S1 Ep. 10: Salt of the Earth (1954, Herbert J. Biberman)
Cold War Cinema · Jason Christian
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Show Notes
Join hosts Jason Christian, Anthony Ballas, and Tim Jones as they discuss Herbert J. Biberman's iconic independent masterpiece Salt of the Earth (1954). The film is based on the real-life Empire Zinc strike in 1951 in Grant County, New Mexico, and was self-financed and made entirely outside the studio system using mostly non-professional actors, many of them actual miners playing versions of themselves. Jason compares the the film to Gillo Pontecorvo's 1966 masterpiece The Battle of Algiers in terms of its scrappy production, dialectical sctructure, and Marxist themes. (You can hear him gush about that film on another podcast, linked here.) Biberman was one of the Hollywood Ten and he was blacklisted, as were the screenwriter, Michael Wilson, and the producer, Paul Jarrico. The Hollywood apparatus and law enforcement attempted to sabotage the production of Salt of the Earth on numerous occasions, going as far as getting the lead actress, Rosaura Revueltas, deported to Mexico on trumped up charges. Although she was from a prominent family of artists and writers, she was blacklisted and never acted in another Mexican film.
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