I recently spoke with John Sayles (JS) about his screenplay for Matewan (1987). That film, as well as The Great Debaters (2007), have strong union themes that bring labor issues to the forefront. The WGA strike and current labor unrest demonstrate how timeless these films are, and how unions impact the quality of life for workers in every sector of the economy. Sayles' most recent film, Honeydripper, is in theaters now.
ROBERT EISELE: Unionism and strikes have been explored in everything from comedies like "Modern Times" to true stories like "The Molly Macguires" and "Matewan." How has the union movement changed in recent decades and how are these changes reflected in today's struggle between the WGA and the AMPTP?
JOHN SAYLES: Well, I think one of the main things, and it's definitely reflected in the Writer's Guild strike, is that you're very rarely dealing with just the people who own the factory or the business that you're working in. You're usually dealing with their corporate parent. And that's a much more difficult thing to do. The little I heard from the people on the writers' negotiating committee is that they walked into the room, and there were only corporate lawyers there on the other side. There wasn't anybody from the movie industry. And I guess their first counter-offer was that the writers should fly coach. So it was like a big joke to them that, "We don't really want to negotiate with you. We'll deal with the Director's Guild, and then you can pick up from there." That makes the situation even more difficult.
Also, certainly at the time of "Matewan," unions were not accepted yet. And they really didn't get the toe-hold that made them a big part of America until Franklin Roosevelt was in and started appointing judges who would occasionally rule in favor of the unions. Before then, they were almost outlaw organizations, and everybody from state government to the federal government would be trying to put them out of business.
What we have today are fewer unionized workers, especially if you don't count public service workers, than you've ever had before. And the movie industry is one of the most unionized industries left. I feel a lot of what this strike is about is corporations looking at their entertainment division and saying, "What's the deal here? As the paradigm changes, can't we turn this into Wal-Mart?"
RE: Unfortunately, there's a lot of truth to that. "The Great Debaters" deals with that era of union organizing when the National Labor Relations Board was formed, during Roosevelt's time. And in one scene, Melvin Tolson, the debate coach and union organizer played by Denzel Washington, speaks to a gathering of sharecroppers about how the NLRB offers protection. Yet today, ironically, NLRB rulings about financial core status and other issues often mute the union movement.
JS: Yes, and it's also about 40 years of judges appointed both by Democrats and Republicans taking away the right to strike, bit by bit. And that's finally one of the few weapons that unionized people have. So there's a lot more penalties, a lot more injunctions. And the other big thing was the Taft-Hartley Act. Yet it's a double-edged sword, because Americans really wouldn't put up with the kind of nationwide strikes they have in Europe. But it does mean that in the entertainment industry especially, everybody's on their own. You can't do sympathetic strikes without paying enormous fines. You can't refuse to cross certain picket lines. So it's a divide and conquer thing, whereas businesses are always getting together and saying, "How are we going to handle this?" Whether they're supposed to or not, they're able to do that, and devise a kind of mass strategy against unionism.
It was very interesting, the stuff in your movie "The Great Debaters," about organizing the sharecroppers union, which is not very well-known. But organizing workers at Wal-Mart and McDonald's, people who aren't even considered full-time employees, is probably just as difficult.
RE: Do you think that if we stand our ground, the Writer's Guild could actually spark a little fire of unionism in America? Or is that just wishful thinking?
JS: I think it's going to be awfully hard. It's not easy for workers outside the entertainment industry to think of people inside the entertainment industry, especially the so-called creative people, as workers. They just don't get that part of it... the hours and the sweat that goes into making a movie. And the salaries are higher. That's why when Ronald Reagan first came to power and wanted to bust a union, he picked a well-paid bunch of people, the air traffic controllers. But then, when airplanes were about to crash all over the country, their successors got everything the original air traffic controllers were asking for. So it was a symbolic thing that Reagan did, but he knew he could do it because some of them made over $100,000 a year. Nobody was sympathetic to them.
RE: But the Writers Guild has the public on their side this time.
JS: I think the one thing that the Writers Guild has going for it is ... writers are already pretty salty, and they don't care much if everybody else in the industry, much less anybody else in the country, sympathizes with them. We're more likely to stay out if the directors make a bad deal than any of the other unions.
RE: That's what I'm hearing on the picket line. Your film "Matewan" deals with the violence between striking miners and the owners' hired goons, the Baldwin-Felts detectives. UMW organizer Joe Kenehan preaches non-violence to his miners, and is gunned down trying to halt a fatal confrontation. In "Honeydripper," Tyrone Purvis stops two young cotton choppers from killing each other in his club. In "The Great Debaters," James Farmer, Jr. wins the final debate against Harvard with an impassioned plea for the morality of non-violence. But is the use of non-violence as a tactic against injustice disappearing from today's world?
JS: I don't know that it's disappearing, but it's only a tactic. And non-violence only works if you're in a situation that's publicized. So if you're in a closed community or country where news does not travel out, it's not going to work. So it didn't work in Nazi Germany. If anybody ever tried it in Romania when Ceausescu was in, it wouldn't have worked. And it didn't work in Iraq. But the minute you have some kind of publicity coming out, against an enemy who can be shamed, then non-violence can be a powerful tactic. Gandhi was successful because the British wanted to think well of themselves. So first, he won over the British people, and then finally the government had to follow the people. It pretty much always works that way. The government starts worrying, "Oh my God, they like this little bald guy with a robe on more than they like us. And this could cost us our jobs." So it's only a tactic.
One of the things that I noticed during the protests against the Iraq War is that, as the media becomes more corporatized, there's a political agenda in what they cover and what they consider news. There was a big protest march on one of the coldest days of the year in New York City, and the networks totally under-reported it. Two weeks later, The New York Times -- when it didn't do any good -- said, "Oh, we were off by a couple hundred thousand people in our estimate of the marchers." Clearly, they had the story written beforehand. They had an attitude about it. So you're fighting that. And you also have to create novelty, because the attention span of people in the news media is so short today.
RE: How can the WGA get the attention of the studios and networks, then? What tactic, circumstance or action do you think will be the turning point of the WGA strike?
JS: You know, I think truly that we ended the strike in '88 too early. The DGA gave away the store as far as DVD's were concerned, and the WGA just followed suit. And it was tough. It's always tough. My only income from last year will be residual income. There are writers whose first big break was just about to happen, and then the strike hit. So it's always tough. But the WGA has to say, "Look guys, we're not giving up. We're asking for something very reasonable, which is ...when you figure out with new media how to make a dollar, we want two-and-a-half cents. And you still get to do the accounting." So it's not really going to be two-and-a-half cents. But that's it.
I really think that the turning point is going to have to come from the other side. I think their solidarity is going to break before the writers' does. But it's going to be really, really hard on the membership because they're not going to make any money for a long time.
RE: Your movie "Matewan" explores the baiting of working class whites against blacks and immigrants, the classic divide and conquer technique used by management against the labor movement. The political dialogue in America has turned increasingly anti-immigrant this election year. Are there any parallels between management's past manipulation of racial enmity and politicians today stoking the flames of immigrant hatred among the electorate?
JS: Yes. But some of these people actually believe what they're saying. The rest are just watching the polls. So you don't hear the Democrats talking about this yet. The issue of illegal immigration is not something that the three top candidates for the Democratic nomination really even want to deal with yet. And I imagine they all have some idea of a fairly equitable plan where there's a guest worker program, and the people who are guest workers have certain rights and responsibilities. We've had versions of that before. There was a brief period when the government got serious and they started busting the employers. But that just wasn't going to fly. Still, it wasn't the American people who stopped it, it was powerful corporations who were making money because they were able to pay people less than the minimum wage, or minimum wage with no benefits. And that's a huge lobby.
Half the Republicans who are pushing this agenda really don't care much about it one way or the other. But if they think it's a hot-button issue that can get more votes, whether it's burning the flag or gays in the military, whatever, they'll use it. On the border, however, it's an issue that's still very racial and very close to people. They've got their shotguns and binoculars out. But for most Americans, it's just, "Well, if they're going to be here, they have to act like citizens, and play by the rules that other citizens do." And they shouldn't be undercutting labor in a ridiculous way. My feeling is ... it's not that big a problem. It could be solved easily, but there are people who don't want it solved, because if it gets solved, they're going to have to pay a little bit more.
RE: Your most recent film, "Honeydripper," deals with a time of transition, the evolution of electronic guitar rock from the acoustic sound of the blues. "Matewan" deals with the challenging of the social order, working people confronting the power of industry. Is the entertainment industry truly experiencing a sea change with the dawn of new media, and how will these changes revolutionize the making and marketing of films?
JS: Yes, I think the studios are scared because they've seen what's happened to the music business. It's not exactly the same, but what they're afraid of is ... where's that big money pie? When kids can download these things and we can't stop them, and kids are almost happier to steal something than get it for free, how are we going to make our money back? And certainly the theater owners are scared, too, because they make their money on the popcorn. It's not the movie. That just gets people into the theater.
So it is a tough time. And people's movie-going habits are changing, especially young people. There are things they like to see that don't need to be on a big screen. You can make a movie or a TV show and put it right on the Web. How to get paid for that still hasn't been worked out. And that's of course what's terrifying to the corporations. It would be a wonderful, new market for them if they knew how to get paid. So it's going to be a really confusing time for a lot of people. And what I'm afraid of, and one of the reasons I'm hoping the Republicans can't steal another election, is that the FCC will let somebody become a toll-taker on the Internet. And that's where you make your money. You don't really make it on content. You make it on being the guy whom everybody has to pay a nickel to, to go down that road.
And so far, the Internet is relatively free. And that's terrifying. You know, you want to be able to charge admission somewhere. It's certainly a problem, even for independent filmmakers like myself, because just like the studios, a lot of the income that we depend on to make another movie comes from DVD.
RE: The moment "The Great Debaters" was released, a friend of my daughter's showed me a site where it could be downloaded illegally. Probably crappy quality, but there it was.
JS: Yeah, it's crappy quality, but the day after Ray was released, Taylor Hackford saw it being sold in Chinatown. And they figured that was several million dollars they didn't make. You can tell how popular something is, too, by how much it gets pirated. So the "Harry Potter" movies were out illegally on the first day. Our movie would take weeks for somebody to bother to pirate it.
RE: "Honeydripper" is a fine film.
JS: But it's a problem, because it costs money to make movies. And right now, the studios are painting themselves into a corner where they're making event movies that cost $100 million. They're paying certain stars $20 million and over to act in them. That's a major outlay of cash. They have to know that they can make it back. That every time somebody sees the movie, they get paid something. And that's what's up in the air right now, and that's what everybody's afraid of. And that's why the corporations who own the studios want to own the Internet, and not share it with anybody, including the people who helped make the movie.
RE: And helped create their wealth. This last question, John, is an aesthetic one as opposed to political. Your film, "City of Hope," ends with the hopeless chant of a homeless man. "Honeydripper" ends with the disappearance of the blind guitarist at the crossroads, and "Matewan" with the spectral look of a miner. These images are hauntingly poetic. You've published novels. Do you write poetry? Is the poetic something you seek in your film work visually, in dialogue and scenes?
JS: You know, I don't actually write poetry, but ... in movies, I think it comes from cinematography and music. I do write fiction, and I'm writing a novel right now. And in fiction, I can do pretty much everything I can do in a movie, except it has to go through your head first. But in movies, you can have stuff going into your head, but also visceral stuff. And I think the real poetry in movies is the stuff that you feel. You feel it from the performances, you feel it from the lighting, you feel it from the music and the combination of all those things. And so, yes, that's something that I seek. The great thing about making movies is that, unlike fiction writing, you don't do it alone. You get to direct other people's talents. So you bring in a great cinematographer, you bring in a composer. You hire actors, who bring something else to the moment that may not be written there, or just makes what's written there take off. That's where I think the poetry comes from. And it's a great thing about movies when it works. It's also hard to see on an iPod. Or a telephone. The poetry is one of the things that gets lost, I think.
RE: Yeah, there's nothing like seeing a good movie in the theater. Moving pictures, moving poetry. Which is why we put up with this business after all.