by
John Sayles
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Nowhere in movie-making is the balance between practical concerns and creative process more in evidence than in production scheduling. Even large-budget movies have to make compromises here. Movies are rarely shot in sequence, though that would seem best for the actors. Instead, an actor may do his death scene in the first week of production, get married in the fourth and meet his future wife in the eighth. On low-budget features this is usually done without the benefit of rehearsal before shooting starts (since the Screen Actors Guild requires that actors be paid for rehearsal time).
lol
Deep into the shooting schedule, when exhaustion was a memory and a kind of numbness had set in, we found ourselves out on a drizzly night with dozens of our local extras climbing the steep, slippery path to the driftmouth again and again. People were willing but very tired and it looked like the night would go on and on. We broke for "lunch" at two a.m. or so, and the rain got a little heavier. As the shuttle van crawled along the narrow mud road to the catering tent we heard music. One of the native miners was picking a banjo, another singing in that high, nasal mountain way, and around them were our actors and extras in their headlamps and coal-darkened overalls—black, white, Italian—joining in when they knew the words. It was so much a scene from the movie, a feeling from the movie, that we hooked back in to why we were there, what we were doing up on that dark mountain in the middle of nowhere, and when we tore ourselves away to go back to work the night didn't seem so long anymore.
<3
MUSIC BEGINS as we ride toward the light at the end of the tunnel, the RATTLE of the gondola car beneath us. The VOICE of an old man, PAPPY, begins to reminisce --
PAPPY (VO)
Hit were 1920 in the southwest field and things was tough. The miners was trying to bring in the union to West Virginia and the coal operators and their- gun thugs was set on keepin em out. Them was hand-loading days -- they paid you by the ton and they didn't care no more for a man than they done for a draft mule.
TECHNICALLY page 4 of the shooting script but i just added to 141 cus it's confusing otherwise
C.E.
Who wrote The Iron Heel?
JOE
Jack London.
SEPHUS
Where's Joe Hill buried?
JOE
All over the world. They scattered his ashes.
C.E.
Which eye is Big Bull Heywood missing?
Joe thinks for a moment, covers one of his eyes to check --
JOE
Left one.
SEPHUS
How'd Frank Little die?
JOE
Butte, Montana. They hung him from a railroad trestle.
C.E. and Sephus exchange a look --
C.E.
If you're a spy you know your stuff.
JOE
I was with the Wobblies.
SEPHUS
Me too. Back when it meant something.
JOE
(grins) One Big Union.
C.E.
Not around here, buddy.
We PAN to see Joe as he takes stage for the first time, wading into the midst of the miners, voice full of fire --
JOE
You want to be treated like men? You want to be treated fair? Well you aint men to that coal company, you're equipment, like a shovel or a gondola car or a hunk of wood brace. They'll use you till you wear out or you break down or you're buried under a slate fall and then they'll get a new one, and they don't care what color it is or where it comes from.
Joe moves among the men, looking into their faces --
JOE
It doesn't matter how much coal you can load or how long your family's lived on this land -- if you stand alone you're just so much shit to those people!
Joe points to Few Clothes --
JOE
You think this man is your enemy? This is a worker! Any union keeps man out aint a union it's a goddam club! They got you fightin white against colored, native against foreign, hollow against hollow, when you know there aint but two sides in this world -- them that work and them that don't. You work, they don't. That's all you get to know about the enemy.
DANNY
Now it's clear from this parable that Jesus hadn't heard nothin about the union.
A rumble from the pews --
DANNY
If He was walking the earth today an seen the situation we got with these coal operators He'd of changed His tune.
HARDSHELL
Rising from his seat, incensed --
DANNY
"A man deserveth an hourly wage," He'd say, "for though the pit be gassy and the face fulla slate a man still toileth by the sweat of his brow and want a better deal here on earth--"
Sounds like a smart fella. (smiles) I think you're real pretty, you know that, Bridey Mae?
BRIDEY
Thank you.
HICKEY
Int she pretty, Griggsy? Best lookin mountain trash I seen in a long while.
noooo
ELMA
I don't want you usin Danny on no crazy union business.
JOE
A man has to stand up for what he believes.
ELMA
Danny aint no man. Look, Mister, you gonna be movin on. Win or lose, you'll be walking outa this holler. We got to stay here.
JOE
I intend to leave a union when I go.
ELMA
My husband used to talk union. I see where it got him.
JOE
-- they had strikebreaker written all over them.
SEPHUS
Down here hit's the Baldwin-Felts that they use. They's just gun thugs, though.
JOE
They'll have the chief of police deputize them and all the company's mine guards -- so we won't just have to fight the operators, we'll have to fight the law --
SEPHUS
Not Sid.
JOE
I never known a small-town bull that wasn't in their pocket.
SEPHUS
(adamant) Not Sid.
HICKEY
We got this from Mr. Turley here, and this from our boss, Mr. Thomas Felts.
SID
I've met Mr. Felts.
HICKEY
(smiles) Well then, we don't have any problem --
SID
I wouldn't pee on him if his heart was on fire. Neither of these'll do for a writ. You'll have to see the judge in Charleston.