Preview

Matewan Film Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
334 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Matewan Film Analysis
Movie Extra Credit During the winter break I watched the movie Matewan. It was directed by John Sayles and stars Chris Cooper, James Earl Jones, and Mary McDonnell. It takes place in the turbulent town of Matewan, West Virginia during the 1920’s as heads butt on whether creating a workers union is the right thing. The coal workers go on strike to fight against the hazardous working conditions and low pay, but are dismayed by the fact the coal company is replacing them with Italian immigrants and Blacks. As they prepare to start a gun war with the Coal Company and its supporters, Joe Kenehan, a labor union organizer arrives along with a black replacement worker, “Few Clothes”, who both urge for peace and unity between all workers as opposed

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Seabiscuit Film Analysis

    • 807 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Due to unfortunate circumstances, I will be lecturing you solely from Gary Ross' Seabiscuit with Randy Newman composing the soundtrack. For a brief overview, the movie starts with a wealthy man, Charles Howard, losing his son and looking for some way to grieve. He begins to race horses and meets Tom Smith, an old-time horse trainer. Together, they spot the unconventional Seabiscuit who Smith sees potential that no one else does. Smith convinces Howard to buy the horse and they find Red Pollard to ride the horse. All of the key parts of this movie are unconventional: Red is too big to be a jockey, Seabiscuit is too small to be a prized horse and Smith is well past his time but somehow they make it work. Seabiscuit gains popularity in a time where Americans needed to be distracted from the Depression Era. The movie continues by Howard wanting Seabiscuit to go up against the "greatest" horse, War Admiral. War Admiral's owner wants no part to do with it. Eventually, they agree to race but not before Pollard seriously injures himself. Seabiscuit is ridden by the greatest jockey of all time and beats the War Admiral. In the next race, Seabiscuit also injures himself. The rest of the movie is Seabiscuit and Red recovering together and later winning the last race shown in…

    • 807 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Krabat Film Analysis

    • 1020 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The movie Krabat, directed by Marco Kreuzpaintner, addresses the adventure of a young orphan named Krabat who learns black magic from an evil sorcerer in a satanic mill. Krabat goes through several struggles that help him develop into this heroic character and ends up fighting for his freedom through love and friendship. The movie was released on September 7th, 2008. The main actors in the movie were David Kross as Krabat, Daniel Bruhl as Tonda, and Christian Redl as the evil master. The movie was directed more towards grownups who read the novel when they were young and grew up obsessed about it. Other than that the changes made in the movie were not that significant from the novel; the cinematography, the actors, and…

    • 1020 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The film takes place in two timelines and involves two couples from different continents. The Australian couple, Walt and Ruth, lives in the present and are bickering on account of the husband’s obsession to catch flies that to his wife’s dismay, resulted to the neglect of his household chores. The Filipino couple lives in the memory of the husband, Jessie. He remembers his wife, Appollonia, as an activist writer who died during the height of martial law in the Philippines.…

    • 1512 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    This past weekend a close friend of mine encouraged me to go see the documentary 9500 Liberty that was playing on Friday. Honestly I only went to be nice to my friend however as I sat and watched the documentary I quickly became very engaged. The film was about a county in Virginia which was trying to implement laws which negatively affected the steadily increasing Latino community in the area. This documentary was fantastically done and was very emotionally gripping. I was really upset because of the racist comments that were said by the Caucasian residents. It became a very ugly battle which surpassed the original purpose of the whole issue.Throughout the movie I was constantly becoming more and more angry at the behavior of the opposing…

    • 352 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mash Film Analysis

    • 291 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Mash, a counter culture classic, the themes and techniques used, represent the ethos of 1960s - 1970’s youth perfectly.…

    • 291 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Glory Film Analysis

    • 868 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In the film, Glory, the director made specific choices in editing the scenes in how we are meant to see it. He wanted for us to understand and capture what he was trying to accomplish in said scenes. Music and sound is used to capture our attention and focus on the scene that is currently being shown. The director made choices to place music and sound in specific moments when there is dialog or without. Music and sound is to help us as viewers to understand truly what is going on and how we are to take from the scene. The techniques weren’t anything new or special like other films such as Citizen Kane but the director made a huge impact with simple cinematography.…

    • 868 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Junior Film Analysis

    • 1214 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In the movie The Rookie, directed by John Lee Hancock, the director tells a story about a high school baseball coach from Texas named Jimmy Morris. Morris’s dream throughout his life was to make it to the big leagues and play with the very best in the game. He faced multiple challenges that tried to hold him back from his dream. One of the challenges he faced was his dad, his father disapproved of him playing baseball and didn’t support him playing at a young age. Another big challenge was the town Morris’s family moved to, they didn’t care for baseball and there was nowhere to play. In the end, an injury ended his career and he knew it was time to give it up. Eventually, Morris got married and had three children,…

    • 1214 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Se7en Film Analysis

    • 997 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The seven deadly sins, gluttony, greed, lust, sloth, pride, envy and wrath, are all emotions that nearly every individual experience each day throughout their lives because of the social, political and economic factors that surround us each day. However, what would happen if we were truly punished for allowing these emotions to control us? This question establishes the plot for the film Se7en starring Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow which was released in 1995. Nonetheless, the film does not solely focus on the seven deadly sins and the punishments that go along with them but raise questions moral questions about psychopathy and policing in today’s culture. In this essay I will discuss the how the film Se7en’s portrayal of policing in pop culture is reflective of the dialectical relationship and socio-historic context that was present in 1995 when the film was produced, based and released. Furthermore, I will pay particular attention to the influence race has on policing as this was the first cop film that allowed the lead detective to be a man of colour. Additionally, to…

    • 997 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Arne Naess Film Analysis

    • 431 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Naess was the developer of deep ecology during the twentieth century as well as the initiator to the deep ecology movement. He believed that every living being had inherent worth without their utility to man, taken into account. The older man in the Documentary, filmed in 1997, Arne Naess spoke about his beliefs and practices. He shared that as a child, he used to roam by the mountain he later built a hut on called Tvergastein. The mountain hut helped Naess write many of his philosophical books about ecology. This excerpt in the film, helps his audience realize that his connection with the large mountain and the Horizon, he says was “non-disturbing”, is curtail for man’s development. Naess claims the mountain itself is an entity and that it is alive to him, therefor without a doubt he believes it has intrinsic value to him.…

    • 431 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Rashomon Film Analysis

    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Each and every person who watched Rashomon will tend to form their own version of what happen that fits into their own personal ideas and opinions. In order to figure out the truth, each story must be carefully analyzed and the similarities from each story must be pulled and put together. Base on the idea of those stories, one of that can be taken as fact and other is a fiction. In reality we tend to take our own personal ideas and beliefs. When we attempt to put the events of our lives into story form it is no wonder that we each crate our own individual story.…

    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Matewan Video Essay

    • 960 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Matewan, a place in history that all union workers should reflect on and know that they have life easy. It was a time when unions were widely hated by most every business owner there was. The business owners knew that if a union formed in their business, which would mean more money out of their pocket. These days, unions are all people know. People today were born and raised under union safety. You have teachers, factory workers, and even Wal-Mart employees that are all a part of some union. But during this film, there were a few ethnic groups that were not exactly accepted completely into society yet, there were events depicted that showed honor through all union workers, and some of the characters had very important roles, characters such as Few Clothes and my favorite, Danny Radnor.…

    • 960 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Matewan is a story which focuses around the violent labor disputes which occurred in the West Virginia coal fields in 1920. During these days, there was no benefits and job security for workers as the Stone Mountain Coal Company displays. Due to the efforts by the workers of the coal fields to form a union, the Stone Mountain Coal Company publicized to their workers that those who were in unions were to be replaced and pay cuts would be rationed out. Outrage ensued between the workers and the new African American workers that were being brought in. However, Joe Kenehan, who worked for the United Mine Workers, decided that if the replacement workers joined the union, the company had to accept it as they wouldn’t have workers. In order to stop the idea of a labor union, the coal company sent C.E. Lively to investigate the workers undercover. Lively then brings in two armed agents from the Baldwin-Felt Detective Agency handle the work he cannot as he is undercover. This entire situation escalates into a violent shootout and reinforcement agents from Baldwin-Felts came to evict workers who were part of a labor union. A total of nine people were killed during the shootout where workers just wanted to have basic rights.…

    • 464 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Antz film study

    • 1073 Words
    • 5 Pages

    3. General Mandable tells the colony that Z is not the hero, the ants working in the colony are the hero's as they are the ones insuring the future of their colony. And after they are done with their work they are the ones who will reap the benefits.This is all because they are a huge contributors in the development of their group.…

    • 1073 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Upon seeing their already low-wages had been reduced to even smaller amounts, workers would power down the looms and leave in masses, protesting against the companies that paid them in pennies. Likewise, Zinn recounts the treatment of American workers who dared protest against the injustice and treatment they faced. Strikers were often met with violence, jail time and, in some cases, even death, for marching against their mistreatment. Zinn shines light upon the event that would become known as the Ludlow Massacre for its bloodshed. The events leading up to the massacre are known as the Colorado Coal strike, and Zinn recounts how miners were protesting against low wages, hazardous working conditions, and mining company having complete and utter control over their…

    • 718 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Glass Menagerie is a play of a family who is incredibly unstable. The play is about many other things, however the childlike minds of the main characters are a main point of the film. Each character of the film is caught within their own fantasy. Their inability to stay in reality hurts each character differently. Restoration is not actually attained in this film, however there was a desire from the mother, Amanda, for restoration. This movie is not a good depiction of restoration because no restoration actually takes place. A simple definition of restoration is putting things back to the way they were. Laura has always been aloof and crippled, and Tom never seemed to be interested in the reality in front of him so there is nothing to put back. Amanda is however trying to recreate her youth through the many reminiscing’s of her past the forcing of Laura to get gentlemen callers, and the nagging of Tom to stay home are Amanda’s way of trying to seek restoration. Although incredibly flawed, Amanda does try her best for the people she loves, Tom and Laura. Her feeble attempts at restoration only show that care that she has for her family even though her the way she shows it is flawed.…

    • 654 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics