SECRET MOVIE CLUB presents
Part of our FEMALE FILMMAKERS ACROSS THE DECADES Series, Thursday, May 25, 2023
LOCATION: The Secret Movie Club Theater, 1917 Bay Street, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90021
*Please note entrance/parking is actually in the back of the building. Make a right on Wilson Street, then a right behind the building. We’re the first set of black steps after the big gate.
7:30pm NORMA RAE (1979, dir. Martin Ritt, Fox, USA, 110mns, Digital)
9:50pm COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER (1980, dir. Michael Apted, USA, 124mns, DCP)
Now wait a minute you might be saying! Why are you including this in your Female Filmmakers Across the Decades series when both of these movies were directed by men?
Well, we will answer, because often times actors are co-equal filmmakers to the writers and directors and don’t get their due.
Tonight we present to the jury, exhibit one in which Sally Field in Norma Rae and Sissy Spacek in Coal Miner’s Daugher give such powerful performances that they deserve to be considered co-auteurs in the pictures in which they performed. (They both won Best Actress Academy Awards in their respective years as well).
First up is underusing poet of the hard scrabble American underclass filmmaker Martin Ritt’s story of union organizing in a Southern textile factory, Norma Rae.
This beautiful and glorious movie with all its jagged rhythms and unexpected scenes seems like it almost comes from an alien planet in today’s day and age. The entire film hinges on the relationship between New York union organizer Reuben (a top notch Ron Leibman) and local spitfire, woman of wayward gossip, single mother Norma Rae (a revelatory Sally Field) who develop a never fully expressed passion for each other as they work to unionize Norma Rae’s factory.
Sally Field delivers such a vital performance as a young woman who has been dealt a sh@t hand but somehow never lets it bow her spirit or love of life. The movie also shows with impressive clarity all the headwinds that come with trying to unionize in a country and region that has been taught that unions represent communists and the devil. The movie also takes on the anti-semitism that has always bubbled just under the surface of gentile America.
One of the great 1970’s movies.
We follow this up with Coal Miner’s Daughter, the wonderful biopic of country superstar Loretta Lynn starring Sissy Spacek and released just one year later.
Loretta Lynn, who just left us late last year for the great country home in the sky to be rejoined with her husband Dolittle, was and is a force of nature. Not even the hardest core of punk rock singers can match Lynn for her songs like “Rated X”, “Fist City” and “The Pill” all of which spoke about the trials and tribulations women must face in a male-dominated society.
Coal Miner’s Daughter tells us Lynn’s story from her beyond humble beginnings in an impoverished family through her (too) young marriage to Oliver “Dolittle “ Lynn (an always amazing Tommy Lee Jones) who gave her six children while all the time catting around with other women to her meteoric rise as country music’s number one superstar to her nervous breakdown to her resurrection. . .
Loretta Lynn’s life is full of contradictions which is what makes the movie and Spacek’s performance so incandescent. Though Dolittle was a dog in many ways, he was also the one to recognize Lynn’s talent, bought her a guitar, and was her constant cheerleader as she became a performer. Though Lynn wrote many of working class feminism’s greatest anthems, she never left Dolittle and the two stuck it out (and by all appearances remained in love) until Dolittle’s death.
The movie, while hewing to many biopic tropes, still somehow manages to capture the irrepressible spirit that Lynn brought to life, her family, and her audience. Spacek is uncanny brilliant in her performance.
So join us for two arguments why the greatest performances must be considered just as authorial as what the director brings to the table.
Best always,
Craig Hammill
Secret Movie Club Founder.Programmer
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
REFUNDS:
We can offer refunds up to 24 hours before showtime. Please request a refund through Eventbrite and we will process ASAP. After that, no refunds. Sorry.
However if something last minute comes up and you can’t make the screening, for whatever reason, just write to us before showtime: community@secretmovieclub.com and we’ll offer you complimentary tickets to a future screening, good for 90 days. (Disclaimer: Future screening must have available tickets, cannot be a fundraiser, and must be comparably priced)
HELPFUL SECRET MOVIE CLUB (1917 Bay Street, 2nd Floor, LA, CA 90021) THEATER PARKING TIPS:
We recommend that you park just outside our theater. Remember our theater is actually in a beautiful street art alleyway in the back of the 1917 Bay Street building. You get to our entrance by taking a right on Wilson, then a right behind the building. We are the first set of black steps on the right after the big gate.
There is also a parking lot at the corner of Mateo and Violet Street, just 2 blocks from our theater, which costs $7 per car.
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HOW CAN I CONTACT YOU IF I HAVE OTHER QUESTIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS:
You can always email us at community@secretmovieclub.com with any other questions, concerns, thoughts, recommendations.