The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

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164 THE CINE-TECHNICIAN December, 1953 SALT of the EARTH When U.S. film technicians began filming the story of a miners' strike in America's Southwest, they ran into some heavy opposition. Despite verbal and physical attacks on crew and miners, the film was completed. Now it has to get a showing, despite censorships and political hostilities. CINE gladly publishes this account by Producer Paul Jarrico and Director Herbert J. Biberman of the Unit's aims, achievements, and experiences. Intolerance and political censorship need to be fought on both sides of the Iron Curtain. WHEN our company was formed two years ago, we were agreed that our films must be based on actuality. It was clear that the best guarantee of artful realism lay not in fictions invented by us but in stories drawn from the living experience of people long ignored by Hollywood — the working men and women of America. And so we searched for stories that would reflect the true stature of union men and women. We dug into material dealing with minority peoples, because we believed that where greater struggle is necessary, greater genius is developed. We looked for material that might record something of the dynamic quality women are bringing to our social scene. SALT OF THE EARTH, originally the third project on our schedule, seemed the best embodiment of the elements for which we had been striving. A true account of the miners of the Southwest and their families, predominantly Mexican-Americans, begged to be told without the hackneyed melodramatics which so often destroy honesty in the name of excitement. It was not the many abuses and hardships suffered by these people that loomed so significantly out of the material — it was their humanity, their courage and accomplishment. We decided that these Americans, at once typical and exceptional, could best be realised on the screen by the simplest story form of motion picture : a love story of two mature and decent people. Michael Wilson, author of the story, had come to know these New Mexico miners during a long and bitter strike they waged against a powerful zinc company in 1951 and 1952. The story idea was born out of his first visit there, and he then wrote an extended outline, or, in movie parlance, a treatment of the story. Mr. Wilson returned to the mining community with this treatment, where it was read, discussed and criticised by a score of miners and their wives. With this guidance in authenticity he proceeded to write the first draft screenplay. When it was completed, again we followed the procedure of group discussion and collective, constructional criticism. By rough estimate, no less than four hundred people had read, or heard a reading of, the screenplay by the time we commenced production. Perhaps it was our determination that the people in this film be life-size that led to our second decision. We asked the miners and their families to play themselves rather than be enacted by others. These decisions brought the writer, director, crew and cast face to face with intricate problems of realistic form and content. How could we by-pass the pitfall of naturalism — a mere surface record of actual events — and emerge with an imaginative work of art that was still true in detail? How could we best blend the social authenticity of documentary form with the personal authenticity of dramatic form? What range of characterisation should be given individual roles whose enactment would be undertaken by non-professionals? How could we capture the quality of speech of these bi-lingual people and yet make the picture completely intelligible to an average English-speaking audience? How could we make the amazing heroism of these people not only stirring, but believable and inevitable? This last problem was particularly important to us, because only if we solved it could our picture help engender in an audience a belief in its own capacities, a confidence that what these people had done could be done again. We hoped that our film might become a cultural stimulus to other trade unions and minority groups, and convince them that they could tell their own stories through the medium of film. High hopes ! and vast problems. Certainly we cannot boast of having solved all these aesthetic questions. But we do think we have broken new ground. If our film can illuminate the truth that the lives and struggles of ordinary people are the richest untapped source of contemporary American art, and if it can demonstrate that such films can be made by these people themselves, then it will have achieved a basic purpose.