21 “Norma Rae” and “Silkwood” from In Conversation with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]

Transcript:

Rosanne: I love a movie like “Norma Rae.” I think “Norma Rae.” is an excellently written film and that’s Harriet Frank, Jr. and Ivan (Ravetch) her husband. They were a married writing team. That’s a quite perfect film and Sally Field does a perfect job and it’s it’s so raw and honest but I like “Silkwood”, too and that’s by Nora Ephron. More whistleblower than union representative.

Host: Okay I don’t I’ve seen that one. No. Now i don’t think so no.

Rosanne: Yeah. Well you know you can’t find it streaming now. There’s some issue with whatever studio eventually owned it or the music rights to it. It’s Meryl Streep and Kurt Russell. Karen Silkwood was – worked in a nuclear power plant in the late 70s and she found them cutting corners that were dangerous and she was on her way to meet a New York Times reporter with paperwork showing what side cuts they were taking which would make things dangerous and her car unexplainably ran off the road, crashed into a tree, and she died and there were no papers found in her car when they found the body. So it’s always been a mystery but her and Kurt Russell are a couple and he works at the plant and Cher – it’s one of Cher’s early films and she got nominated for supporting actress Oscar but she didn’t win but it’s just a really well-written piece about this woman who’s kind of a goof-off but she has to get serious when she realizes this is bigger than her. It’s bigger than just I don’t want to be an unsafe place but what could happen if kind of thing. So that’s a really good movie. Nora Ephron.