Claims for Equality, Changes of Use. Workers’ Movements, Film and the Curious Case of Salt of the Earth

Abstract

„Salt of the Earth“ (1954) has become famous as the only blacklisted US film: Written, produced and directed by blacklisted Hollywood professionals intent on committing a “crime to fit the punishment,” it tells of a contemporary struggle of New Mexican zinc miners for better working conditions. Developed in collaboration with many of the participants of the strike, the film sets its convictions in motion: The claim for equality spreads from work relations to race to gender, and it affects dialogue, montage and camera movements. I examine how the cause célèbre that is „Salt of the Earth“ relates to three general threads in the relation between workers’ movements and film: the representation of workers’ movements in films, film as instrument of workers’ movements, and the place of union film cultures in a broader history of special interest film commissioning and screening, including points of contact with corporate films.