Cinema: Life As A Bed of Coal MATEWAN

Directed and Written by John Sayles

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These faces know hard times. They look sculpted from granite. They are sere with too much work, too little food and the knowledge that in 1920 in Matewan, W. Va., life is a bed of coal. Man and boy go into the mines and die; mother and wife wait for the sound of their men coming home, or for the fatal word that they won't. Life has pressed all hope out of these faces -- to smile would be a crime against remorseless nature -- though there is no free time for despair. The miners have been taught to accept their miserable lot and fear the company, which owns their houses and furniture and food, as they fear % God. What would it take for them to fight back? Maybe the quiet rhetoric of a union organizer.

"You ain't men to the coal company," Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper) tells the miners, "you're equipment." He wants to make men of them, and he gets help from unlikely places. The police chief (David Strathairn) is not one to be pushed around. A black miner (James Earl Jones) and an Italian laborer (Joe Grifasi) are tired of scabbing for the company and ready to lead their men to revolt. Elma (Mary McDonnell), a young widow, will stand up against the goons who board at her home. And her 14-year-old son (Will Oldham), a prodigy preacher, will update New Testament parables till Jesus sounds like Joe Hill. A ragtag army, but with the organizer's help they may actually win.

Matewan (rhymes with great one) proves, as Return of the Secaucus 7 and The Brother from Another Planet did earlier, that John Sayles knows how to anchor a strong story -- here, the real-life massacre that led to the West Virginia mine wars -- in a fresh setting. He also knows how to make good-looking movies on the cheap. This period film, with a huge cast, cost only about $4 million, a budget that was met under the supposed financial restrictions of a full union crew. And in the rich umbers of Haskell Wexler's cinematography, Matewan does look great.

But this is the artistry that conceals artlessness. Sayles is reluctant to juice up the drama; maybe he's above such Hollywood devices. Though he can locate the dread gracelessness of real carnage in the film's climactic gunfight, the rest of the movie is lumbering as well. He pits a few good men against corporate Evil, then stereotypes their sanctity. Joe may be attracted to Elma, but the pacifist in him would never show lust: he doesn't do widows. And by the time the noble blacks start harmonizing with the noble Italians, you may be ready to cheer for the villains.

This is where Matewan hits pay dirt. As a union Judas, Bob Gunton pours cautious reason into the miners' ears, then sets Joe up for a fall -- a fine, taut, implosive job. And Kevin Tighe plays a company enforcer with a tight smile who has seen all the evil in the world and caused more than his share of it. With his round, ruddy face, Tighe always seems on the verge of derisive laughter or flash-fisted rage; it's enjoyable guessing which fever will surface first. The rest of the movie is less entertaining, a righteous homily without the grits.