Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)

Strong and Moving!

Admirable film.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

I was a teenager when I have seen this film, but I do remember the details such as how many ( or how less ) paying audience was in the cinema at that time. Am I glad that more than thirty years later, I am able to see this film again. I am equally impressed with Sissy Spacek´s performance then and now still and what is also striking is that there was not a lot of boot kicking, country-singing you see in most biographies about singers rather a lot of hardship and heartbreak. A solid, quality film.

Okay, can't believe I am going to say this-- but I didn't like it. And I loved this movie when I was a kid in the 80s. But looking at it now, over thirty years later, I can't get over how odd it is hearing someone else sing Loretta Lynn's finest tunes. Let's face it-- as good an actress as she is, Sissy Spacek is not going to be appearing at the Grand Ole Opry anytime soon. I don't understand why Universal didn't pony up and just lease the original recordings and have Sissy lip-sync it. Is this a case of an actress' vanity, wanting to impress audiences that she can sing on a par with a Nashville legend?In a similar vein, I'm not hep on hearing Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon fill in for Johnny & June Carter-Cash in Fox's WALK THE LINE. It sounds phony-- like watching a movie about diamonds, knowing the whole time that the gems on display are actually cubic zirconium.Look instead at what Touchstone did with the hit film WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT-- they knew that as good as Angela Bassett was, a fitting tribute for Tina Turner would be to showcase the songs as originally sung by her. Admittedly, Laurence Fishburne sang Ike's parts, especially on Proud Mary with Tina herself-- but that is understandable given the real- life estrangement of the Turners and the fact that Ike was probably not creatively involved in the film at all. The film was about Tina's story, and it featured her voice on the soundtrack.Anyway, back to COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER-- a big thumbs down. When I watch something where country superstar Loretta Lynn is the main subject, I want to hear her sing, not a pale vocal imitation. In the same way I would not accept Loretta Lynn acting as Sissy Spacek in a biopic about the actress, I do not accept Sissy singing as Loretta. I want the real thing. Please give the cubic zirconium to someone who doesn't know the difference between the original and the fake.

If you are wondering why and how Coal Miner's Daughter got made here is the history. In l980 I worked for Bernie Schwartz, the producer of this film. There was a "Reader's Digest Condensed Book" sitting on the coffee table in the front office. I picked it up and read "Loretta Lynn's Story." I finished it and thought it would be a good TV film. I went to Bernie and told him. He called Ned Tanen, Head of Universal Pictures. He saw him the next day and got a deal. Ned figured at the very least they could sell the album since Loretta Lynn recorded for MCA records. They also owned Universal. Bernie then called Thom Rickman, who wrote it. The Englsh director, Apted, came over to direct it and they got Sissy. Ironically, I read the book because the scripts I had been reading were boring. And what happened to me.. .

There's poverty and then there's poverty. The worst of it is in the urban areas east of the Mississippi and in Appalachia. One look at that cataclysmic dilapidation is enough to make the stoutest heart sink. Poverty in the rural South, though we often hear about it, has a comfortable quality. One coexists with the pigs lolling in the barnyard. California doesn't know the meaning of genuine visual despair. Every time they try to make a movie about poor people in Los Angeles, they fail because the settings come out looking like some middle-class area in East St. Louis.But Appalachia looks like what it is, or what it used to be. The shacks are genuine crumbling shacks. The mud is gray and sandy, and the weather usually cold and drizzling. Howard Hawks' "Sergeant York" showed us Gobbler's Knob, Tennessee, or whatever it was called, under the blue skies and warm sun of Hollywood's back lots.Not here. You can understand immediately why Tommy Lee Jones, condemned to the coal mines, is dying to get out before he dies of lung disease like so many other miners. He marries the virginal Loretta and deflowers her brusquely in a motel room so shabby that it might be encountered in nightmares.As a husband, Jones isn't a terrible guy. After all, he bought her her first guitar. He's just a bad guy -- anxious for her success before, and jealous of it afterward, batting Loretta around, conducting adulterous affairs. The movie more or less follows the usual pattern, a triumph now and then, interrupted by the occasional tragedy. The exploitative male is now as formulaic a figure as the femme fatale.I haven't been much of a fan of country and western music since adolescence but remember fondly the kick-ass energy of Hank Snow. Lately, I've heard a few real musicians among the ranks, Buck Owens and Willie Nelson, but mostly the artists achieve about the same level of musical proficiency as the amateurs in "Nashville," who wrote their own songs for the movie. You could do it too.What made Loretta Lynn's songs different -- her voice was undistinguished -- was its contemporary content. I wouldn't say she was to country music what the Beatles were to pop rock, but, after all, a song with a title like "Don't Come Home From A-Drinkin' With Lovin' On Your Mind" must resonate with modern women in a way that, say, "Git Along Little Doggies" does not. One of her songs was about being widowed by the draft during the Vietnam war; another was about "the pill." That's pushing the envelope, considering the intended audience.In the lead role, Sissy Spacek, un-made-up, unglossed, unglamorized, passes for fourteen years old without any trouble. She's a pleasant and cheerful woman too, and cute, and she provided me with surprisingly professional support in the unfailingly dull "Crimes of the Heart" -- a thin story made bearable only by my own magnificent performance. Tommy Lee Jones as the philandering husband who drinks too much is his usual jumpy, sinewy self. He's a subtle actor and has fine control, but it's the sort of role enactment that doesn't bring all that many awards.