David Strathairn was recently in Sedona promoting his newly released film, “No God, No Master,” at the Sedona International Film Festival.

In the film based on a true story, Strathairn plays U.S. Bureau of Investigation agent, and explosives expert William Flynn who investigates a series of package bombs sent to prominent politicians and businessmen in April and June 1919. As Flynn and his partner Eugenio Ravarini [Sam Witwer] investigate the bombings, they uncover a deeper conspiracy, pitting Luigi Galleani [Daniel Mooney] and his violent anarchist movement against U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer [Ray Wise] and like-minded politicians who use public fear to revoke the civil rights of recent immigrants, union organizers and leftists.

“Writing or making a film about something that happened 80 or 90 years ago, but is — in the case of ‘No God, No Master’ — essentially still happening today: the domestic terrorism issue, the labor issue, the haves and the have-nots and immigration,” Strathairn said. “All of these issues are what drive the movie. They pretty much drive a lot of politics today. Not just politics, but on-the-ground concerns of the general public. It’s a great window to the present. It’s fascinating to see things haven’t changed that much.”

The film depicts the Palmer Raids, which resulted in the wrongful arrest of more than 10,000 immigrants and leftists, nearly all of whom were later released.

Flynn was promoted to director of BOI and held the post until 1921. The BOI became the FBI in 1935 under J. Edgar Hoover [Sean McNall], who is introduced as a young agent early in the film. During his tenure as director, Hoover notably generated a list of undesirable leftists and activists, the beginnings of which are touched on in the film.

Putting an emotional face to the era is a subplot involving Nicola Sacco [James Madio] and Bartolomeo Vanzetti [Alessandro Mario], two Italian anarchists who were wrongly convicted and executed in 1927 for an armed robbery in 1920. The two men were declared innocent in 1977, 50 years after their execution.

“No Good, No Master” touches on a similar thread covered in “Good Night, and Good Luck,” a 2006 film for which Strathairn was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Strathairn played broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow during his on-air battle with U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy [R-Wis.] in the midst of the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954. McCarthy alleged the U.S. Army, the federal government and Hollywood was infiltrated with communists and Soviet agents. Murrow publicly accused McCarthy of fear-mongering and abusing his power as a senator.

“They both have that Red Scare moment to them. But by 1954 there wasn’t the violence. It was violent, but it wasn’t using bombs — that was the major difference between the anarchists’ movement and the way the country reacted to what it thought the communist movement was. The fear that pervade the society, both of the films, both of those of those moments in time, had the same effect upon the populace. A lot of people got caught between a rock and a hard place.”

“That’s why I like doing these films. In some people’s minds it is a black-and-white issue, in so many other people’s minds, it’s not. A lot of innocent people, a lot of people who were implicated only by their name or who had they dinner with, or who they associated with, you know, guilt by association.”

“It’s a virus that infects so many innocent people,” Strathairn said. “So there is that similarity between the two films.”

Strathairn said he was impressed by the number of documentaries at the Sedona International Film Festival.

“It’s like our school, our social curriculum; our very own history lessons that are now being told by films,” Strathairn said. “It’s an opportunity to do it in as entertaining a way, and I mean that as in ‘I want you to entertain this idea.’”

Strathairn said every time a historical event is shared with a large audience in a communal way through a film or play, it is revised as it relates to the present. The goal of a film is relate those issues to present, something he hopes “No God, No Master” does with its exploration of domestic terrorism, immigration and labor issues.

“We are a medium of information. There’s plenty of drama out there in our own history,” he said.

Strathairn is well known playing roles in historical or period films. He played disgraced White Sox pitcher Eddie Cicotte in “Eight Men Out” dramatizing the Black Socks scandal of the 1919 World Series; Police Chief Sid Hatfield in “Matewan,” depicting the Battle of Matewan, a violent 1920 coal miners’ strikebreaking incident; Judge James Horton in “Heavens Fall,” which follows the trial of the Scottsboro Boys, nine young black men who were falsely accused of raping two white women in 1931 Alabama; Pierce Patchett in “L.A. Confidential,” a police drama set in 1953 Hollywood, Calif.; and most recently as U.S. Secretary of State William Seward in Steven Spielberg’s 2012 Academy Award-winning film “Lincoln,” covering the tumultuous end of the American Civil War in 1865.

“I’ve been lucky to be involved in some films that are memorable,” Strathairn said.

A number of Straithairn’s films cover major political issues. A person may be attracted to a film by the politics of a film but has to leave their own political views at the door.

“Political films are difficult to make. You have to present both sides, fairly,” he said. “Politics is amazing theater, as evidenced by how Steven Spielberg covered the House of Representatives in ‘Lincoln.’ See the inner workings of that house, it doesn’t seem much different than today.

“I believe it was really like that — if we look at the English Parliament and the way they yell at each other, you can only imagine what it was like. And they were much more witty back then, orators with rhetoric.”

Capturing the “theater” of history is the task of a polical or historical film,

“In ‘No God, No Master,’ how do we do it with acts of domestic terrorism, acts of anarchy?”

Strathairn said some of the film’s characters’ sense of futility and despair is what drives them to commit acts of violence.

“How would you take sides? How would you find your way through that? Flynn’s journey is a window into that,” Strathairn said.

The film’s depiction of the young neighbor across the hall from Flynn explores how a young person with unformed political views makes those decisions, Strathairn said, and his journey is also an important one for viewers to watch.

For the full story from the exclusive one-on-one interview with David Strathairn, see the Wednesday, March 6, edition of the Sedona Red Rock News.