When they spoke, they spoke in one voice, and they were heard. They were black, they were white, they were Irish, they were Polish, they were Catholic, they were Jews, they were one. That’s what a union is: one…
Why it’s a left-wing film
Set in the Deep South, director Martin Ritt’s “Norma Rae” is yet another Hollywood entry that gushes over the selfless virtues of Big Labor and demonizes both the corporation and the individuals who would prefer not to be forced into the Borg Collective. White collar management is naturally made up of bullies who tap phones and work an old man literally to death and the “exploited workers” themselves who oppose being community-organized are motivated primarily by racial bigotry and the ignorant belief that unions are nothing more than a New York, communist conspiracy run by the Jooooozzzz…
In other words, there are no intelligent or sound arguments allowed from the other side. Everything is presented — both literally and figuratively — in the simplest of black and white terms, and this includes religion. In an important scene laced with the symbolism of having a man of the cloth paint over the black porch railing leading into his church with whiter than white paint, the spiritual center of the town is revealed as racist. This insidious message ends up being a major turning point in the character of Norma Rae (Sally Field), for she sees the light and quits the congregation, her spiritual home since childhood.
The story is based on real-life union activist Crystal Lee Sutton, who reportedly did bring the North Carolina textile mill she was working at to a stop and won the day for the union when, in a final act of defiance after being fired, she stood on her work table and held over her head a piece of cardboard with the word “UNION” scrawled on it. This moment, reproduced in “Norma Rae,” would become one of the most iconic scenes in the history of cinema.
Ritt, an avowed leftist who was blacklisted from television in the ’50s, is probably best known for his collaborations with Paul Newman, especially their masterpiece “Hud.” But he’s just as famous for using his undeniable talents as a top-shelf director to bring a “social conscience” to the screen in a number of standalone classics that include, “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold,” “Hombre,” and “The Great White Hope.” The producers hand-picked Ritt for “Norma Rae,” and for very good reason.
Why it’s a great film
As I mentioned in my review of “Coming Home,” for all her many personal flaws, Jane Fonda is one extraordinarily gifted actress, as are Jill Clayburgh, Marsha Mason and the other A-list actresses who originally turned down the title role of Norma Rae. So when I say that the serendipitous casting of Sally Field has a lot to do with the film’s status as a classic, that’s not meant as any kind of partisan insult to Fonda or the others. They just would not have brought the same qualities to the role Field did, and it’s hard to imagine the production being anywhere near as successful — commercially and artistically — without her.
Field would go on to win the first of two Best Actress Oscars in what was a major breakthrough role for an actress who up to that time was primarily known as a flying nun and Burt Reynold’s girlfriend on screen and off. It was her well-received dramatic turn in the 1976 television movie “Sybil” that gave Ritt and the producers the confidence necessary to cast her, and in my opinion, had they not, “Norma Rae” would’ve been critically respected but largely forgotten.
Most actresses (and actors, for that matter) are much smaller in real life than they appear on the screen, but Field actually looks small on-screen. This gives her the automatic stature of an underdog, and through her beguiling girl-next-door good looks, she also brings with her a natural spunk and warm accessibility that the director’s first choices just didn’t have. Of course, it also helps that Field is every ounce the actress as any of those who turned the role down.
These are crucial, natural qualities because when we’re first introduced to Norma Rae she’s something of a bitch and every inch a tramp. An unwed mother with two kids by two different men, Norma Rae lives with her parents (isn’t very nice to them) and is engaged in a seedy sexual affair with a married man who pops into town every few weeks. She’s surly, bitter, and sarcastic, but all of this is wrapped in the adorable persona of Sally Field. And so we know there’s something better hidden underneath, something sweeter and worth waiting for discovering as the story rolls on.
Another key to the film’s success is that we’re not watching a pro-union movie. Fundamentally, what we’re presented with is the universal story of a somewhat selfish woman who matures and softens after finding her path in a world she didn’t even realize existed. This is the classic story of a dissatisfied worker drone who can’t figure out why she’s so dissatisfied until her eyes are opened by something unexpected. At first, the other drones don’t want to rock the boat and resent her for doing so, until she willfully and courageously sacrifices herself and shows them the way. And frankly, within the context of Ritt’s biased world, Norma Rae’s cause is a righteous one.
This is a fairly simple story-template to follow when your goal is to further a political agenda. The problem is that this simple template is extremely difficult to execute. You have to create a sympathetic and believable character and build a compelling story around that character’s personal growth through their personal relationships with others and the world. That’s what your movie needs to be ABOUT. The agenda, the politics, the message should just be a part of a larger character study, not the plot. Like “Silkwood,” we’re almost a full hour into “Norma Rae” before she decides to fight for a cause. In screenplay parlance, that’s her point of no return, not when the story kicks off — because the story isn’t ABOUT the union, it’s ABOUT a woman growing into a better person.
This is exactly why every piece of shit left-wing film produced in the last fifteen years is a piece of shit left-wing film. Either the filmmakers lack the skills necessary to craft as elegant of a character study as a “Norma Rae” or they’re so insecure about their agenda (for good reason) that they feel it’s necessary to bludgeon us with heavy-handed messaging. Personally, I think it’s a whole lot of both.
Another of “Norma Rae’s” secret weapons is the great Ron Liebman, an actor with more charisma and intelligence than all of today’s starting line-up put together. Why this guy wasn’t a bigger star is beyond me, but as the New York labor organizer who opens Norma Rae’s eyes (and engages in a bittersweet but platonic love affair with her), he steals the show. No other actor, not even Richard Dreyfuss, would’ve been a better choice to inhabit the person of Reuben Warchowsky, a scrappy, fearless, Jewish, urban, fish-out-water labor organizer. If for no other reason, you should Netflix “Norma Rae” today just to watch the five minute tour de force of acting on display in the sequence where Reuben enters the enemy camp of the textile mill to make sure the union notices are legally posted on all the bulletin boards.
Filmed almost entirely on location in a small town in Alabama, this is another one of those 70’s gems that just lets the authentic world and the people who inhabit it be. No CGI, no over-designed interiors by those who wouldn’t know the rural South if it bear-hugged them. You can feel the sticky heat and sense every inch of the cluttered homes, seedy motels and barren beer halls.
This is a great story and an inspiring one at that. A large part of Norma Rae’s character arc is built around the fact that she and Reuben don’t consummate their growing feelings for one another with anything but mutual respect, and because of this you know she’s going to make her new marriage work. Whatever the future might hold, the reason we admire the person we’ve spent these two hours with has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the fact that she chooses not to enter the horizons broadened for her. Instead, as Reuben and all the excitement he symbolizes drives away, she remains behind, a woman who’s figured out that her most important role is that of a wife and mother.
What’s not on the list
Twilight’s Last Gleaming (1977) — Directed by the great Robert Aldrich and starring The Mighty Burt Lancaster as a renegade general who takes over an ICBM silo and threatens WWIII unless America “tells the truth about Vietnam,” I remember this as being one of the great paranoid conspiracy thrillers of the ’70s, and yet as far as I can tell it’s never been made available on DVD. Check out this cast: Roscoe Lee Browne, Melvyn Douglas, Richard Widmark, Charles Durning, Richard Jaeckel, Paul Winfield and Burt Young. A political thriller, a technical thriller, a nuclear thriller… If memory serves, this one had it all and I would’ve loved to have considered it for the countdown but with my memory there’s no way to accurately review a movie I saw last month, much less ten years ago. I did have it on VHS but the tape crumbled in my hands like those books in “The Time Machine” as soon as I touched it.
Anyway, here’s a taste with the title sequence….
—–
Seven Days in May (1964) — LOVE this Cold War thriller. Love the performances, Rod Serling’s tightly wound screenplay, the cold, sterile atmosphere director John Frankenheimer delivers, the very essence of Ava Gardner, the Douglas/Lancaster confrontations… But the hero, The Mighty Kirk Douglas, is every bit as much a military man as Lancaster’s villain, so there’s no anti-military strain at work. Furthermore, this is a story about upholding democracy and the U.S. Constitution, about opposing totalitarianism. One of America’s greatest traditions is that of civilian authority over the military. A cautionary tale in that regard with a heroic Marine Colonel at the center is a patriotic work, and I especially like the fact that the pacifist president could in fact be making the wrong decisions.
And here is the Top 25 countdown thus far.