SOURCE: Sayles, John, and Pat Aufderheide. “Filmmaking as Storytelling: An Interview with John Sayles.” Cineaste 15, no. 4 (1987): 12-15.

In the following interview, conducted in the autumn of 1986, Sayles discusses the story behind the film Matewan and the way it was translated into film.

John Sayles' latest movie, Matewan, premiered at Cannes and opens this autumn in the U.S. With Haskell Wexler as cinematographer, a cast long worked with, and a feature role by James Earl Jones, the film tackles a piece of buried American history. It's about a 1920 conflict between coal miners in West Virginia and coal company private police. The lead character, Joe Kenehan, a union organizer for the United Mine Workers, is a pacifist and a veteran of Industrial Workers of the World (or Wobbly) struggles.

Matewan fulfills a dream Sayles has had to tell the stories he heard when, as a fresh college grad, he...