RSS

Author Archives: Metro Council

Man of Marble (1977)

20 Apr

165m

Director: Andrzej Wajda

Cast: Krystyna Janda, Jerzy Radziwilowicz and Tadeusz Lomnicki

Synopsis (IMDB): In 1976, a young woman in Krakow is making her diploma film, looking behind the scenes at the life of a 1950s bricklayer, Birkut, who was briefly a proletariat hero, at how that heroism was created, and what became of him. She gets hold of outtakes and censored footage and interviews the man’s friends, ex-wife, and the filmmaker who made him a hero. A portrait of Birkut emerges: he believed in the workers’ revolution, in building housing for all, and his very virtues were his undoing. Her hard-driving style and the content of the film unnerve her supervisor, who kills the project with the excuse she’s over budget. Is there any way she can push the film to completion?

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Construction Trades, Drama, Politics, Working Class

 

Man of Iron (1981)

20 Apr

153m

Director: Andrzej Wajda

Cast: Jerzy Radziwilowicz, Krystyna Janda and Marian Opania

Synopsis (IMDB): Andrzej Wajda’s account of the events at the Gdansk shipyard in the summer of 1980. Winkiel (Marian Opania), a burned-out, alcoholic journalist is assigned to look into the activities of Maciek Tomzyk (Jerzy Radziwilowicz), the charismatic and articulate leader of striking shipyard workers. He turns out to be the son of Mateusz Birkut. The journalist makes use of her own reputation as a youthful radical, implying a solidarity with Tomzyk even as she searches for the dirty laundry the party bosses hope she’ll find. But as she interviews the labour leader’s associates and his detained wife, Agnieszka (Krystyna Janda), and hears of his travails and of his father’s death in the 1970 crackdown against the workers, Opania begins to feel his former idealism returning, forcing her to consider putting her own career at risk to side with the strikers.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Drama, Labor History, Organizing, Politics, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Working Class

 

Man’s Castle (1933)

20 Apr

75m; U.S.

Director: Frank Borzage

Cast: Spencer Tracy, Loretta Young and Marjorie Rambeau

Synopsis: Love flourishes among the unemployed in a shack by New York’s East River, but our hero turns to crime when his wife becomes pregnant.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Drama, Romance, Unemployment-Wages, Women, Working Class

 

Manito (2002)

20 Apr

78m; U.S.

Director: Eric Eason

Cast: Leo Minaya, Jessica Morales and Franky G

Synopsis (IMDB): Fifteen years ago, their Washington Heights neighborhood was dubbed the crack-cocaine capital of the world, but today it is transforming into one of the most vibrant, Spanish-speaking communities in the United States. While the drug dealers continue to disappear, their violent legacy still casts a shadow over the neighborhood and its residents. Junior, an ex-convict struggling to get his life back on track, is a product of this legacy. His younger brother Manny, the salutatorian of his high school class, embodies the hope of the future. On the night of his graduation party, Manny finds himself faced with an ill-fated decision that could change his life forever.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Drama, Education, Immigrants/Immigration, Working Class

 

Manufactured Landscapes (2006)

20 Apr

80m; U.S./China

Director: Jennifer Baichwal

Synopsis (IMDB): Jennifer Baichwal’s cameras follow Edward Burtynsky (1955- ) as he visits what he calls manufactured landscapes: slag heaps, e-waste dumps, huge factories in the Fujian and Zhejiang provinces of China, and a place in Bangladesh where ships are taken apart for recycling. In China, workers gather outside the factory, exhorted by their team leader to produce more and make fewer errors. A woman assembles a circuit breaker, and women and children are seen picking through debris or playing in it. Burtynsky concludes with a visit to Shanghai, the world’s fastest growing city, where wealth and poverty, high-rises and old neighborhoods are side by side.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Construction Trades, Documentary, Global Economy, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Working Class

 

Maquila: A Tale of Two Mexicos (1999)

20 Apr

55m; Mexico

Director: Saul Landau & Sonia Augulo

Synopsis: Shows the real lives of workers who work in the Maquiladora’s. The Maquilas were sold to the Mexican workers as the solution to the problem of unemployment yet the maquilas have turned intoa disaster for Mexico.

Contact: http://saullandau.com/movies.html

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Documentary, Global Economy, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing

 

Maquilapolis (2006)

20 Apr

U.S./Mexico
Director: Vicky Funari
http://www.maquilapolis.com/project_eng.htm

Synopsis: Maquiladoras, women’s issues

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Documentary, Global Economy, Women

 

Mardi Gras: Made in China (2005)

20 Apr

72m;

Director: David Redmon

Synopsis (IMDB): This examination of cultural and economic globalization follows the life-cycle of Mardi Gras beads from a small factory in Fuzhou, China, to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and to art galleries in New York City.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Documentary, Entertainment Industry, Global Economy

 

Margaret’s Museum (1995)

20 Apr

114m; U.S.

Director: Mort Ransen

Cast: Helena Bonham Carter, Kate Nelligan and Clive Russell

Synopsis (IMDB): In a town where half the men die down the coalpit, Margaret MacNeil is quite happy being single. Until she meets Neil Currie, a charming and sincere bagpipe-playing, Gaelic-speaking dishwasher. But no matter what you do, you can’t avoid the spectre of the pit forever.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Drama, Romance, Women, Working Class

 

Tags:

Marked Woman (1937)

20 Apr

96m; U.S.

Director: Lloyd Bacon

Cast: Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart and Lola Lane

Synopsis: Mary Dwight works as a hostess at the Club Intime run by ruthless gangster Johnny Vanning. When one of her “clients” is murdered prosecutor David Graham questions Mary but she won’t cooperate and Vanning is acquitted. When Mary’s sister Betty is killed by one of Vanning’s thugs she decides to spill the beans and is beaten into disfigurement. At her bedside all the hostesses agree to testify.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Crime-Action, Whistleblowers, Women, Working Class

 
← Older posts
Newer posts →