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By TheRedBaron
#14698668
The theme of this thread reminds me of a joke: what is the summit of curiosity? To watch through the keyhole of a glass door. So I will be modest and just state my favourite genre: films about trade unions. Unfortunately they are hard to find, especially in Europe, with all those separate languages. So I will give my list of American films, in chronological order. Although I had some help from visitors of the IMDb site, nonetheless it still took a considerable time to gather this collection:

    (a) Matewan (1987): This is a strike by miners, in the early 20s. It is based on true events. The actions are violent, in the spirit of the wild west.
    (b) Salt of the earth (1954): Again a strike of miners, during the 50s. The narrative is quite moderate, but it was nonetheless banned during the McCarthy era and the Cold War.
    (c) FIST (1978): This film is based on the life of the illustrious union leader Jimmy Hoffa, who organized the transportation workers. It is commonly assumed that Hoffa had links with the maffia. Sylvester Stallone plays the leading role.
    (d) Hoffa (1992): Apparently Hoffa is fascinating for the American public, because here is another film about his life. Perhaps they are meant to warn the people about the dark side of trade unions. This time Jack Nicholson is Hoffa.
    (e) On the waterfront (1954): This film concerns the organization of the dock workers. Again the local union official collaborates with the maffia. Marlon Brando is a nobody, who tries to resist the organized crime. Director Elia Kazan has a bad reputation because of his defamation of colleagues during the McCarthy campaign.
    (f) Harlan county war (2000): Here the miners are on strike. The film is based on true events.
    (g) Norma Rae (1979): And here the workers of a textile factory go on strike. The film is made in the 70s, which is a period that embraces the social rights. Thus the story is less violent and more sympathetic than the previous ones. Sally Field plays the main character.
    (h) Bread and roses (1999): In fact this is a British film, but the story is located in America. It describes the struggle of cleaning workers, and is again based on true events. Director Ken Loach is famous for making social films.

Finally, two documentaries of Barbara Kopple deserve mentioning: Harlan county USA (1976), and American dream (1990). The first one is about the miners conflict above. The second one plays in the food industry.
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By Potemkin
#14698671
You forgot to mention the first and best movie about trade union struggle: Sergei Eisenstein's Strike. :)
By Truth To Power
#14699031
Far-Right Sage wrote:Movies that came later were nothing like when I was growing up, and I began noticing in the mid 80's and particularly after the early 90's that film quality year by year had visibly declined dramatically.

I disagree. The acting and production values are far superior now, though the writing is often stale and unimaginative.

Anyway, Casablanca is just one classic movie moment after another. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is probably the movie I'd rather watch than any other. Fargo made the deepest impression on me, and I consider it the best of the Coen brothers' impressive oeuvre. Godfather II is sheer filmmaking perfection, one of a tiny number of sequels that surpass the original. For comedies, it's hard to beat Monty Python and the Holy Grail, although the Big Lebowski is also very good.
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By Red_Army
#14699039
Every Segio Leone movie I've see is good, but The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly might be the best.

My "Best Movie Ever" probably changes every month or so. Right now its The Thing.
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By Potemkin
#14699093
The Good, The bad and The Ugly is good. It's like an early Tarantino movie.

No, actually Tarantino movies are like late Sergio Leone movies. ;)

Seriously though, Tarantino has called the climactic three-way shootout at the end of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly "the greatest achievement in cinema history". He based the final standoff in Reservoir Dogs on that scene. Without Sergio Leone, there would have been no Tarantino.
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By Red_Army
#14699101
I also thought that was a weird choice of phrasing, but refrained from commenting because I don't want to upset my future host.

Tarantino's MO is making movies as homage to the films he loves. You might as well say The Battle of Algiers theme was a great Inglorious Basterds prison break cameo.
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By Godstud
#14699201
[youtube]XP9cfQx2OZY[/youtube]
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By TheRedBaron
#14699347
@ Potemkin
I may not be perfect, but I could never forget Straik! by Eisenstein. The list is a selection of American films. If you prefer Eastern European films, you may enjoy the Polish film Man of iron (Czlowiek z zelaza, 1981) about the strike in the Gdansk shipyard. Lech Walesa plays himself. This strike is also portrayed in the German film Strike (Strajk, 2006), with director Volker Schöndorff.
By Truth To Power
#14699437
Godstud wrote:[youtube]XP9cfQx2OZY[/youtube]

Angel Eyes's missing fingertip at 7:13 -- the tiny detail that convinces you these guys are real. It was this kind of dirty, grubby, realistic detail that made Leone's westerns, and especially TGTBATU, better than the standard pressed-shirt American ones, even the greats like High Noon, Wild Bunch, and Magnificent Seven.
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By Stegerwald
#14707152
@ TheRedBaron
TheRedBaron wrote:So I will be modest and just state my favourite genre: films about trade unions

Thanks for your list! It is always a pleasure to meet a congenial. Let me add some suggestions of European films about unions:
    (1) Made in Dagenham. In the Ford factory the female workers go on strike in order to get equal pay.
    (2) The miners' campaign tapes. These are a series of short documentaries, that were released by the National Union of Miners in order to motivate their members in the struggle against the closing of mines.
    (3) The navigators. This film by Ken Loach does not really concern unions. It describes the privatization of British Rail. However, it does sketch a clear and probably realistic picture of the role of the local shop steward.
    (4) Ressources humaines. Obviously it is a French film, as are 5 and 6. In a firm a college graduate rationalizes the production process, and in passing makes his fathers job redundant. The local section of the radical union CGT tries to resuscitate the class struggle.
    (5) Germinal. This film version of the famous novel by Zola shows a propagandist of the Socialist International, who tries to organize the miners.
    (6) Tout va bien. The film by Godard describes a fictitious CGT strike in a meat factory. Not surprising for a Godard film, the narrative is a satire. In France during the 70s everything was still possible, so do not expect drama.

As far as I know there are few European films that truly focus on union activism, like your eight American ones. I even do not know a single German one, apart from Straik by Schlöndorff, which plays in Poland. I can not explain this strange absence. Perhaps European film makers do not like realism?
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By TheRedBaron
#14707667
@ Stegerwald
Stegerwald wrote: Perhaps European film makers do not like realism?

That could be. On the other hand, Europe produces a lot of political films, that do use realism. For instance, in Germany:
    Die Stille nach dem Schuss, about a female German terrorist, a member of the Rote Armee Fraktion.
    Im Schatten der Macht, about the German chancellor Willy Brandt and his downfall due to an espionage affair.
Another explanation is that European labour unions are actually rather dull and sometimes awkward. They have become integrated into society, and are now bureaucratic institutions. Some even execute parts of the social security, or of the pension system. Thus they may not be the most exciting subjects for a movie. American unions at least have guns, which guarantee suspense and thus a stirring film plot. The right to bear arms is slightly less ludicrous than the right to arm bears.
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By Stegerwald
#14707670
TheRedBaron wrote:Thus they may not be the most exciting subjects for a movie. American unions at least have guns, which guarantee suspense and thus a stirring film plot.

You may well have hit it. Perhaps I should also mention "Kameradschaft" (1931), about international solidarity among German and French miners. The story does not mention unions, but it does glorify the proletarian conscience. One of the actors is Ernst Busch, the protest singer, who later would have the dubious honour to become an icon in the German Democratic Republic.
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By TheRedBaron
#14707869
@ Stegerwald
Stegerwald wrote:You may well have hit it.

That is too much honour. Cinema is not really my thing. Nevertheless, yesterday evening it occurred to me, that the European market for films is actually extremely fragmented, in comparison with for instance the American or Chinese market. The majority of European films is not even subtitled in English. The problem of language is insurmoutable, and consequently the markets are largely confined within the national boundaries. The European film industry is a commercial disaster, so in general the release of films must be subsidized by the state or by the public television. Leading films such as Star wars could never be made in Europe. It is like the British actor John Gielgud said about Ingrid Bergman: "She speaks five languages and can not act in any of them". Due to its fragmentation the production of European cinema is difficult to survey, and this inability certainly pertains to me. However, I dare to conjecture that in most European states the native target group for movies about labour unions is simply too small to justify their production.
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