Matewan (1987)

Directors

John Sayles

Cast

Chris Cooper, James Earl Jones, Mary McDonnell, Will Oldham, David Strathairn

The story

In mid-May 1920, Joe Kenehan, an ex-Wobbly with pacifist leanings, arrives in Matewan to organize the miners working for the Stone Mountain Coal Company. He sees a mob of miners—on strike because of recent wage cuts—beating up black workers who have been lured by the company into crossing the picket line. Kenehan takes up residence at a boarding house run by a miner's widow, Elma Radnor, and her 15-year-old son, Danny (himself a miner and a budding Baptist preacher).

Genres

Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.

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