Salt of the Earth
by Herbert Biberman
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Clorinda Alderette, David Sarvis, Joe T. Morales, Juan Chacn, Rosaura RevueltasDirector: Herbert Biberman
Brand: Bayside ENT Dist
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 94 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-05-25
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Alpha Video
Movie Reviews of Salt of the Earth
Movie Review: Very powerful classic
Summary: 5 Stars
This black and white film is almost sixty years old. It is not a modern, hip film like "Run Lola Run" or "The Fast and the Furious". It is a "message" film, but it is not filled with attractive, colorful scenes or glamorous stars like "Blood Diamond" or "Syriana". The dialogue is sometimes "on the nose" rather than implied.
HOWEVER--the photography actually is pretty good -- the way the old film makers used shadows and camera angles in black and white films can create very striking effects. The dialogue is actually realistic and heartfelt, and unlike cruder "message" films, the acting, the facial expressions, the body language do "imply" much of the emotion, rather than just stating it in speeches.
BUT MOST IMPORTANT -- this is an amazing, heartfelt film that confronts issues of worker mistreatment, of racist discrimination, and of the struggle for women's dignity.
Want some evidence that I'm not exaggerating? I show this film to my college classes -- impatient nineteen year olds who have been raised on the colorful, fast action of Hollywood films and MTV videos. And there is also the "too cool to be involved" attitude that many of them have. Yet this film really seems to move just about all of them -- the intensity of the discussions afterwards has pretty much convinced me that this film that was banned for so many years, this old-fashioned story is, in fact, what film folks call "a classic".
Summary of Salt of the Earth
SALT OF THE EARTH - DVD MovieIncluded in the prestigious National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, Salt of the Earth represents a milestone in the history of American movies. It was produced, written, and directed by filmmakers who were still blacklisted when the film was made in 1953, during the anticommunist witch-hunts that plagued Hollywood (and the entire country) at the height of the McCarthy era. While the filmmakers faced misguided suspicion of promoting anti-American sentiments, the film was financed in part by the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers, which strongly supported this powerful social-realist drama about a strike by Mexican American zinc miners in New Mexico. Featuring a prominent role for blacklisted actor Will Geer (later famous as Grandpa on TV's The Waltons), the story intensifies when the strikers are forced to stop picketing and their wives take up the cause. Focusing on one struggling couple to illustrate its themes of individual dignity and human rights, the film was released in only 13 theaters nationwide in 1954, receiving a majority of highly positive reviews. Still, Salt of the Earth was surrounded by controversy before, during, and after its production, and it was widely misinterpreted as a call for social revolution. It remained largely unseen in America until the 1960s, but this boldly independent film has since been duly recognized for its artistic and social importance. --Jeff Shannon
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