Why don’t we think about movies about labor this Labor Day? Organized and a few otherwise.
For a dystopian view of the potentially dehumanizing character of labor it’s still hard to beat Fritz Lang’s 1927 science fiction classic, Metropolis. After all these years it’s still visually stunning, full of haunting imagery.
For a similar take in a tragicomic vein, watch Charlie Chaplin’s last “silent” film, 1936’s Modern Times. Bonus extra: one of the loveliest of all popular songs, Smile.
When you say the words “movies about labor” the first words out of many people’s mouths are “Norma Rae”, Sally Fields’s Oscar-winning performance as a young Southern woman working in a textile mill, trying to organize a union in the plant.
Hard economic times tend to bring out movies about labor. Norma Rae was made in 1979, as inflation was rising to frightening levels. The 1930’s and pre-war 1940’s had plenty of them. The events in the classic 1940 film The Grapes of Wrath are driven by the difficulty of finding work. And I suspect that a lot of people today would be shocked by King Vidor’s Our Daily Bread. Like all of Vidor’s films, it’s beautifully shot and edited.
There were several post-World War II pictures in which labor is a central factor. Corruption in the longshoreman’s union is the lynchpin of On the Waterfront. For something a little more lighthearted The Pajama Game centers around labor negotiations for seven-and-a-half-cent raise by the workers in a pajama factory.
Women in the workplace was a key topic in the economic turndown of the early 1980’s. Two different comedic takes are Nine to Five and Mr. Mom. While we’re on the subject of Michael Keaton (who played the title role in Mr. Mom), Gung Ho is an amusing look at a Japanese takeover of an American car company.
As usual the Brits are more biting in their satire. I’m All Right, Jack skewers both management and labor in a way that no American movie probably could.
Any other suggestions for great pictures about labor?
Is Office Space, “labor”?