Militant Movie Making: 'Salt of the Earth' | Mickey Z.

[Tace]

Photo credit: Mickey Z.

Mickey Z. -- World News Trust

Jan. 31, 2014

“Watching a film should feel like you just tore a hole out of the air and the void caught fire.”

- Josh Fox

Name the best-known early 1950s motion picture with a union theme? Easy. That would be On the Waterfront.

But Waterfront was not the early 1950s motion picture with a union theme that Noam Chomsky called, “one of the greatest films ever made… couldn’t get it out of my mind for weeks.”

Nope, that early 1950s motion picture with a union theme would be the criminally neglected but crucially essential 1953 film, Salt of the Earth.

Made by a group of McCarthy-era, blacklisted filmmakers, Salt of the Earth tells the story of New Mexico zinc miners -- and their families -- struggling against their bosses for a better life. The film is based on the real-life struggle of MMSW Local 890, which went on strike against the Empire Zinc Corporation in 1950.

“Shortly after the strike had begun, an injunction prohibited men from walking the picket lines,” writes Tony Pecinovsky in People’s Weekly World. “Women soon replaced their brothers, sons, husbands, and fathers -- an action of major significance, especially since corporate America had little tolerance for people of color, especially women of color, standing up for their rights.”

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http://worldnewstrust.com/militant-movie-making-salt-of-the-earth-mickey-z

[swilton]

1. There are many fine

critically acclaimed films that never see the light of day due to promotional challenges. One of the favored censored topics in these films is the plight of the underclass and/or the victims of imperialism. The Salt of the Earth is one of those films and I think I recall many of its stars were later black-listed.


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047443/

I have a list of political/historical films that illustrate truisms underplayed by conventional political science and history books and this film was on my list. Many of the films are international....I compiled the list as a teaching resource at the request college undergraduates in response to my employment of film in a course on Comparative Politics.

No, It's a Great Life and To Kill a Mockingbird are not on the list....

Some of the worthy film directors whose works I have exploited include the following:

Gilla Pontecorvo (Burn and The Battle of Algiers Fr.)

Elia Kazan (A Face in the Crowd and Pinky)

John Sayles (Matewan and Amigo)

Henri Georges Clouzot (Wages of Fear (Fr))