Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980)
Universal DVD (region 2, 4)
d. Michael Apted; pr. Bernard Schwartz; scr. Thomas Rickman; autobio. Loretta Lynn; ph. Ralph D. Bode; ed. Arthur Schmidt; cast. Sissy Spacek, Tommy Lee Jones, Beverly D'Angelo, Levon Helm, Phyllis Boyens, William Sanderson (125 mins)
Michael Apted’s film of Coal Miner’s Daughter is one of the more acclaimed of showbiz biographical movies, covering as it does the life and career of country and western singer / superstar Loretta Lynn. Lynn herself had much creative control over the project and was reportedly intent to keep the film realistic and relatively unglamorous: to be truthful even in the more revealing moments. For that task British director Apted was well suited: he had a well-regarded background in television and documentary and had begun to make features, soon venturing to America. Indeed, much of his subsequent career would be within American film. Yet, his British series of films initiated by 7 Up and continuing one film episode every seven years has become one of the most acclaimed of experimental documentary film series ever, dedicated to charting the differences in a group of people at intervals in their ageing. In this series of main concern to Apted was the idea of just how much of the child was present in the adult. It was thus this idea that Apted brought to the Loretta Lynn story, in the process giving actress Sissy Spacek one of her most acclaimed roles (for which she would win an Academy Award) and furthering her status as one of the most important actresses of her generation. Spacek had faith in the material and in her dedication to the part actually sang the numerous Loretta Lynn songs featured in the film.
The film begins just after World War Two in a poor coal-mining town in Kentucky. Loretta Lynn (Spacek) is the eldest daughter, at fourteen, in a large family headed by her coal mining father. She becomes enamoured of a hotshot ex-soldier (Tommy Lee Jones) who returns home following the war, even though her father considers him rather wild. Jones and Spacek intend to marry and eventually the reluctant father gives something approaching his consent. Soon there are troubles within the marriage and Jones in particular begins to wonder what he has gotten himself into by marrying a teenager (still legally a child?). However, they reconcile and start a family. When Jones gives Lynn a guitar as a gift she learns to play over time and entertains herself by singing to her kids. Jones is so impressed that he believes she can be a professional singer. He invests what little money he has in order to record a single and the two of them drive throughout the state promoting it at any small radio station along the way. Persistence pays off and soon they have a hit record. Now the road to success opens for Spacek as she makes her way to the Grand Ole Opry and becomes a country and western sensation, making friends and touring with her mentor Patsy Cline (Beverly D’Angelo, who also sings the songs featured). Jones must now adjust to his wife’s independence and the fact that he has a seemingly secondary role. read more