The People’s History: Early Films of John Sayles

Setting aside money from his day job as a screenwriter punching out genre film scripts for Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, John Sayles self-financed his shoestring-budget directorial debut, 1980’s Return of the Secaucus 7, and overnight established himself as one of the foremost talents in a renaissance of American independent filmmaking, in the years ahead building a body of work both intimately familiar with the varied textures of life in the United States and deeply concerned with the greed and mendacity threatening to pull the Republic apart. Including dramatic depictions of a 1920s West Virgina coal miners’ strike (Matewan), the Black Sox Scandal (Eight Men Out), pernicious property development scheming in an unnamed eastern burg (City of Hope), and rankling racial resentment on the Southern border (Lone Star), this series brings together some pinnacle accomplishments of a career defined by both righteous anger and cool clarity of execution.