Most biographical films have a “sticky-sweet taste of Hollywood” in them. They’ve been compressed, cleansed, and rearranged to fit within audience expectations and a two-hour time frame. Not so with A Coal Miner’s Daughter, the life story of country music legend Loretta Lynn. Its successful ability to shrug off the phoniness of Tinseltown, to speak with a rare, unvarnished authenticity, is attributed to its original source, the award-winning performance of the film’s star, and its brutal honesty.
The First Lady of Country Music,” singer and songwriter Loretta Lynn’s myraid country hits and awards as both a solo artist and with singing partner Conway Twitty are laudable. Her rags-to-riches story has inspired many fans. She published her life story in the book A Coal Miner’s Daughter, and in 1980, Lynn’s story hit the big screen in the bio-pic film with the same title.
I’ve never been much of a fan of older country music. My prefered genre of music during my teens was rock and pop: The Beatles and The Who, The Carpenters and The Doors. But Lynn’s powerful, heart-wrenching lyrics can tug at the heart of even the most dyed-in-the-wool fan of rock. Her life’s story, filled with pain and betrayal and hope, is embodied in every song she wrote.
The film A Coal Miner’s Daughter chronicles Lynn’s life as a teenager living in utter poverty, with no electricity or running water, with her family in Butcher Holler in eastern Kentucky: her marriage at 13, her early motherhood (she was a mother of four by age 20, and became a grandmother at age 29), her violent, love/hate marriage to the womanizing and boozing “Doo” Lynn (his nicknames include Doo, Doolittle, and Mooney), and her tenacity and courage to become a country singer. Born in 1935, Lynn’s achievements preceded the Women’s Liberation Movement. The film owes much of its brilliance and authenticity to Lynn’s pull-no-punches biography and the production filming on location in the rural back hills of Kentucky whenever possible.
The casting of Sissy Spacek as the budding country legend was sheer perfection; I cannot imagine any other young film actress in the 1980s who could transform herself so completely and genuinely into the role. Spacek traveled with Lynn on tour prior to filming to get to know the singer and to memorize her speech, gestures, and walk. Donning a big-haired wig and speaking with a backwoods Kentuckian twang, Spacek was able to capture beautifully the naivete and earnestness of the young, uneducated Lynn, and then evolve as she became a successful country performer. Spacek WAS Lynn; she even did her own singing of Lynn’s songs.
Garnering many nominations and awards, Spacek received an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and several critic awards for Best Actress. The film earned a Best Picture Golden Globe.
Tommy Lee Jones was cast in the demanding role of the volatile Doo (in the film, he is called Mooney). As described in Lynn’s memoir, Still Woman Enough: A Memoir, Jones deeply annoyed Lynn’s husband when he, Jones, like Spacek had worked with Lynn, wanted to analyze the speech patterns and physical nuances of his character. Doo, likely feeling jealous or fearful that his country ways would be mocked, ignored or was rude to Jones. Until, that is, when just before filming began, Jones was arrested after going on a drunken spree of moonshine, resulting in him driving wildly along the Kentucky back roads. It was an act of idiocy, the stuff of juicy Hollywood anecdotes. Jones resisted arrest and was hit on the side of his head by local authorities. The studio had to bail him out of jail. Jones’ unrefined, boozing behavior amused Doo, who decided that he liked the Hollywood actor, and decided to cooperate with Jones’ efforts to perfect his portrayal. In her memoir, Still Woman Enough: A Memoir, Lynn wrote, “Doo finally tried to help him, though, even when it was making half nuts. Later, when the Academy Award nominations come out and Tommy Lee wasn’t nominated, Doo was fit to be tied. ‘You ain’t got nobody to blame by yourself, Doo,’ I said. ‘He come to you for help, and you didn’t do nothing until it was too late.” Doo knew it was true, so he didn’t even argue with me about it.'” Jones was nominated for a handful awards for his performance, including a Golden Globe, but did not win any.
The film is gritty and painful, but also inspiring in its portrayal of one woman’s drive to pull herself out of the poverty into which she was born and achieve the “American Dream.” Lynn’s heartache and anger brought on by her disfunctional marriage run deep, but the pain propels her to fight the odds to make a name for herself in the competitive country music business, which was, at that time, comprised almost exclusively with male singers. She brought a new emotional depth (and controversy, as she often tackled taboo subjects about women and relationships) to country music lyrics, as she put herself into many of her songs. Born with an innate talent to communicate in her narrative lyrics her deepest fears, her loves, her anguish as a woman, Lynn’s songs resonated with millions of people.
Lynn’s childhood dream to appear on the Grand Ol’ Opry was achieved swifter than most others who have attempted it. The prevalent sexism of the era was rampant. An exchange in the film between Lynn and country legend Patsy Cline (performed by Beverly d’Angelo), says it all:
Patsy Cline: People are wantin’ to know who you’ve been sleepin’ with to get on the Opry so quick.
Loretta Lynn: Well, I never… who would say such a thing?
Patsy Cline: All those girl singers who’ve been sleepin’ with everybody and still ain’t got on the Opry.
In her 2002 autobiography, Still Woman Enough: A Memoir, her interview with David Kohn at CBS News, and in her 2004 cookbook, You’re Cookin’ It Country: My Favorite Recipes and Memories, Lynn shared many of her heartaches during the early years of her marriage, some of which were not included in the film: Doo left her when she was pregnant, he slept with her brother’s wife, and also he left her alone to deliver their baby son on her own. He drank heavily and as a result, spent her money like drunken sailor. These indignities, while not all portrayed in the film, are what shaped and strenthened Lynn. Had she not become a strong woman who knew what she ultimately wanted out of life, it is unlikely that she could have persevered in the cruel and fickle entertainment world. Her abusive marriage can arguably be attributed, if even partially, to her great success.
Avoiding the sugar-coated schmaltz and predictability that often plagues biographies about financial hardship and overcoming impossible odds, Coal Miner’s Daughter was guided by the masterful hand of British director Michael Apted. Not a well-known name in the United States, his directing accomplishments up until that time were primarily in the UK, and much of that was in television direction.
The film stays true to Lynn’s autobiography, likely because Lynn herself was actively involved in the script adaptation with writer Tom Rickman. Some elements and events, according to Lynn, had to be toned down or removed to prevent the drama from dissolving into melodrama. But Lynn was pleased with the final result, as were her fans and audiences around the world.
Coal Miner’s Daughter is an exceptional film with equally exceptional performances. It has heart and spirit, capturing with authenticity the earlier men-only days (with the then-exception of the successful Patsy Cline) of a sexist country-music world. While I’ve not discarded my old Beatles albums, this film has made me appreciate country music much more than I thought I would. And I now truly love Loretta Lynn.
Links to purchase DVD of Coal Miner’s Daughter:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Deep Discount
Movies Unlimited
Reel.com
Sources:
Award Annals, Coal Miner’s Daughter.
Davidson, Vicki McClure, Frugal Café, “Celebrities’ Recipes, Loretta Lynn’s Bio and Red Bean Salad”
Internet Movie Database, “Coal Miner’s Daughter”.
Kohn, David, CBS News, “Legends: Loretta Lynn Tells All”, December 27, 2002.
Vankin, Jonathan, and John Whalen, Based on a True Story: Fact and Fantasy in 100 Favorite Movies, Chicago Review Press, Chicago, IL, 2005.
Lynn, Loretta, with Patsi Bale Cox, Still Woman Enough: A Memoir, Hyperion Press, NY, NY, 2002.
Lynn, Loretta, You’re Cookin’ It Country: My Favorite Recipes and Memories, Rutledge Hill Press, Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, TN, 2004.
Wikipedia, “Loretta Lynn.”
Reference:
- Lynn, Loretta, with Patsi Bale Cox, Still Woman Enough: A Memoir, Hyperion Press, NY, NY, 2002.
- Wikipedia, “Loretta Lynn.”
- Kohn, David, CBS News, “Legends: Loretta Lynn Tells All”, December 27, 2002.
