Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 1980

The Contenders:

Sissy Spacek: Coal Miner’s Daughter (winner)
Gena Rowlands: Gloria
Mary Tyler Moore: Ordinary People
Goldie Hawn: Private Benjamin
Ellen Burstyn: Resurrection

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 1980

The Contenders:

Breaker Morant
Coal Miner’s Daughter
The Elephant Man
Ordinary People (winner)
The Stunt Man

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1980

The Contenders:

Coal Miner’s Daughter
The Elephant Man
Ordinary People (winner)
Raging Bull
Tess

Butcher Holler

Film: Coal Miner’s Daughter
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

I come to the penultimate Best Picture of the 1980s with some measure of trepidation. The actual story of Loretta Lynn, depicted here with some measure of accuracy, is almost legend. Loretta Lynn was a mother at 15 or so (the legend says 13) and a grandmother at 29. Knowing that, knowing that this was going to start with her being a child bride left me with a great feeling of unease. And, true to form, there’s a very strong child molestation vibe in the first half hour of this film that it’s difficult to get away from.

This is because we don’t start with Loretta Lynn and we aren’t going to experience this in some sort of flashback. No, we start with young Loretta Webb (Sissy Spacek), just shy of turning 14, living in a houseful of her brothers and sisters. It’s hardly a shock, based on the title, that her father Ted (Levon Helm) works in a coal mine while his wife Clary (Phyllis Boyens) raises the massive brood of children. She soon meets Oliver “Doolittle” Lynn (Tommy Lee Jones).