Get Your Reps In: “Matewan” Shines Through Tears

Matewan (1987)

During the first big monologue of Chris Cooper’s movie career, James Earl Jones blessed him with a gift from across the campfire—a single, silent tear. Thirty years later, Cooper would get choked up thinking back on this “generous” act by his already venerated scene partner in Matewan. The gesture made for fitting solidarity, though, as writer-director John Sayles’ coal country drama is all about the coalition building and ego tamping necessary to unionize. It dramatizes a 1920 mining strike that turns into a powderkeg of violence between the impacted West Virginia townsfolk and the coal company’s private security men. Matewan—which is not streaming anywhere, by the way—plays Thursday, Jan. 23, at the Hollywood Theatre. The late great James Earl Jones does more than weep in the movie, it bears mentioning. Playing a would-be scab, “Few Clothes” Johnson (Jones) hops off a train in the backwoods and immediately wins a 5-on-1 fistfight in one of the great character introductions of the 1980s. Hollywood, Jan. 23.

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