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Category Archives: Working Class

Reds (1981)

09 Jan

194m; U.S.

Director: Warren Beatty

Cast: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Edward Hermann, Jerzy Kosinski, Maureen Stapelton, Gene Hackman

Synopsis: Reds is the epic biography of early 20th century U.S. communist author and activist Jack Reed and his stormy off-again, on-again love affair with free-thinker Louise Bryant.  The film covers some of Reed’s time in the United States (including relationships with the IWW and the Socialist Party) and their time together in Russia during the Bolshevik revolution which led Reed to write the book Ten Days that Shook the World.  The film also covers attempts to build a communist party in the U.S., the post-World War I “Red Scare” and the early years of the U.S.S.R.  Maureen Stapelton won an Oscar for her portrayal of Emma Goldman and Beatty won for Best Director.  Interspersed throughout the film are interviews with many of the people who knew Reed and Bryant.  Long but highly recommended.

Click here to read Jon Garlock’s introduction to Reds at the Rochester (NY) Labor Film Series.

Trailer

The Russian Revolution Montage

John Reed’s Speech on Freedom and Revolution

 
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Posted by on January 9, 2012 in A: Highly Recommended Labor Films, Arts/Culture, Biography, Class, Communism/Socialism, Drama, Labor History, Organizing, Politics, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, War, Women, Working Class

 

The Soul’s Haven (Il posto dell’anima) [2003]

08 Jan

106m; Italy

Director: Riccardo Milani

Cast: Silvio Orlando, Michele Placido and Claudio Santamaria

Synopsis (IMDB): Three workers of a tire factory, in southern Italy, lead the struggle against the American company owner of the factory who wants to close the Italian branch in which they work.

 

 
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Posted by on January 8, 2012 in A: Highly Recommended Labor Films, Comedy, Drama, Organizing, Outsourcing, Working Class

 

Salt of the Earth (1954)

08 Jan

94m; US

Directed by Herbert Biberman

Cast: Juan Chacón, Rosaura Revueltas and Will Geer

Synopsis: Salt of the Earth is based on a 1950 strike by zinc miners in Silver City, New Mexico. Against a backdrop of social injustice, a riveting family drama is played out by the characters of Ramon and Esperanza Quintero, a Mexican-American miner and his wife. In the course of the strike, Ramon and Esperanza find their roles reversed: an injunction against the male strikers moves the women to take over the picket line, leaving the men to domestic duties. The women evolve from men’s subordinates into their allies and equals.

NYT: Movies don’t get much more Labor Day-appropriate than a film backed by the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers. But “Salt of the Earth” was perceived as a dangerous object in 1954, when the principal members of its creative team — the director Herbert J. Biberman, the producer Paul Jarrico and the screenwriter Michael Wilson, working independently of Hollywood — were subject to the blacklist. (The Congress of Industrial Organizations had separately expelled the union from its ranks.) This chronicle of a New Mexico miners’ strike, dramatized from real events and now a favorite of film programmers, looks ahead of its time in its foregrounding of Mexican-American characters; its emphasis on racial and especially gender equality; and its powerful depiction of unity against strikebreaking tactics. BEN KENIGSBERG

Trailer

 

 
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Posted by on January 8, 2012 in A: Highly Recommended Labor Films, Available Online, Communism/Socialism, Netflix Watch Instantly, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Women, Working Class

 

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Time Out (2001)

07 Jan

134m; France

Director: Laurent Cantet

Cast: Aurélien Recoing, Karin Viard and Serge Livrozet

Synopsis (IMDB): Recently fired from his job, but unable to confess the truth to his close-knit family, Vincent spends his days driving around the countryside, talking into his cell phone and staring into space. Vincent fabricates a new job for himself so his family and friends will not know that he is out of work. At one point, he even sneaks into an office building. As Vincent roams the building’s sterile halls, peeking into meeting rooms where men are busy at work, we see a man who yearns not just for a new job, but also for a place in the world. While this pantomime of work initially registers as sad and even a little pathetic, it slowly and unnervingly becomes terrifying.

Trailer

 
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Posted by on January 7, 2012 in A: Highly Recommended Labor Films, Drama, Unemployment-Wages, Working Class

 

Workingman’s Death (2006)

04 Jan

122m; Austria/GermanyWorkingmans_death

Director: Michael Glawogger

Synopsis: Deconstructs contemporary conceptions of work – by showcasing six of the most grueling and dangerous professions. Incredibly beautiful and moving, with virtually no dialogue or narration.

 
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Posted by on January 4, 2012 in A: Highly Recommended Labor Films, Documentary, Experimental, Safety & Health, Working Class

 

The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006)

04 Jan

127m; U.K.

Director: Ken Loach

Cast: Cillian Murphy, Padraic Delaney and Liam Cunningham

Synopsis (IMDB): Ireland, 1920. Damien and Teddy are brothers. But while the latter is already the leader of a guerrilla squad fighting for the independence of his motherland, Damien, a medical graduate of University College, would rather further his training at the London hospital where he has found a place. However, shortly before his departure, he happens to witness atrocities committed by the ferocious Black and Tans and finally decides to join the resistance group led by Teddy. The two brothers fight side by side until a truce is signed. But peace is short-lived and when one faction of the freedom-fighters accepts a treaty with the British that is regarded as unfair by the other faction, a civil war ensues, pitting Irishmen against Irishmen, brothers against brothers, Teddy against Damien.

Trailer

 
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Posted by on January 4, 2012 in A: Highly Recommended Labor Films, Communism/Socialism, Drama, Labor History, War, Working Class

 

New in Town (2009)

06 Nov

97m; US
Director: Jonas Elmer
Writers: Ken Rance, C. Jay Cox
Stars: Renée Zellweger, Harry Connick Jr. and Siobhan Fallon

A high-powered consultant (Renée Zellweger) in love with her upscale Miami lifestyle is sent to New Ulm, Minnesota, to oversee the restructuring of a blue collar manufacturing plant. After enduring a frosty reception from the locals, icy roads and freezing weather, she warms up to the small town’s charm, and eventually finds herself being accepted by the community. When she’s ordered to close down the plant and put the entire community out of work, she’s forced to reconsider her goals and priorities, and finds a way to save the town.

 

 
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Posted by on November 6, 2011 in Comedy, Romance, Women, Working Class

 

450, Four Hundred and Fifty (Cuatrocientos cincuenta) (2001)

30 Oct

49m; Argentina
Director: Dario Doria              

Documentary film which reflects the injustice suffered by millions of retired people in Argentina. It narrates the daily struggle of a group of elderly people who don’t resign to the fact that their rights are being violated. Under the motto “with the strength of those who do not give up”, they meet every Wednesday across from the National Congress to request a minimum monthly retirement payment of 450 pesos that will allow them to lead a dignified life. Demonstrations have been inexorably done for over ten years now, though weakened day after day by the disappearance of some participants. Those that remain cannot give up the fight, which so far has obtained no response whatsoever from the State, whose idea of a solution seems to be to let time go by.
– 5th Seoul International Labor Film and Video Festival

 
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Posted by on October 30, 2011 in Documentary, Working Class

 

42: Forty Two Up (1998)

30 Oct

139m; UK
Director: Michael Apted
Stars: Bruce Balden, Jacqueline Bassett and Symon Basterfield

The Up Series is a series of documentary films produced by Granada Television that have followed the lives of fourteen British children since 1964, when they were seven years old. The documentary has had seven episodes spanning 49 years and the documentary has been broadcast on both ITV and BBC. In a 2005 Channel 4 programme, the series topped the list of The 50 Greatest Documentaries. The children were selected to represent the range of socio-economic backgrounds in Britain at that time, with the explicit assumption that each child’s social class predetermines their future. Every seven years, the director, Michael Apted, films new material from as many of the fourteen as he can get to participate. According to Apted, 56 Up is expected to have its broadcast premiere from 13 to 15 May 2012
– Wikipedia

 
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Posted by on October 30, 2011 in Documentary, Working Class

 

35 Up (1991)

30 Oct

128m; UK
Director: Michael Apted
Stars: Bruce Balden, Jacqueline Bassett and Symon Basterfield

Documentary tracking group of British people of different classes.

“If there’s ever been a more telling indictment that, indeed, the poor stay poor and the rich get rich, I haven’t found it. 35 Up is nothing less than a bleak yet scathing documentary skewering the class structure of Britain.”
Christopher Null

 
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Posted by on October 30, 2011 in Documentary, Working Class

 
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