7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 3.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A young single mother and textile worker agrees to help unionize her mill despite the problems and dangers involved.
Starring: Sally Field, Beau Bridges, Ron Leibman, Pat Hingle, Barbara BaxleyDrama | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
Spanish: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
French: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
Italian: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
English SDH, French, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Dutch
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Lots of people probably rolled their eyes when Sally Field was announced as the star of Norma Rae, Martin Ritt’s 1979 film about a blue collar union activist in the Deep South. Sally Field? In 1979, Field was hardly the celebrated actress she is today. Sure, she had proven her acting bona fides in the television movie Sybil, but for many she was still Gidget or, even more problematically, The Flying Nun. Field had appeared in several big screen efforts, going back as far as 1967’s The Way West and continuing on through films like 1976’s Stay Hungry, but in the seventies her theatrical films were mostly less than stellar outings with her then main squeeze Burt Reynolds, though it’s perhaps somewhat humorous to note that Field’s other 1979 film was that all time classic Beyond the Poseidon Adventure. But Field turned out to be a major revelation in Norma Rae, delivering a wonderfully sweet but steely performance that ended up winning her the first of her two Best Actress Academy Awards. Norma Rae was in a way Field’s coming out party as a major actress, and it remains as one of the highlights in what is now Field’s storied and much accoladed career. The film bears the unmistakable stamp of director Ritt, a man who was never shy about his left leaning proclivities, as I discussed in our review of Conrack. Norma Rae in fact shares some other connections to Ritt’s 1974 film starring Jon Voigt, including the fact that both films were written by married scenarists Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr. But both films also portray some of the incipient struggles that southerners confront in the face of a structured (and stricture filled) society that attempts to keep some people in their “proper” place.
Norma Rae is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Norma Rae is not a "pretty" film, intentionally so. Ritt and cinematographer John A. Alonzo emphasis the grimy, gritty and awfully drab lives that the mill workers face day in and day out, and that results in imagery that is pretty much devoid of any significant "pop". The overall look of this transfer is a bit on the soft side, and while contrast is very strong and consistent, the many dark scenes in the film are lacking significant shadow detail and in fact in a couple of instances are almost too dark to really see (the best example of this is the truck scene with Norma Rae, Sonny and Reuben after they meet in the bar, where Norma Rae has to get out to vomit—maybe it's a good thing that hardly anything can be made out). While not especially vivid, colors are accurate looking and well saturated. Despite the rather dark ambience of much of the film, there are no compression artifacts in evidence. The transfer retains a naturally organic look, and there is also no sign of artificial sharpening.
Norma Rae's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track retains generally good fidelity, though highly attuned listeners will hear just a hint of distortion in the lower midrange, something that is minimally apparent in the literally deafening confines of the mill scenes, as well as perhaps a bit more unfortunately in the opening credits' rendition of the Oscar winning "It Goes Like It Goes"). This is admittedly a very miniscule problem, and one that does not noticeably affect the film's dialogue, which comes through cleanly and clearly.
Norma Rae reputation rightly rests largely on the small but steady shoulders of Sally Field, who anchors this film with equal parts grit and heart. The film itself has a few problems with plotting and structure, but nothing that can ultimately detract from the power of the central performances. Ritt's intentions are completely clear from the get go here, and those who find the union ethos anathema may not cotton (sorry) to the film's central thesis, but even those on the management side of this particular issue may secretly be rooting for Norma Rae and her cohorts as the film careens toward its moving climax. Highly recommended.
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