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Category Archives: Politics

Looks and Smiles (1981)

20 Apr

104m; U.K.

Director: Ken Loach

Cast: Graham Green, Carolyn Nicholson and Tony Pitts

Synopsis: Thatcherism and the Irish troubles provide the backdrop for this study of Mick, a well-meaning youth in Sheffield, who has, unlike Dickens’ Pip, no expectations. Mick lives with his parents, works on his motorbike, looks for work, and every two weeks gets his check from the dole. There are no jobs. His best mate Alan joins the army to fix tanks and is sent to Belfast to quell Catholics. At a disco, Mick meets Karen, who works at a shoe shop and lives with her recently-separated mom. Karen misses her dad. She offers Mick emotional stability and a route to adulthood; Alan pitches the army. Does Mick have a future?

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Drama, Politics, Unemployment-Wages, War, Working Class

 

Love Affair (1967)

20 Apr

79m; Yugoslavia

Director: Dusan Majavejev

Synopsis: Spoof on sexual politics, science, and the lowest of jobs – rat catcher – in a Socialist economy.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Comedy, Politics, Public Sector

 

Lucia (1969)

20 Apr

160m; Cuba

Director: Humberto Solas

Cast: Raquel Revuelta, Eslinda Núñez and Adela Legrá

Synopsis: Traces episodes in the lives of three Cuban working women, each named Lucía, from three different historical periods: the Cuban war of independence (with Spain), the 1930’s, and the 1960’s.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Drama, Labor History, Politics, War, Women, Working Class

 

Machuca (2004)

20 Apr

121m; Chile

Director: Andrés Wood

Cast: Matías Quer, Ariel Mateluna and Manuela Martelli

Synopsis (IMDB): A wonderful coming-of-age film set in Santiago, Chile during the last year of Salvador Allende’s democratic socialist government and the first years of the Augusto Pinochet regime.  The film follows two boys, one Pedro Machuca from the city’s poor slums and the other, Gonzalo Infante, from an upper-class family.  The two meet when a new government program starts placing children from poorer communities in more affluent schools and the two start to bond.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Children, Drama, Labor History, Politics, Working Class

 

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?

 
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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.

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

 

Mine Wars (2004)

20 Apr

55m; U.S.

Director: Bill Richardson

Synopsis: Bill Richardson tells of the coal miners’ war for freedom through the use of film, telling this powerful and important story in the context of U.S. history. The critically acclaimed feature film uses over 800 vintage photos and music of the era to convey a sense of time and place.

Contact: Bill Richardson 29 Skyview Drive, Apt. #1, Belfry, KY 41514; e-mail brichard@wvu.edu.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Labor History, Organizing, Politics, Safety & Health, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, War, Working Class

 

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Monogah 1907 [1986]

20 Apr

29m; U.S.

Director: Arthur Young

Synopsis: Davitt McAteer is one of America’s leading experts on coal mine safety. In 1984, he founded the Occupational Safety and Health Law Center (OSHLC), a public interest law firm based in Shepherdstown that engages in education, training and policy analysis of issues involving workplace safety and health. While director of this Center, he produced this film. In 1993, he was named assistant secretary for the Mine Safety and Health Administration in the U.S. Department of Labor under President Clinton. This film tells the story of the struggle for mine safety in the U.S., focusing on the tragedy of Monongah, WV, in which 362 miners died. In December 2007, WVU Press released his book on the subject, “Monongah: The Tragic Story of the 1907 Mine Disaster.”

Contact: Debbie Roberts, droberts@mcateer-assoc.com

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Documentary, Labor History, Politics, Safety & Health, Working Class

 

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Mother Jones: America’s Most Dangerous Woman (2007)

20 Apr

23m; U.S.

Director: Rosemary Feurer & Laura Vazquez

Synopsis: Short, effective doc about legendary labor heroine Mary Harris Jones, the legendary labor heroine known as Mother Jones, examining the ways that Jones’ organizing career influenced early 20th century American history. The film demonstrates how the labor leader used class and gender boundaries to shape an identity that allowed her to become an effective labor organizer in the early 20th century. The documentary also evokes the terrible conditions and labor oppression that motivated Jones to traverse the country, mobilizing thousands to fight back. The film uses authentic photographs and live footage, including the only known film of Mother Jones on her deathbed, proclaiming that she still considered herself a radical and “longs for the day when labor will have the destination of the nation in her own hands.”

Contact: www.motherjonesmuseum.org http://www.laborheritagefoundation.org / Laura Vazquez, PHD, dept of Comm, Northern Illinois University, 815-753-7132 lvazquez@niu.edu Rosemary Feurer”

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Labor History, Organizing, Politics, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Women, Working Class

 

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The Mother (Mat) [1926]

20 Apr

90m; U.S.S.R.

Director: Vsevolod Pudovkin

Synopsis: Set in Russia during the harsh winter of 1905. A mother finds herself caught in emotional conflict between her husband and son when they find themselves on opposite sides of a worker’s strike. The son is a supporter of the workers but the father has been blackmailed into supporting the bosses and blacklegs. Despite the grief which follows the mother gradually comes to support the strikers and eventually is prepared to risk everything in standing up to police and Cossak troops in a demonstration endangering both herself and her precious son.

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

 
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