in English classes some years ago to discuss symbolism in film (as in literature) and such things as the use of color and position. The film has some wonderful imagery. For history purposes, it illustrates the grittier days of labor in America, when union and anti-union violence, fed by criminal influences , was very common. We don't see this much any more--our labor struggles are much subtler now, but no less real. Won a number of Oscars.
Hoffa. 1992. History of the American Labor Leader of the Teamsters Union. Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Armand Assante.
This film has a lot in common with the film above, but its focus is on the famous labor leader, Jimmy Hoffa, whose body has never been found. If you check the reviews, you will find some stark criticism of historic facts and details in the film, but again, it clearly illustrates the rough-and-tumble days of American labor and the problems of trying to clean up “dirty” enterprises.
Armand Assante played the title role in “Gotti,” the story of the “teflon don.”
Matewan. 1987. The West Virginia Coal Field Wars, 1920s. Chris Cooper, Mary McDonnell, James Earl Jones. John Sayles, Director.
This is in my judgment Sayles's best film. The presentation is gritty and murky, and sometimes it's hard to see or hear what's going on. Sayles said in the book he wrote about this film that it was more or less intentional—that histories of these sorts of events are cloudy. (Thinking in Pictures: The Making of the Movie Matewan) He also acknowledged that Chris Cooper's character, Joe, was made up, as was that of the boy preacher, but he needed them to hold the story together.
You can probably find common themes between this and the other Sayles film, “Eight Men Out.”
The Molly McGuires. 1970. Pennsylvania Coal Mines, 1800s. Sean Connery, Richard Harris.
An older film, with a young Sean Connery. The Irish have been in the middle of America's labor struggles, and many Irish immigrants brought Irish politics, which have always (until very recently, at least) had their violent side, into the American workplace with them.