Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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in touchi By David Baker Ent?rtalnm*nt Editor Perhaps it's because I'm from Greenville, the self-proclaimed textile capital of the world, that I can see the degree of excellence that is achieved by almost every facet of Martin Ritt's Norma Rae. Almost every person in the film, which takes place in a small mill town in Alabama, looks and acts like the people I see every weekend when I go home. "One nf the ma&nn fact that Ritt never The people in the film, like those in Greenville, are hard working people who sweat to make their livings in mills where the working conditions are all but intolerable. They care more for the people they love than for the trappings of wealth and the people who manage the mills use that fact to keep these people in their so-called places. Unions have been slow to in-filtrate the mills in Greenville, as you probably know from recent newspaper ^articles about the Field causes trc Poor direction kills 'Requiem for a nun' I eld outsti ing'Norn skirmishes between the Amalgamated Clothing & Textile Workers Union and the J.P. Stevens Company, and as Norma Rae begins, we see that unions have had little success getting started in Alabama, too. The opening scenes of the film introduce us to Norma Rae, her parents, her children, her friends and her lover, whom we find out is just the latest in a long string of "men friends." s that the film is so s tries to show Normi Norma Rae works in the u/OQ\;inrt rnnm n< (ho fl D llonlov ff T I \/Vlll VI Ul^ V/<1 IlCHItJ cotton mill, as do most of the people in the imaginary Alabama town. The work is hard, the hours are long and the pay is low, but it's the only job in town for people without a good education. Still, Norma Rae has long been a thorn in the side of the mill's management ? lobbying for more time on lunch breaks and for sanitary napkin machines in the ladies' rooms ? and now she's at it >uhle at the mill By Henry Gamecock St The work of William Faulkner is n any struggling English major will z adapt it for the stage is a debatable ot I heater and Speech has attempt* tation of Requiem for a Nun this pa mixed. Requiem, a curious tide which, lil its share of sex and violence, is inge play alternating with sections of f Friday night, readings from the pros< before any of the action on stage occi voice of an unseen Orin Anderson c thouse in Jefferson, Mississippi. Unfortunately, this device did not v the mood for the play itself, tended in it. What should have been an absorbii hired by a white couple to take care killing the couple's six months-old b level drama as the lawyer defending mother of the child to find out tli somehow missed the mark. This wa: readings were partly responsible ir suspense that should have carried ovi This inadequacy was certainly n snapped and crackled in its humor ai should shoulder some of the blame ii inding \abiae again ? complaining this time about her mother's temporary loss of hearing, which the doctor says was caused by the excessive noise in the mill. What really pains Norma Rae, though, is the lack of interest management shows in her mother's plight. Into Norma Rae's less-thanenviable life, as well as the lives of the other mill workers, comes Reuben Warshovsky, a Jewish lawyer from New York who is bent uccessful ... is the a Rae as a saint." on organizing the workers and demanding a better life for them. He hands out leaflets at the mill's gate and posts notices inside in an attempt to get the workers to respond. Norma Rae is the first to be won over. The remainder of the film details Norma Rae's defiant struggle to Knl?\ D/\tiKnn rtrxt fU/\ iicij; licuuuii gci uic uiiiuu vuicu lit as well as her valient attempts to regain her self-respect. Interwoven into these story lines are scenes depicting the fondness that evolves between Norma Rae and her Yankee mentor and of Norma Rae's second marriage to her childhood friend Sonny. "Field gives th /'n/^ c* I n i o / VCT OC7C7II 01110*7 LSI C2 One of the reasons that the film is so successful in pulling these angles together is the fact that Ritt never tries to show Norma Rae as a saint. He shows her just as one might expect an uneducated, widowed mill worker to be ? hardened, bitter, a little bit promiscuous and quite a bit confused. By portraying her as a normal human being, Ritt makes Green laff Writer 01 me easiest literature to read, as ittest. Whether it is any easier to question, but the USC Department id to do just that with the presenist Friday night. The results were ce other Faulkner works, contains inious in that it consists of a stage >rose fiction. In the presentation 5 sections accompanied each act ? nrred. The audience listened to the lescribing, for example, the courvork. The readings, intended to set ~ ^1:^,4 4 4 I 1! f aitrau iu uimi etui wit; iiuuiciicu iroiii ig story of a black prostitute who is of their children and who ends up iaby, what should have been high; the black woman interrogates the ic circumstances of the murder, s true at least in the first half. The i that they broke the tension and er from act to act. lot the fault of the script, which id its charged dialogue. The actors i that they did not do justice to the .i.SgMmm llf BP ^fa/Zy Field sU her story into one of the mo memorable and touching movi< that I have ever seen. It is easi one 01 me year s Dest. Of course, Ritt can't be given ? the credit, for without Sally Fie in the title role, Norma Rae cou just as easily have been a flop. Field gives the most stunning natural performance I've se< since Diane Keaton stole hearts Annie Hall. She has taken tl horny Southern belle that she e most stunningly ne Keaton stole hea beautifully brought to the screen Stay Hungry and loving manipulated it into what w probably be remembered as t performance that made her a fu fledged star. Next year's Osc race for the Best Actress awa begins and ends with her stell portrayal. In support, Ron Liebman Reuben, Beau Bridges as Sonr cnrinf urtfh thoir ruirfnrmonnD TM OV.1 ipi Willi lll^U pV/1 l\/i 111U1IVV. A I opening scenes, but the worst offe Downing, who, with his overac downright putrid. In Friday night's performance actors (we assume that these we overboard on their natural accent sounds incredibly phony. The j, spreading his drawl as thick as Werkley, though her performanc< the baby, sounded a little too forcc To be sure, the play got better possibly because of the presence Nancy, who murdered the baby, forcefulness to the play that was 1; She also brings to the forefront kind of salvation through our suff end, just before she is hanged fo Lord makes people suffer for theii to get into any more devilment. V may be, whether murder or unf&i being hanged but through our gi freedom. Thus we get the title of the play in rlninrf oa olm twill on Ill VlUlllg 3U sue Will 11I1U ddivdlll title: as a prostitute, Nancy does yet she is a kind of nun all the sain irs as Norma Rae st and Pat Hingle and Barbara Baxley es as Norma Rae's parents, are all ly excellent. Baxley especially should be remembered come award til time. Id On the technical side, John A. Id Alonzo's muted cinematocraDhv perfectly captures the hot, grimy ly details of the insides of the mill and >n David Shire's music heightens the in effect of almost every scene. The He theme song, "It Goes Like It Goes'' so sung by Jennifer Warnes, is the natural performance rts in 'Annie Hall." in perfect way to begin the film as ly well as the perfect way to end it. ill In fact, almost everything in he Norma Rae is perfect. The only ill- thing I found to be bad is its runar ning time. Two hours just isn't rd enough time to spend with ar characters that you like and care for as much as these. S > when you as see it, count on wanting to sit ly, through two showings. lere was some flubbing ot lines in the nse was probably committed by Craig ting, teetered on the brink of being , one thing became clear ? Southern re Southern) should not attempt to go because the product of that attempt | ailor was not alone Friday night in j peanut butter; Ruth Ann Phimister | b was not bad in playing the mother of ?dly moonlight-and-magnolia j after Act One. The tempo picked up, I of Helena .Johnson as the black nurse Miss Johnson adds a vehemence, a i Eicking in the first act. the theme of the play ? that we find a rering. Nancy explains this idea at the r the murder, when she says that the ! r "sins" so that they will not have time ; /e suffer for our sins ? whatever they j thfulness or lying ? not only by way of I jilt for them, but in doing so we find j I ? a nun suffers all of her life, so that m. Here too we have the irony of the anything but fulfill a vow of chastity, ie.