Green & Red Podcast Episode 463

Legendary Film Director John Sayles on Labor, the Border and Empire in Novels and Film
Release Date: February 10, 2026
Hosts: Bob Buzzanco & Scott Parkin
Guest: John Sayles, filmmaker, screenwriter, novelist

Episode Overview

This episode features a wide-ranging and insightful conversation with John Sayles, acclaimed independent filmmaker and novelist. Sayles, known for films like Matewan, Lone Star, and Eight Men Out, as well as novels such as To Save the Man and The Crucible, discusses the intersection of labor, organizing, borders, American empire, and complex histories as reflected in his body of work. The discussion delves into why Sayles has shifted toward novel writing, the challenges of financing political filmmaking today, the similarities between historical and contemporary struggles, and how his art seeks to illuminate the untold or whitewashed narratives of American life.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Shifting from Film to Novels

[01:16–03:16]

• Sayles on Why He Writes More Novels Now:
  "You don't need to raise millions of dollars to write a novel. That's the great thing about fiction writing...whether you get it published or not, you can do the thing itself by just sitting down and doing it." (John Sayles, 01:27)
• Difficulty Financing Films:
  "It's been really difficult for us to raise money for movies for the last 20 years. I think it's been 20 years since we got any other people's money for anything that we did." (01:39)
• Novels as Adaptations of Screenplays:
  "Several of those novels are things that were screenplays first...It gets clear we're never going to raise that much money. And then they sit for a while and you just, I feel like it's such a good story, I want to do something with it and then, well, maybe I can make it into a novel." (01:46)
• Creative Freedom in Novels vs. Films:
  "In the book, I could go to Wounded Knee and I didn't have to worry about an extra location and paying for the stuff and the army and the horses and all that." (02:42)

2. Portraying Historical Complexity and Ordinary Lives

[03:16–06:30]

• Focus on How Events Affect Ordinary People:
  "I get interested in how these big events affect just people." (03:36)
• On Working-Class Struggles and Unions:
  "At the factory, we are purposely kept apart...African American workers are thinking like, I don't think this is going to work. Why should I stick my neck out?" (04:53)
• Information and Perspective:
  "People, they only know what they know. They only get the information they get. It's like today, if you only watch Fox News, you have a certain view of how the world works...So that complexity, I'm very interested in that." (05:39)
• Key Question:
  "At what point is there nobody left who can afford to buy one of your cars?" (06:13)

3. The Value of Remembering Labor Organizing & History

[06:30–09:00]

• On Making 'Matewan' Amidst 1980s Anti-Unionism:
  "When Ronald Reagan first got in, pretty much the first thing he did was bust the air controllers...I thought it was important for people to understand, okay, remember a time when there wasn't a union and this is what happens." (06:52)
• Media Erasure and Need for Alternative Narratives:
  "We cannot expect these corporations, in this case or owners to just out of the goodness of their heart, say, oh, I'm going to see, I'm going to meet the workers halfway." (08:06)

4. Portrayal of Political Organizing in Film

[09:00–12:09]

• Complexity of Organizing:
  "One of the things that I do is try to recognize the complexity of it. It's not a simple thing..." (09:00)
• Unions and Corruption:
  "Those unions had to deal with the mob because the mob was so deep into that union...That inclusion of criminal elements was one of the things that kind of messed up and made more complex the union story in this country." (10:30)
• Coalitional Fragility:
  "When you take away that kind of common enemy...your coalition can fall apart. The word union is a tough word...What are the factors that mitigate against that?" (11:28)

5. Drawing Parallels Between Historical and Contemporary Power

[12:09–15:18]

• Historical Figures and Modern Equivalents:
  "Henry Ford was the last of the robber barons. He wasn't into money so much as the power...What we've got today is something analogous to what things were before Teddy Roosevelt got busy." (13:24)
• Corporate Power Today:
  "The super companies that are more powerful than many countries have an inordinate amount of power. And they're financing politicians, they're financing political parties. They're moving without any restrictions..." (14:23)
• On Media Consolidation:
  "If a couple of these...companies that own media want to just say, this is true, half the world thinks, oh, this is true." (15:09)

6. American Empire & Hidden Histories

[15:18–23:29]

• Smedley Butler and Military Intervention:
  "He was a gangster for capitalism, I think is one of his quotes...he's a character in the book I'm working on now. It's about our intervention in Veracruz in 1914 in Mexico." (15:36–15:41)
• Official History and Who Tells It:
  "When I went in and read what actually happened, it was very different. So why don't we Americans know that different version. That's a choice. And some of it is, who's controlling the history. Right." (16:22)
• Media, Propaganda, and Narrative Control:
  "You always have to be suspicious of the official story. And you'll always ask to...who's putting this information out?" (16:47)
• Vietnam as a Turning Point:
  "When Walter Cronkite started questioning that war and it took him a long time, the government had to reconsider...We've controlled the narrative. We don't control it anymore." (17:32)

7. The Role and Challenges of Independent Filmmaking

[18:48–24:42]

• Economic and Political Barriers to Funding:
  "If they're trying to make an expensive mainstream picture, they get very nervous...they think it's going to turn off some of their audience." (23:29)
• Self-Censorship:
  "My friend David Strathearn, the actor, was in a Godzilla movie...He has a speech in the original script about his family was from Hiroshima...and then the studio edited it out before it was released." (23:52)
• The Market's Role:
  "Basically we're not getting money because...None of our movies have gone platinum lately. If we were making a lot of money, somebody would give us money to make a movie." (24:10)

8. On the Border, Immigration, and Persistent Crises

[28:33–34:15]

• Then and Now at the Border:
  "People come up to me and say, oh, I watched Lone Star last night...that could happen today...And I have to say, that movie is 30 years old. We have not moved on." (29:08)
• Economic Structures & Immigration:
  "The sad thing is...that border is more complex to cross...But the problem remains, and nobody has done a very good job with it. Everybody can't live in this country. But our history is of bringing people in and then very often saying, okay, job done, get out." (29:39)
• Wages, Work, and Survival:
  "The people I know who work in restaurants say one of their problems is if they rely on American workers. American workers don't want to work that hard for that little money, even if they're getting minimum wage. What's that about?" (32:59)

9. Imagery, Resistance, and the Dichotomy of Cinema vs. Reality

[34:15–37:58]

• Violence and Justice in Media and Life:
  "I think there's a human desire to see things solved quickly and easily and with a firm hand. So many of the cop Movies...is about basically forget the judges." (34:55)
• Why "Rogue" Solutions Appeal:
  "At some point, we've seen how bad he is...when the rogue cop just shoots him, maybe not even in a fair fight, everybody cheers." (36:52)
• Complexity vs. Simplicity in Politics and Policing:
  "People are disappointed with their government and with their law enforcement, and partly because it doesn't solve things overnight, which is not a reasonable thing to expect." (37:38)

10. American Empire and Perceptions of Power

[37:58–44:20]

• Imposing Culture by Force:
  "I'm interested in this idea of any country thinking they can come into a country with a very different culture and imprint their own culture on it immediately and by force, basically." (38:35)
• Examples from Amigo and Crucible:
  "In Henry Ford's case in Crucible, he decides, I'm gonna buy a chunk of the Amazon in Brazil the size of the state of Connecticut...None of the people he sends down speak Portuguese...He expects them to make this model American community..." (40:15)
• Letters Home from Imperial Soldiers:
  "About a third of the people [in the Philippines]...this is better than shooting rabbits, using the N word...And then there were other guys who say, this is a kind of nastier, dirtier thing than I signed up for...And then a third were writing home saying, I'm embarrassed. This is horrendous what we're doing here." (42:23)

11. Whitewashing History and Selective Memory

[44:20–50:02]

• Mark Twain, Helen Keller, and Sanitized Narratives:
  "No one was aware of that role in his life. Right. Everybody knew about Huck Finn. This is, like, arguably the most influential writer in American history." (44:20, on Twain's anti-imperialism)
• Simplification for Political Purpose:
  "Sometimes it's just left out because it's an easier story to tell...Sometimes it really is a serious campaign on the people in powers. We don't want people to know." (45:50)
• Class and Cinema:
  "I think a decent number of movies that deal with issues race. But I think fewer to deal with issues like you do in Matewan like class conflict." (47:15)

12. Influential Political Films and Changing American Cinema

[50:02–53:22]

• Great Political Movies:
  "Certainly things like Norma Rae...There have been a couple interesting movies about Hoffa...but it's not a genre that we have. Whereas in France and Italy...even in Britain Ken Loach has made a lot of things that are about working people..." (50:32)
• Service Work and New Realities:
  "There's a lot of movies where the protagonists...are these, what you consider as okay, he's a barista or they're. They work at Walmart...These kind of minimum wage jobs which they hope are temporary but may not be..." (52:38)
• Zoe Zhao’s Amazon-themed film:
  "I thought that Zoe Zhao movie about the people who work at like Amazon...was an interesting, just that phenomenon. People who...put together a living that way." (52:55)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the difference between novels and movies:

  "There are things you can do in a movie you can't do in a book, and there are things you can do in a book that you can't do in a movie."
  — John Sayles, [02:59]

• On being suspicious of authority and the official narrative:

  "I think you always have to be suspicious of the official story. And you'll always ask to ask, okay, who's putting this information out?"
  — John Sayles, [16:47]

• On why real history is often hidden:

  "When I went in and read what actually happened, it was very different. So why don't we Americans know that different version. That's a choice. And some of it is, who's controlling the history. Right."
  — Bob Buzzanco, [16:22]

• On the limits of the American Dream:

  "There are businesses that if you raise the minimum wage, will not exist. But you know what? Maybe that's the price of entry. If you can't pay that, don't start that business."
  — John Sayles, [34:09]

• On the whitewashing of historical figures:

  "Helen Keller...was a socialist. And an organizer and actually did very important things in her adult life. And just American history, like what we've been talking about through this whole interview is like just American history whitewashes all of that away for the political stuff."
  — Scott Parkin, [45:29]

• On the popularity of violence as solution in movies:

  "I think there's a human desire to see things solved quickly and easily and with a firm hand...At some point, we've seen how bad he is...when the rogue cop just shoots him, maybe not even in a fair fight, everybody cheers."
  — John Sayles, [34:55–36:52]

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Introductions and Sayles’s recent writing – [00:14–03:16]
• Stage-setting: Political stakes of historical fiction – [03:16–06:30]
• The value of labor history and organizing – [06:30–09:00]
• On the complexities, failings, and promise of unions – [09:00–12:09]
• Parallels between Ford, past barons and today’s tech oligarchs – [12:09–15:18]
• Empire, Smedley Butler, and American interventions abroad – [15:18–15:50]
• American narratives, media erasure, Vietnam and narrative control – [16:47–19:40]
• Independent film and the economics of storytelling – [23:15–24:42]
• On immigration, Lone Star, and minimum wage – [28:33–34:15]
• Violence, justice fantasies, and realism in film – [34:15–37:58]
• Imperial hubris in ‘Amigo’ and ‘Crucible’ – [38:35–44:20]
• Historical whitewashing, Mark Twain, Helen Keller – [44:20–45:50]
• Class, cinema, and changing American work – [47:15–53:22]

Closing Thoughts

John Sayles’s conversation with Bob Buzzanco and Scott Parkin is a master class in the use of art—film and literature alike—to probe the messy, complex histories of labor, empire, and everyday people in America. Throughout, Sayles insists on the power of the untold or forgotten story, the necessity of challenging the official narrative, and examining both the failures and potential of organizing for greater justice. The hosts and their guest model historical thinking and engaged politics, leaving listeners with a vision of political art that is as timely as it is rooted in deep history.

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