Salt of the Earth (review)

146 THE MINNESOTA REVIEW needs to be made as to how this polarity came about. Reamy Jansen Salt ofthe Earth. Screenplay by Michael Wilson; Commentary by Deborah Silverton Rosenfelt. The Feminist Press, 1978. 189pp. $4".95 When the women's movement rediscovered "Salt of the Earth" in the late sixties, we were struck by its remarkable portrayal of the fusion of the struggles for the rights of workers, Mexican-Americans, and women. Deborah Silverton Rosenfelt's commentary that accompanies the reissued screenplay by Michael Wilson elucidates the history behind these struggles in the film and the process by which they became united. "Salt of the Earth" first appeared in 1954, the product of left cultural workers in Hollywood in collaboration with New Mexican miners. The filmmakers saw connections between their own harrassment as radicals and that of the Mine, MiU, and Smelter Workers Union. Having studied and discussed the role of the artist in progressive political struggles, they were committed to producing a film with more social content than the usual fare provided by Hollywood during the McCarthy period. Blacklisting sometimes forced, sometimes encouraged, these cultural workers to form their own independent production company. Rosenfelt not only details the story of the HoUywood and entertainment radicals, who have recently experienced a nostalgic revival in The Front, Fear on Trial, and other pieces, but she also discusses the history of Mexican-American and labor struggles in the mines oí New Mexico that formed the basis of the events in the film. The "Salt" film is an authentic, and for the most part historically accurate, account of the 16-month strike in the early 1950s at the Hanover, New Mexico, mine owned by Empire Zinc. Although some events have been rearranged, the key aspects of the film are accurate: the union's militancy, the company's coUusion with the state apparatus to break the strike, the interplay of the workers' sense of ethnicity and class, and the process by which women and men came to be united in the struggle. Perhaps the most significant contribution of Rosenfelt's commentary lies in her assessment of the source of the film's feminist perspective and the aftermath of the actual strike for the women of Hanover. The product of a consciously feminist group of filmmakers, "Salt of the Earth"'s feminist message was swamped in the 1950s by the anti-Communist response to its labor militancy. The resurgence of feminist interest in the film prompts Rosenfelt's question: "And what of the women of the New Mexican mining community?" (p. 135) That the unity between women and men with which the film ends has not been maintained in the 25 years since cannot be attributed to a failure in human nature. The structure of the division of labor in a mining community works against men and women understanding each other's spheres. As Rosenfelt concludes: . . . the rigid definition of sex roles did become more flexible in the months and even years immediately following the strike and the making of the film. The status of the women in the area, in terms of the kinds ofjobs open to them, the 147REVIEWS option in lifestyles available, has improved over the years—probably less as a result of the strike or the film alone than as a result of the demands of the more recent feminist and Chicano movements. In spite of these changes, the "old way" has shown a greater tenacity than seemed likely at the time; but a heritage of awareness about a "new way" remains, (p. 146) Despite her obvious sympathies with its makers and subjects, Rosenfelt is not uncritical of the film. She raises questions regarding its melodramatic quality, with good triumphing over evil unambiguously at the end. She assesses it as a piece of art, not only as a near-documentary of a struggle she supports. "Salt of the Earth" wiU be useful to a remarkable variety of courses due to Rosenfelt's broad sweep. Women's studies, labor history, film criticism, Chicano studies, American studies, and social history courses can aU find relevant material in the reprinted screenplay of and commentary on "Salt of the Earth." And each discipline or category...