Sissy Spacek and The Biopic | 1981

by now the pattern is familiar a trailers released celebrity is dead celebrity they go on a press tour this person is iconic how did you prepare for this role you know I really dove into their work I wanted to learn everything about her the movie comes out we see it and we judge how successfully the actor meets our preconceived idea of that other celebrity wow you know it's uncanny it's almost like it really was Elton John up there you know what I'm talking about it just seems like there have been a lot of biopics recently like a lot so I thought it'd be worth it to look into the history of the Best Actress Oscar and think about the relationship between real life figures and the women who play them so today we'll go back in time to 1981 when Spacek won an Academy Award for playing real-life country music star Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter the wind forecast trends re biopics in the decades to come don't worry there will be a lot of charts and tells us a lot about how biopics can function within the scheme of an actor's career now Spacek wasn't alone in the Best Actress category that night which oddly included no one from 9 to 5 and as it turns out each woman nominated represents other trends that could teaches a lot about where we are today so before we get to let's run through them I'd like to begin with TV in my 1980 episode I spoke a lot about how Sally Fields was the first star associated with her own TV show to win the Best Actress Oscar in a role based on a real person by the way she opened the door and the next year a few others attempted to walk through [Music] well she never starred in a biopic herself Mary Tyler Moore is the kind of celebrity somebody probably will make a biopic about someday in her roles as Laura Petry in the Dick Van Dyke Show from 1961 to 1966 and as Mary Richards on The Mary Tyler Moore Show from 1971 to 1978 she became indisputably one of the most influential women in television history I will personally always plug both of these shows because they're both lovely and funny but also because they're historically significant many of the conventions we take for granted in sitcoms were pioneered by the Dick Van Dyke Show including Mary's daring decision to challenge the censors and wear pants and more than one scene per episode The Mary Tyler Moore Show a half-hour NEWSROOM sitcom that she produced herself became a symbol of feminism's liberating potential during the height of the women's movement she was confident she never aspired to marriage the show never shamed her for dating around and in fact celebrated her career as a vital part of her life the show won 29 Emmys sustained outstanding ratings and inspired a generation of women to enter the workforce most notably Oprah Winfrey who frankly had the correct reaction to meeting Mary for the first time [Applause] so Mary Tyler Moore was the quintessential television star she had starred in films including Thoroughly Modern Millie with Julie Andrews and change of habit with Elvis Presley but nothing that would match her fame from television still she wanted to try new things so she attempted a variety show which was an unexpected flop and she made news for taking over a man's role in the play whose life is it anyway our Broadway for which she was given a special Tony Award then came ordinary people a drama about a family adjusting to life after the death of one son causes the other son's mental health to decline in the film Mary plays the family matriarch Beth Jarrett a deeply repressed woman who handles her son's death by keeping up strict appearances and rejecting her husband and sons attempts to cope for critics and audiences seeing Mary as Beth was jarring because she differed so vastly from the perfect happy-go-lucky woman that typifies Mary's early career but that was exactly what Mary was looking for if having a career means I have to play the same character for the rest of my life then I would choose not to have a career she told one reporter I don't want to be limited for the rest of my life to being that kind of person forthright upright thoroughly likeable all those perfect qualifications the departure was well received her performances appropriately restrained and tense her more hyperbolic comedic gestures for TV erased for the silver screen but the departure was the conversation her presence had to be explained and rather than extolling her performance most articles spent a lot of ink justifying her casting her success almost became framed as a stroke of the director Robert Redford's intuitive genius rather than a woman fulfilling her potential he essentially cast her on instinct on the idea that this character was like the darkside of Mary Tyler Moore still Mary went on to win the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama ordinary people received six Oscar nominations and won four including Best Director for Robert Redford and Best Picture TV stars had won Oscars before of course but that impulse to explain to actively separate Mary Tyler Moore dramatic actress from Mary Tyler Moore American Sweetheart may have been too much to overcome now she was not the only woman that year who started in TV Goldie Hawn rose to fame in the late 1960s on the sketch comedy show laughing the series made her a star but it also typecast her as a dumb blonde the punchline of sketch after sketch relied on her ignorance or some guy keeping her around for her looks in spite of her empty headedness her film career began with bit parts and comedies but her breakout role came in 1970s cactus flower and was she plays a whimsical naive young woman who seems to reconcile her fiance's relationship with the woman she believes is his ex she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for this film a full ten years before Sally Field did it in the lead category but unlike Sally and Mary she wanted by embracing the characteristics that brought her fame on television it was not a departure but as she continued to hone her craft in romantic comedies and on variety specials then pulse to shed that typecasting continue to grow in Private Benjamin Goldie plays a carefree woman who joins the army on a whim after her husband's death only to discover how difficult service will actually be Goldie who co-produced the film with Nancy Meyers use it as a vehicle to not only display her comedic chops but also to transition into more mature roles Judy Benjamin begins the film as that typical charming yet ditzy character but evolves into a disciplined level-headed woman who smartly turns her back on shady characters her last line serves as a pointed R announcement of that stereotype that had followed Goldie for years don't call me stupid Private Benjamin was a runaway hit the sixth highest-grossing film of the year just behind Coal Miner's Daughter critics praised her work even the notoriously difficult to impress Pauline Kael believed that golde carried the film on her back the opposite of Private Benjamin at the box office was Ellen Burstyn s film resurrection [Music] by 1980 Ellen Burstyn had already racked up four Oscar nominations including a Best Actress win for Alice doesn't live here anymore in 1975 in other words her reputation spoke for itself the Academy didn't have a problem seeing her as Best Actress material but even that reputation couldn't save the bizarre plot and disjointed publicity campaign for resurrection in which she played a woman who gains healing powers after a near-death experience for some critics the concept was too difficult to take seriously and to make matters worse Universal bungled the film's marketing from day one television ads misrepresented the tone of the film so horror fans who had enjoyed Ellen's performance in The Exorcist showed up expecting something scary but got a deeply serious drama instead the New York Times added that research done after the movie's opening weekend show that three separate audiences were misled into theaters by the film's title and left disappointed or furious apparently a group of religious fundamentalists became livid when her character never accepted the power of God and I get it it's called resurrection eventually Universal decided to sell it as a dignified dramatic vehicle but you know it's not going well when one review follows the film's tagline with what does that mean hard to say resurrection never really found an audience and was the worst performing film in the Best Actress category Burstyn bluntly told Rex Reed that Universal became discouraged and gave up on it and response he pointed out that the studio is much more preoccupied with securing wins for its more successful film of the year coal miners daughter if anyone gets not receiving recognition because not enough people saw a film it's Jenna Rowland's she's trying to beat the mob at their own game general ins is the kind of actor whose screen presence is so natural that you can hardly tell when she's improvising and when she's not it's difficult to describe how thoroughly captivating and sensitive her performances are there's a who bare like quality to her if you'd like a contemporary reference she has a ferocious intense honesty about her best use in her collaborations with her husband writer director John Cassavetes together they made ten films of startling psychological intensity including shadows faces and a woman under the influence Cassavetes is considered a pioneer in independent filmmaking he believed that true creative freedom could only occur without studio backing so he and Jenna aim to self-fund as many projects as possible borrowing equipment casting family members shooting in their own home using their salaries from commercial acting and even taking out mortgages to supplement their films budgets we made it first to like it ourselves then hopefully somebody else will like it you know if they do if they don't if we sell it if we don't we've made it our fun is in the in making the picture not in in in the glories that come from making the picture when I'm making it for the kite glori's aside the freedom they craved had consequences films now recognized as classics sometimes failed to gain traction due to a lack of promotion and distribution 1977's opening night for example opened in just one theater despite the fact that Jena won Best Actress for it at the Berlin International Film Festival as a result Jena never really achieved the superstar status critics acknowledged she could have had given her talent she was never a tabloid favorite rarely graced magazine covers and never really traveled the late-night circuit her fame rested solely on her work and to be fair it seems that's exactly how she wanted it in Gloria Jena plays the girlfriend of a mobster who must keep a little boys safe after his family is killed Gloria stands apart in Cassavetes filmography because it was done for a studio Colombia it had a four million dollar budget a large professional crew and a strictly enforced sequential shooting schedule as Matthew thrift wrote for BFI while the production went by smoothly enough Columbia sat on the film for almost a year convinced it wouldn't prove profitable enough to market they weren't wrong despite winning Jena the best actress award at the Venice Film Festival the film did middling business it wasn't the best reviewed film in the world but it was accessible so perhaps on coincidental that it was Jenna's first nomination since a woman under the influence being commercial is an important part of winning an Oscar the broader the audience for the movie the more people there are to see it and root for it it costs a lot of money to be seen by a lot of people and most studios won't invest in something they aren't sure will yield a worthwhile return knowing this it's even more incredible to consider SpaceX rise to stardom which toed a very specific line between commercial and auteur cinema consider how this article from 1976 begins Spacek has played every weirdo in the book just these past few months dubbed Spacek season by movie buffs she's played the spooky teenager with telekinesis and carry a spaced out made in welcome to LA and a drab girl who assumed her roommates personality in three women all in all a funny way to arrive at success and it's true as eileen me in and ellen roarton wrote in sex and money feminism and political economy in the media Spacek broke the mold of the prototypical ingenue by negotiating the space between experimental projects and the more traditional genre based films since her breakout role in 1973's Badlands she took on brooding character studies of losers and misfits that clashed with her country charm and innocent enthusiasm film after film she worked with some of the best directors of the decade to portray some kind of corruptive transformation from innocent teenage girl twirling a baton to criminal complicit in a murder spree from bullied quiet girl to telekinetic nightmare seeking revenge the result launched her to major stardom in 1977 she graced the cover of Newsweek as the face of the new actresses and despite the Academy's well-known aversion to horror films was nominated for best actress for Kari she later won the New York Critics Circle Award for her performance in three women so Cissy established herself as commercially viable in cari critically acclaimed in Badlands and three women and as a risk-taker in pretty much everything and for what it's worth pretty remarkable that these films have all subsequently been listed as not only some of the best of the decade but of American cinema generally but she had yet to find the role to bring everything together and earn her the hardware that by that point she so richly deserved in comes Coal Miner's Daughter Loretta did you have casting approval no I kind of picked Cissy and that was it tell me why what did you never book sissy's not one thing that I know about Spacek I've never seen Myra movies I had never seen her all read about her and I picked her out of a big stack of eight to ten pictures and I said death my men addressed this girl right here Spacek will be the Coal Miner's Daughter it took some coaxing to sign sissy's to the film but after she agreed the rigorous preparation began in interviews surrounding the film's release Cissy described her process I went to three or four of her live concerts she said then when I was at my farm in Virginia I got headphones and listened to tapes of her songs a few at a time and I would sing along with them trying to sound just like Loretta journalists continually praised sissy's perfect imitation of Miss Lynn's Kentucky accent asked her about her relationship with Loretta how she learned to play guitar the pressure she felt to do right by Loretta's fans and her decision to sing rather than lip-synch if any of this sounds familiar it's because as I sort of jokingly suggested at the beginning of this video the prep and press for biopics virtually all follow this pattern for example this shares significant similarities to Renee Zellweger's coverage for Judy recently it's felt like this kind of movie is a dime a dozen and that's because there are we can quantify it by charting the number of nominations per year in which real women are portrayed the upward trajectory becomes clear we're now at a point where you can essentially expect one to two of the best actress nominees to have earned her nomination for a biopic and I imagine that that will be the case again this year of course this requires some nuance for example the favorite isn't a biopic in the traditional sense but does utilize real people as characters but the point is that Studios are increasingly turning to real women to ground the stories they tell and have been for decades I don't mean to suggest that this trend exists because of Coal Miner's Daughter but I do think Coal Miner's Daughter coincided with broader cultural change that has encouraged the making of these films take for example this graph which charts the number of best actress nominees per year based on plays and stage musicals gone are the days of tripping over Tennessee Williams film adaptations Broadway for various reasons doesn't have the same influence on mass culture it used to now movies influence stage and something has to fill the gap by 1980 any adult under age 60 would have grown up with entertainment as an industry meaning nostalgia and the creation of a popular American mythos through film were ripe for exploration consider that 1980 also saw the election of our first pop-culture president as far as studios are concerned biopics are a pretty safe bet artists and entertainers have built-in audiences that are easy to attract or at least to inspire some curiosity studios can be selective to appear timely or use as a character study vehicle for an award season boost as far as the Oscars are concerned biopics are useful in that it is much much easier to measure an actor's effort and attention to detail when the performance has a metric for comparison which is especially important in a subjective contest we know if Loretta Lynn's accent sounds wrong we know how Freddie Mercury struts onstage if you got that wrong you did a bad job so many reviews essentially boil down to the same question how accurately does this actor mimic the subject of course this is not true of every role based on a real person not many people know enough about Lee Israel for it to matter if melissa mccarthy can nail her mannerisms and Nicole Kidman's golden hours was not to find the perfect Virginia Woolf impression but in both cases the desire to witness the transformation was there Tom's shown observed in the Guardian that this has begun to affect how we think about and judge acting in general we talk of an actor disappearing into a role nowadays it's more like high-end animatronics and as such part of the much larger movement during the last 30 years away from naturalism and toward an emphasis on performance as physical transformation and immersion there is also the sad truth that these films have reflected the bias see so deeply embedded in our culture it comes as no surprise that the most common jobs for women in biopics our wives moms queens there are more nuns than scientists and more entertainers than anything else which makes sense given that it's the one field where women have consistently reached national prominence historically speaking compare that to biopics nominated for Best Actor where political leaders businessmen athletes journalists and even gangsters join the entertainers for top jobs men received the biopic treatment more frequently than women do and now average around two to three nominations per year for Best Actor again something we should anticipate this year as well these biases also cross racial lines just as many men have been nominated for Best Actor for playing boxers as women of color have been nominated for Best Actress playing any real woman total Meryl Streep alone has double the number of nominations for playing real women than women of color half total when a film is Greenland is an explicit endorsement of the subjects importance the history of the genre plainly reflects a country and an industry all too willing to deprioritize stories about women of color this is slowly beginning to change but it's a good reminder to buy tickets that support the kind of storytelling you want to see even coal miners daughter can show us why the film earned 67 million dollars at the box office placing it among the top 10 films of the year and according to Rolling Stone the film's success also led to a revival in the popularity of Patsy Cline's music and to the 1985 release of the Cline biopic sweet dreams starring Jessica Lange there is a through line to be drawn and the power of the purse is at the center of coalminers daughter was financially and critically successful it was nominated for seven Oscars and Cissy was praised for what else accurately capturing Loretta in a way the film is a departure for her because it was extremely accessible by equally appealing to members of the Academy and the average viewer it was also a departure by giving her character agency though Loretta begins as an innocent as many of sissies characters do she is not corrupted by her environment she becomes empowered and by the end clearly articulates her wants and needs the film shifted Cissy star persona from the brooding misfits of the 1970s to the all-american country girl of the 1980s a decade in which she received three additional Best Actress Oscar nominations for her and for many actors after her the biopic lent credibility prominence a confirmation of a certain type of skill for better or worse this format is here to stay everyone's route to Oscar is unique TV Indies yeah certain trends exist so next time you see a big-budget biopic that comes out and your first impulse is boo she wants an Oscar at least you now have some context for how and why that thought comes to mind [Music]

Channel: Be Kind Rewind

Views: 191,321

Rating: 4.9448047 out of 5

Keywords: sissy spacek, coal miner's daughter, loretta lynn, mary tyler moore, ordinary people, goldie hawn, private benjamin, ellen burstyn, resurrection, gloria, gena rowlands, john cassavetes, academy awards, best actress, oscars, best actress oscar, biopic, 1980, 1981

Id: QbCW_Kwfhcs

Length: 21min 23sec (1283 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 02 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Gattsu2000]

I love Sissy Spacek so much. One of my favorite actresses of all time.