CineMasters: John Sayles

John Sayles, writer/director/novelist/actor, can be seen as one of the Kings of American independent cinema.  Starting his career writing scripts for Roger Corman on such low budget titles as Piranha (1978), The Lady in Red (1979) and Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), he made his directorial debut with Return of the Secaucus Seven (1980) from his own screenplay – a film many claimed instigated the American independent film movement of the 1980s.  He spent the following years combining his talent as a writer for hire on more “mainstream” fare which helped support his own personal projects of a political and social nature.  He even found time to direct promo videos for Bruce Springsteen, between film projects. 

In his films he has used a stock of actors on and off ranging from old friends David Strathairn, Chris Cooper, Joe Morton and Maggie Renzi (his long-time companion and producer of most of his films from Lianna (1983) onwards), alongside such talents as Frances McDormand, Kris Kristofferson, Matthew McConaughey and Alfre Woodard. 

Sayles’ films have a strong sense of community in them, from the mine union workers of Matewan (1987), the community under threat of corruption and discrimination in City of Hope (1991), the baseball team members caught up in the scandal of Eight Men Out (1988), to the townsfolk of Frontera in Lone Star (1996). 

A fusion of The West of old with a noir-like mystery which deals with the finding of the remains of a human skeleton, identified as a former corrupt Sheriff who had disappeared years earlier, along with a considerable amount of money.  Through its cross-cultural and time-spanning narrative, the film explores how people from disparate ethnicities and cultures are intertwined, past and present. Nuances and differences within and among specific communities are shown. [1]

Sayles’ brilliantly cast drama, Oscar-nominated for Haskell Wexler’s cinematography, dramatises the 1920s coal miners’ strike in the titular small town in West Virginia, in which a young Union Leader arrives to organise a strike against the Coal Company in which Black and Italian miners, brought in by the company to break the strike, are caught between the two forces.  The film not only marked a significant turning point in Sayles’ career (it was his first film to attract anything like a mainstream audience), it's arguably an even more relevant, cautionary tale today than it was during the Reagan/Thatcher controlled-climate of its release year. [2]

Set in the fictitious Hudson City in New Jersey, City of Hope has an Altman-esque feeling to it, in that it deals with the lives of various people living in the troubled city, revolving in one way or another around an old apartment block due for demolition since it stands in the way of a major commercial development. One big mix of local politics, corruption and mistrust. Film critic Roger Ebert wrote, "City of Hope is a powerful film, and an angry one.  It asks a hard question: Is it possible for a good person to prevail in a corrupt system, just simply because right is on his side? The answer, in the short run, is that power is stronger than right. The notion of a long run, of course, is all that keeps hope alive. [3] 

A dramatisation of the Black Sox Scandal in which eight members of the White Sox Major League Baseball team conspired with gamblers to intentionally lose the1919 World Series. John Sayles and Studs Terkel play a pair of Chicago Journalists – “Ring” Lardner and Hugh Fullerton who are suspicious of the events as they slowly unfold.  Ring Lardner, Jr., Oscar-winning screenwriter of such films as Woman of the Year and M*A*S*H, came to Bush Stadium to visit the set. Lardner's article in American Film reported that Sayles' script depicted much of the story accurately, based on what he knew from his father. But the audience, Lardner wrote, "won't have the satisfaction of knowing exactly why everything worked out the way it did." [4]

Sources -  

[1] - Perez, Domino Renee (January 16, 2024). "Lone Star: Past Is Present". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved July 16, 2024. 

[2] - "The 50 Greatest American Independent Movies". Empire. June 30, 2011. Retrieved December 5, 2022. 

[3] -  Ebert, Roger (October 25, 1991). "City Of Hope". Chicago Sun-Times. 

[4] - Lardner, Ring Jr. (July–August 1988). "Foul Ball". American Film. pp. 45–49. Retrieved December 14, 2016.