By Mary Shaffer
and Jerry Bunin
The Tribune

John Sayles' makes movies as distinctly American as its music, familiar like a folk song, innovative and intricate like jazz and street-tough and revolutionary like rock 'n' roll.

Sayles, 42, leads a growing number of independent American filmmakers who made such highly praised 1992 films as "One False Move," "The Player," "The Waterdance," "Bad Lieutenant," "Gas Food Lodging," and "Reservoir Dogs. "

The East Coast native makes big films on small budgets.

He financed his own films by acting in other people's films (including the just-released "Matinee") and by writing inventive screenplays for people like famed B-movie producer Roger Corman.

Corman taught him "you didn't have to take it seriously because it was fun, but...you could make a good movie on a low budget" Sayles said in a 1991 interview.

Sayles shot his first film, "Return of the Secaucus 7" (1980), in a month using rented equipment and an amateur cast and crew.

The result is better than the more popular "The Big Chill" (1983), which stole from Sayles' saga of 1960s counterculture idealists who compromised by joining a system they had once opposed.

"Secaucus 7" cost just $60,000 and earned a best screenplay Oscar nomination. Sayles' latest, "Passion Fish" (1992), which opened nationwide Jan. 29, cost $3 million vs. $26 million for today's typical Hollywood film.

"Passion Fish" already earned Golden Globe nominations for actresses Mary McDonnell and Alfre Woodard, is a contender for Oscar nominations, and is doing well at the box office.

Unfortunately, that is new for Sayles. His films have been widely praised by fans and critics, but generally ignored by audiences attracted to inferior films with special effects, more well-known stars and large advertising budgets.

Sayles' films are smart and subtle, exploring the American experience through ordinary people facing real problems. They are outsiders joined by common circumstances in a country where the melting pot is supposed to eliminate the differences.

He describes his films as "dealing with people in communities...surrounded by other communities that are not necessarily friendly towards theirs. "

In "Matewan" (1987), Sayles shows that conflict in the true story of a violent labor strike in West Virginia in the 1920s.

Whites and blacks, Americans and Italians, northerners and southerners, women and children, and strangers and friends unite against a common enemy--company thugs sent to break the strike.

The story is recalled by a man who spent his youth as a coal miner and preacher: "God's plan is we get born and we gotta take it from there. We gotta take care of...each other. "

Exquisitely photographed by Oscar-winner Haskell Wexler, the film ends in a "High Noon"-like showdown when the whole town shows up to help instead of deserting their sheriff.

Sayles' films typically echo other movies and use team sports, especially basketball and baseball, as metaphors for America.

"Eight Men Out" (1988) follows the 1919 Chicago "Black Sox" scandal where eight players are accused of throwing the World Series and betraying their talent, teammates and fans ("Say it ain't so, Joe!").

The national pasttime is tarnished by greed and the war between management and labor.

In "City of Hope" (1991), Sayles' best film, everything and everyone is tainted in a story that wanders through a day in the lives of 38 characters in a troubled inner-city neighborhood.

Sayles' camera tracks one character into a scene, another through it and a third into the next one until all the stories connect in a stunning and panoramic vision of the personal and political problems facing America today--racial tension, dysfunctional families, drugs, violence, homelessness, poverty, police brutality, corporate greed, and political corruption.

He tells the flip side in "The Brother From Another Planet" (1984), based on his dream about a black alien slave who finds secret messages in subway graffiti.

This is warm, witty update of the American immigrant story with a mute extraterrestrial entering Earth through Ellis Island and easily adapting to life in Harlem.

"Brother" is filled with memorable characters, including great bar crowd and a Rastafarian named Virgil who guides the alien through the hellish side of ghetto life one night.

Sayles, who has won two O'Henry Awards for short stories and a National Book Award nomination for his novel "Union Dues," creates characters who act and talk like people you know.

"I look at every part as if I had to act it," he recently told film critic Roger Ebert, "and ask, is there enough here to be a three-dimensional character? No matter what your part is, you have to believe that you have a life outside of the movie. "

Even the smallest parts in his films have meaning. The schizophrenic Asteroid in "City" links the various stories and comments on them by randomly mimicking slogans and phrases he hears around him.

Sayles relies on an ensemble cast and crew who've worked with him since the beginning, including Mason Daring who writes the ever-present music and producer Peggy Rajski who oversaw three Bruce Springsteen music videos Sayles directed.

Some actors worked with Sayles before moving into more mainstream movies, including David Strathairn ("Sneakers"), who went to college with Sayles, and McDonnell, who appeared in "Matewan" years before "Dances with Wolves" (1990) made her a star.

Strathairn's performances as the key pitcher in "Eight Men Out," sheriff in "Matewan" and Asteroid are even more memorable than the terrific small parts Sayles writes for himself.

The best are Carl, a philosophical crook in "City" who understands the world and his place in it, and Howie in "Secaucus 7" who regrets marrying young but loves watching his kids learn.

Like Howie, Sayles finds despair and hope side by side, which may explain why he approaches the world with a grim sense of humor.

The final image in "City of Hope" is Asteroid clinging to a chain link fence, crying out, "HELP! HELP! WE NEED HELP!" The audience knows that the madman is telling the truth and that no one will listen.

Mary Shaffer works at Cal Poly. Jerry Bunin is a Telegram-Tribune reporter. They hope you'll listen and see a John Sayles movie. It's a trip you won't soon forget.

• "Return of the Secaucus Seven" (1980)
• "Lianna" (1982)
• "Baby It's You" (1983)
• "The Brother From Another Planet" (1984)
• "Matewan" (1987)
• "Eight Men Out" (1988)
• "City of Hope" (1991)
• "Passion Fish" (1992)
• "Secret of Roan Island" (in progress)
• "Lonestar" (released 1995)
• "Men with Guns" (1997)
• "Limbo" (released 1999)

• "Piranha" (1978)
• "The Lady in Red" (1979)
• "Alligator" (1980)
• "Battle Beyond the Stars" (1980)
• "The Howling" (1980)
• "The Challenge" (1982)
• "Enormous Changes at the Last Minute" (1983)
• "The Clan of the Cave Bear" (1986)
• "Unnatural Causes" (1986)
• "Wild Thing" (1987)
• "Breaking In" (1989)
• "Shannon's Deal" (1989)

• "Hard Choices" (1984)
• "Something Wild" (1986)
• "Untamagiru" (1989)
• "Little Vegas" (1990)
• "Matinee" (1993)

• "Pride of the Bimbos" (1975)
• "Union Dues" (1977)
• "The Anarchist's Convention" (1979)
• "Thinking in Pictures" (1988)
• "Los Gusanos" (1991)