Book part: Claims for Equality, Changes of Use. Workers’ Movements, Film and the Curious Case of Salt of the Earth
Author(s):
Abstract
„Salt of the Earth“ (1954) has become famous as the only blacklisted US film: Written, produced and directed by blacklisted Hollywood professionals intent on committing a “crime to fit the punishment,” it tells of a contemporary struggle of New Mexican zinc miners for better working conditions. Developed in collaboration with many of the participants of the strike, the film sets its convictions in motion: The claim for equality spreads from work relations to race to gender, and it affects dialogue, montage and camera movements. I examine how the cause célèbre that is „Salt of the Earth“ relates to three general threads in the relation between workers’ movements and film: the representation of workers’ movements in films, film as instrument of workers’ movements, and the place of union film cultures in a broader history of special interest film commissioning and screening, including points of contact with corporate films.
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