Movie Reflection

In his book, “Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War”, Thomas G. Andrews construes the trajectory of a unique labor movement of the southern Colorado coal workers. The labor movement is unique as it integrates the social, ecological and industrial context of the strike for a captivating narration of the Ludlow massacre. Andrew’s account is valuable as he insists that credible conclusions must be grounded in complete and sophisticated provenance as opposed to oversimplified explanations. The intent of this response paper is to analyze the burdensome nature of obtaining coal, substandard pay and the treacherous working conditions. Secondly, the paper discusses the ways which helped employees to achieve autonomy and solidarity.

In the film, Matewan, director John Sayles paints a 1920’s picture of a small, West Virginia coal-mining town. Over the course of the film, this seemingly American Township reveals itself as the site of feudal hardship for its citizens. The Stone Mountain Coal Company was the sole employer in Matewan. The company’s laborers struggled for autonomy and for freedom from the company’s grasp. The ideal method for this achieving such autonomy was organization of a union. This idea of union struck a cord with the company, and the conflict between employer and employee soon escalated into a battle. The laborers began to realize, in certain terms, that the Stone Mountain Coal Company is not simply a corporation but a

The mine owners began evicting coal miners who would not leave the UMWA. The mine owners contacted the Baldwin-Felts Agency to send guards out to protect the mines and intimidate the union miners. On May 19, 1920, Thomas Felts, the president of the Baldwin-Felts agency, Albert and Lee Felts, which were his two younger brothers and ten other guards, arrived in Matewan to evict miners and their families. Chief of Police Sid Hatfield and a group of miners tried to stop them from carrying out their objective. When the guards returned to Matewan from Stone Mountain Camp after they finished evicting miners, some union members tried to prevent them from boarding the train to Bluefield. Sid Hatfield tried to arrest Albert Felts outside the railroad depot for conducting the evictions illegally. The confrontation that followed is known at the Matewan Massacre. Nobody knows who fired first, but Sid Hatfield claimed Albert Felts fired first. In the massacre, seven guards, including Albert and Lee Felts, Mayor Testerman and two miners were killed. Sid Hatfield, a hero in the eyes of the miners was charged with the shootings. Hatfield and 17 strikers were

It was a confrontation between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and striking coal miners from Saskatchewan. The miners had been on strike hoping to improve their wages and working conditions. A great amount of people with their families, paraded through the city in order to draw attention to their strike. The RCMP confronted them and attempted to block and break up, but violence broke out and the police opened up fire on the strikes. Many strikers were wounded and arrested

During the novel Denise Giardina expresses that there were approximately ten thousand coal miners who took arms against the companies who continually abused them but were detained by the companies with the help of hired thugs, corrupt law enforcement, and the United States army and by this detainment they suffered a

These crimes were then blamed on the Mollies in order to, hopefully, suppress their extreme resistance. Many mine owners intimidated miners into complying with what they wanted by maiming and murdering those suspected of union activism.

In 1854 the miners farewelled one of their most well known and well respected miner, James Scobie. James Bently the one who murdered James Scobbie out side his hotel after there was a fight between some people and once Bentlys hotel was burnt he murdered James scobie. After the miners lost one of their most respected miners they didn’t stop fighting they faught against the government and made the governments job harder then it already was.

Andrews called it “the deadliest labor struggle in American history.” National Guards was sent with the encouragement of Karl Linderfelt. As shooting take places between the militia and the strikers, women and children went to hide in pits underneath the tents. Crain stated the gunfire lasted all day and the militia killed even chicken and dogs. Eventually, the tents in Ludlow was set on fire and most of the women and children died in this due to suffocation. Later on, revenge were taken for the terrible incident at Ludlow. Crain described this a struggle as a “pursuit of energy and in combats between capital and labor.” I believed this to be true. The mining companies did not seem to care about their workers. They only care for the profits since the workers were expendable to

67). As the strike began, the thousands of miners and their families were relocated into tent colonies by the union. The peaceful strike eventually came to an end April 1914, when the largest colony, Ludlow, was attacked by private detectives and the Colorado National Guard (Chicone, p. 58). The camp was heavily fired upon and set ablaze, “Twenty-five people lay dead, including two women and 11 children who were trapped beneath a smoldering tent” (Chicone, p. 58), the senseless murder of the strikers and families left an endless mark on the coal miner community. The brutality of the incident led the union to quickly label it the “Ludlow Massacre”, ensuring that it would not be mistaken as anything other than an abuse of power (Walker, p. 72). Throughout the strike and subsequent massacre, the media was a frenzy of competing messages from both the United Mine Workers of America and the Rockefeller’s Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.

During the strike, two other men were also killed. By the end of the strike, the gunfire had injured twenty-three people, wounded eight unarmed miners, four bystanders and one RCMP officer.

His employer was trying to shaft him. He fought for his rights, not knowing what the outcome would be, but knowing this was something he felt he must do.

movie again for the purpose of writing this paper, I came to appreciate all of its

The trigger for Britain's most bitter industrial dispute of recent times was the announcement that one Yorkshire pit, Cortonwood near Barnsley, was to close, all over Yorkshire walked out, not realising that it would be a year before they returned. Whereas previous coal strikes had been over in a matter of weeks, this time both union and government dug in for a lengthy battle. In the end, the biggest losers were ordinary miners.

“What precisely is the cinema of attractions? First it is a cinema that bases itself on the quality that Leger celebrated: its ability to show something.”

The film I picked for my critique is Red Tails, a historical World War II drama. The movie starred Cuba Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard and Gerald Mcraney, was written by John Ridley and Aaron McGruder, better known as the creator of the comic strip “the boondocks”, from a book by John B. Holway, directed by Anthony Hemingway and produced by George Lucas . In this paper the author will show how all elements of filmmaking