Salt of the Earth
Once Communists gained absolute control over my country they started a pitiless struggle against any form of Western culture. For several years American movies were prohibited (and study of any foreign language other than Russian was eliminated from Romanian schools: even Latin was not good enough).
Then the rule began to relax, and the first American movie came to Bucharest sometime by the middle of fifties, definitely in the first half of that decade. I was too small to go to the theaters, but I was reading posters on the walls: by that time a poster was telling the whole story the movie was about. It was funny: people in Bucharest were excited as there was an American movie, wow! The movie was about a miners' strike, against ruthless capitalists. It was so radical that it was banned in US for quite a good number of years! Now this movie is kept by the Library of Congress.
This was Salt of the Earth. The expression came to me that way: I read the Gospel much later.
Based on an actual strike against the Empire Zinc Mine in New Mexico, the film deals with the prejudice against the Mexican-American workers, who struck to attain wage parity with Anglo workers in other mines and to be treated with dignity by the bosses. The film is an early treatment of feminism, because the wives of the miners play a pivotal role in the strike, against their husbands wishes. In the end, the greatest victory for the workers and their families is the realization that prejudice and poor treatment are conditions that are not always imposed by outside forces. This film was written, directed and produced by members of the original Hollywood Ten, who were blacklisted for refusing to answer Congressional inquiries on First Amendment grounds.
Salt of the Earth was produced, written and directed by victims of the Hollywood blacklist. Unable to make films in Hollywood, they looked for worthy social issues to put on screen independently. This film never would have been made in Hollywood at the time, so it is ironic that it was the anti-Communist backlash that brought about the conditions for it to be made. In many ways it was a film ahead of its time. Mainstream culture did not pick up on its civil rights and feminist themes for at least a decade. Salt of the Earth tells the tale of a real life strike by Mexican-American miners. The story is set in a remote New Mexico town where the workers live in a company town, in company-owned shacks without basic plumbing. Put at risk by cost cutting bosses, the miners strike for safe working conditions. As the strike progresses, the issues at stake grow, driven by the workers' wives. At first the wives are patronized by the traditional patriarchal culture. However, they assert themselves as equals and an integral part of the struggle, calling for improved sanitation and dignified treatment. Ultimately, when the bosses win a court order against the workers preventing them from demonstrating, gender roles reverse with the wives taking over the picket line and preventing scab workers from being brought in while the husbands stay at home and take care of house and children. This film was selected for the National Film Registry in 1992 by the Library of Congress. It became public domain after its copyright was not renewed in 1982.
I watched it today on youTube.
(Filmofilia)
Then the rule began to relax, and the first American movie came to Bucharest sometime by the middle of fifties, definitely in the first half of that decade. I was too small to go to the theaters, but I was reading posters on the walls: by that time a poster was telling the whole story the movie was about. It was funny: people in Bucharest were excited as there was an American movie, wow! The movie was about a miners' strike, against ruthless capitalists. It was so radical that it was banned in US for quite a good number of years! Now this movie is kept by the Library of Congress.
This was Salt of the Earth. The expression came to me that way: I read the Gospel much later.
Based on an actual strike against the Empire Zinc Mine in New Mexico, the film deals with the prejudice against the Mexican-American workers, who struck to attain wage parity with Anglo workers in other mines and to be treated with dignity by the bosses. The film is an early treatment of feminism, because the wives of the miners play a pivotal role in the strike, against their husbands wishes. In the end, the greatest victory for the workers and their families is the realization that prejudice and poor treatment are conditions that are not always imposed by outside forces. This film was written, directed and produced by members of the original Hollywood Ten, who were blacklisted for refusing to answer Congressional inquiries on First Amendment grounds.
Salt of the Earth was produced, written and directed by victims of the Hollywood blacklist. Unable to make films in Hollywood, they looked for worthy social issues to put on screen independently. This film never would have been made in Hollywood at the time, so it is ironic that it was the anti-Communist backlash that brought about the conditions for it to be made. In many ways it was a film ahead of its time. Mainstream culture did not pick up on its civil rights and feminist themes for at least a decade. Salt of the Earth tells the tale of a real life strike by Mexican-American miners. The story is set in a remote New Mexico town where the workers live in a company town, in company-owned shacks without basic plumbing. Put at risk by cost cutting bosses, the miners strike for safe working conditions. As the strike progresses, the issues at stake grow, driven by the workers' wives. At first the wives are patronized by the traditional patriarchal culture. However, they assert themselves as equals and an integral part of the struggle, calling for improved sanitation and dignified treatment. Ultimately, when the bosses win a court order against the workers preventing them from demonstrating, gender roles reverse with the wives taking over the picket line and preventing scab workers from being brought in while the husbands stay at home and take care of house and children. This film was selected for the National Film Registry in 1992 by the Library of Congress. It became public domain after its copyright was not renewed in 1982.
I watched it today on youTube.
(Filmofilia)
posted by Pierre Radulescu at
2:33 PM
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