Norma Rae (1979)

Best movie of this year hands down!

best movie i've ever seen.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Excellent film, several yrs prior to 'Norma Rae' sally field took her acting abilities to a higher level with her performance in the 1976 made for TV film 'Sybil', essentially a remake of 'the Three Faces of Eve'. In fact, Oscar winning actress Joanne Woodward who won Best Actress for this latter film, was a Supporting actress in 'Sybil', an d portrayed the Therapist Counselor medical Expert working with Sally Field. Nonetheless, one of the Great "Travesties" that Actress Sally Field did upon winning the 1979 Oscar for Best Actress was forgetting to thank the love or her Life (at that time), Burt Reynolds ("who was in the audience seated next to her") during her acceptance speech. 21 yrs later, in 1998, Actress Julia Roberts would repeat the same mistake by forgetting to thank her Live-in-lover Actor Benjamin Bratt ('who was in the audience seated right next to her') during her acceptance speech, in winning Best Actress for 'Erin Brockovich' (2000).Both actresses upon received the script and looked to their lover and said "DO YOU THINK I CAN DO THIS PART?...I Don't THINK I CAN, I'VE not DONE ANYTHING LIKE THIS BEFORE.....OH DO YOU REALLY THINK I CANDO IT"?. Wisely, both Burt and Benjamin (TV series leading man) both told their girlfriends,..honey you can anything you can put your mind to....that's why i love you. Both actress auditioned for their respective roles...AND the "Rest is History".

Martin Ritt's kitchen-sink drama NORMA RAE is my fourth entry of his filmography, it won Sally Field her first Oscar, and is reckoned as a shining specimen perfectly designed to gratify Awards recognition, aka "Norma Rae moment" for its actors, usually adapted from real events.The movies takes place in a small town in North Carolina, based on the true story of Crystal Lee Sutton (1940-2009), our heroine Norma Rae (Field) is a single mother of two kids (one from the wedlock and the other is an illegitimate son borne out of a casual fling), now her husband is long dead, and she trysts with a married man but often got beaten due to the rife male chauvinism among the hillbillies, should audience judge her too? Is she a dimwit slut or a liberal-minded feminist?Norma Rae, and her parents (Hingle and Baxley), all work in their local cotton mill factory, receive minimum-wage and their poor working conditions are ignored by the management, life could be that for her, keeping working until her health deteriorates under the awful condition and kicks the bucket, then hopefully her children will be old enough to take her place in the factory, do the same job and continues the circle of life. But the arrival of Reuben Warshowsky (Leibman), a New York union organiser, galvanises her life and the prospect of forming a labor union beckons a possibly better future, so she is bent on functioning as Reuben's right-hand man. Norma Rae also meets a fellow worker, Sonny (Bridges), a divorcé with a young daughter, and soon they form a family, but her whole-hearted devotion to the ongoing campaign for the union engenders clashes with the management of the factory, and she has to be crucified for the progressive cause when the antagonism reaching its boiling point. The Union wins in the end, but Norma Rae loses her job and Reuben leaves when his mission is achieved, will her future become better afterwards, the film doesn't reveal any detail, but a reconciliation with Sonny bespeaks at least no marital disruption will occur.Sally Field, injects such a redoubtable force in her acting, like Reuben patronisingly tells her, she is too good for the place, one can totally get impressed by her punchy effort in every line, gesture and expression, which transcends Norma Rae from an ordinary gal to a highly relatable and extremely likable cinematic heroine, that's the reason why we love to see these stories being told again and again on the screen. The script carefully treads the camaraderie between Norma Rae and Reuben, to avoid any scandals, but Leibman's Reuben, in the meaty supporting role, should be an equally likable character, doesn't register the same impact, wanting of sincerity in his acting could be the culprit, whereas Beau Bridges' Sonny and Pat Hingle's Vernon, Norma Rae's father, both cast more weight in their much leaner screen-time.NORMA RAE is a juggernaut success, receives four Oscar nominations (including the prestigious BEST PICTURE) and wins two (Field's BEST LEADING ACTRESS and David Shire's theme song IT GOES LIKE IT GOES, beautifully sung by Jennifer Warnes), the relevance of labor union has ebbed away since then, but it definitely sparks off a neo-realistic trend for American indie films, with real- life location and tapping into the misery of low-class people which average cinema-goers consider too harrowing to watch on the silver screen, in retrospective, it is something we should praise for!

Very social and clever movie about ordinary girl who tries to awake her sleepy town in order that to fight for their rights. I became interested this film because recently saw remarkable drama "Rosa" with Bette Midler. I learned that she was nominated on Oscar, but winner became Sally Field with "Norma Rae" and I'm urgently became search its. "Norma Rae" is very absorbing and dramatic story, I'm really very strongly worried for characters of this film and I'm deeply imbued their troubles, because similar problems are very actually today and touching many ordinary people in all the World. This film makes you wonder about many important for us things and I strongly recommend its for watching to everyone. Maybe this film will be unite us, maybe no, but some important and right things in your hearts will remain exactly. .

Before writing this review I noted that Norma Rae was shot entirely in the state of Alabama, a state known for its anti-union tradition. Was this director Martin Ritt having a private joke shooting it there and did the Alabama film commission know exactly what Ritt was making?The attitudes of the management of the textile mill are pretty typical of Alabama. They want no union no how and no Jewish organizer from New York played by Ron Leibman here is going to change things. Leibman knows he's going to meet cultural resistance so he's got to get a point person among the workers to carry the ball.The person Leibman chooses is Norma Rae played by Sally Field in what turned out to be her first Best Actress Award winning performance. Field is at first glance about as typical as you can get for a textile mill worker. But Field slowly but surely brings out the fact that Norma Rae is a woman who is curious about the world and knows intuitively there's something better out there. The way to get it for herself and her co-workers is to have that union and have some strength in dealing with management.Sally Field's career ever since she left television and Gidget and The Flying Nun had her playing mostly women of a southern rural background, she seems to have taken a patent out on those parts. Right from films like The Way West through the films she did with Burt Reynolds, it seems almost like she was preparing for the parts that got her the Academy Award. I don't think it's a coincidence that her second Oscar for one of the most beautiful films of the Eighties, Places In The Heart is also for a southern woman in a rural setting.Field also gets good support from Beau Bridges whom she finds time to romance and wed while doing all her union organizing and from Pat Hingle playing her father.Besides Field's Oscar for Best Actress, Norma Rae won a second Oscar for Best Song for It Goes Like It Goes which is sung at the opening and closing credits by Jennifer Warnes. Thirty years after Norma Rae was released, I'm almost afraid to say it, but that mill town has probably lost the textile mill to China or to the third world. Hopefully some Norma Raes will emerge in those populations as well.