How others will see it. Presented as a contest between good (poor miners) and bad (brutal mercenaries). We are expected to cheer on the oppressed miners and their quest to unionize. The jubilation is strongest when long-suffering heroine Elma (Mary McDonnell) unloads her shotgun on the most obnoxious and sinister "detective" (Kevin Tighe). Take that! That'll teach ya manners!
Alas, then we realize some of the good guys (the mayor, and top-billed Union man Chris Cooper) are also on the casualty list. The mayor (Josh Mostel) actually delivers a close variant of the cliche, "I can't feel my legs." Boo-hoo.
It's that way with Matewan, which is all pro-union, and anti-company. It is clear how you should feel throughout. Those who go along with such things wholeheartedly will enjoy this movie, and not even wonder whether aged and out-of-shape James Earl Jones would really be able to keep back a mob of angry miners almost all by himself.
How I felt about it. Those who resist director manipulation, just for the sake of keeping an open mind, may find it all a bit too much. After all, coal company executives are people too, and have families, and probably do not spend their days counting bags of money and plotting evil acts against hapless coal miners. And though it is difficult to sympathize with "detectives," perhaps they didn't seek to completely alienate every person in the town through insults, threats, and violence.
Likewise, even with the skill of veteran, dedicated, and seemingly perfect union man Joe (Sayles favorite Chris Cooper), racial tension between the locals, blacks, and non-English-speaking Italians dissipates all too quickly. But instead of a group sing of "Kumbaya," a union anthem would substitute.
An interesting heresy is spoken late in the movie by unrealistically mature 14-year-old preacher Danny (Will Oldham). In the heat of a eulogy calling miners to arms, he proclaims, "Sometimes people say how God willed it, how everything's his plan... I think all God plans is we get born, and we got to take it from there." If you buy that, then God is relegated to the role of observer.
One issue barely touched upon is the relationship between unions, socialism, and communism. Union men are called "Reds," or communists, as propaganda against unionization. But any economic system can have unions. Communism is least likely to tolerate independent unions, since power resides with the state. Capitalism allows for the negotiation of wages between employer and employee. A union merely organizes the salaries by job classification and seniority. In the military, or government, this is instead done by the employer. But no one (besides Joseph McCarthy) would call the Army Red, even though a Red Army (say, mainland China) has a similar system. Therefore, union membership isn't socialistic. Unless the union is corrupt or impotent, it's simply common sense for the economically disenfranchised.