In Christopher Guest's hilarious "Waiting for Guffman" (1996), residents of a small town act out historical events to mark their burg's 150th anniversary.
I can't help but wonder if that's where the makers of "Bisbee" got the idea for a locale that dramatizes its past -- in this case, the very worst hour in a place where striking miners were deported at gunpoint.
There are some terrible parallels here with the Holocaust, as we witness supporters of the Industrial Workers of the World herded into railway cars that transported them from their homes forever. A glaring flaw here is the lack of information on what happened to the Wobblies post-exile -- "How do you get 2,000 people to keep a secret?"
The movie does a good job of showing multiple perspectives on the 1917 atrocity. Law-and-order supporters opposed a shutdown of copper mines bolstering America's World War I effort and miners, many of them immigrants, wanted better pay, safer work conditions, and an end to discrimination.
We observe the psychological conflicts that can arise in the character of Fernando, whose mother begs him not to strike while his colleague implores, "Are you with us or against us?"
I can't help but wonder if that's where the makers of "Bisbee" got the idea for a locale that dramatizes its past -- in this case, the very worst hour in a place where striking miners were deported at gunpoint.
There are some terrible parallels here with the Holocaust, as we witness supporters of the Industrial Workers of the World herded into railway cars that transported them from their homes forever. A glaring flaw here is the lack of information on what happened to the Wobblies post-exile -- "How do you get 2,000 people to keep a secret?"
The movie does a good job of showing multiple perspectives on the 1917 atrocity. Law-and-order supporters opposed a shutdown of copper mines bolstering America's World War I effort and miners, many of them immigrants, wanted better pay, safer work conditions, and an end to discrimination.
We observe the psychological conflicts that can arise in the character of Fernando, whose mother begs him not to strike while his colleague implores, "Are you with us or against us?"