"Silkwood" airing on TCM on Sunday at 5:15am ET - Link to trailer

[Bozita]

Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KGmkaoIbQo


Silkwood
Movies / Roger Ebert / December 14, 1983

When the Karen Silkwood story was first being talked about as a movie project, I pictured it as an angry political expose, maybe "The China Syndrome, Part 2." There'd be the noble, young nuclear worker, the evil conglomerate, and, looming above, the death's-head of a mushroom cloud. That could have been a good movie, but predictable. Mike Nichols' "Silkwood" is not predictable. That's because he's not telling the story of a conspiracy, he's telling the story of a human life. There are villains in his story, but none with motives we can't understand. After Karen is dead and the movie is over, we realize this is a lot more movie than perhaps we were expecting.

"Silkwood" is the story of some American workers. They happen to work in a Kerr-McGee nuclear plant in Oklahoma, making plutonium fuel rods for nuclear reactors. But they could just as easily be working in a Southern textile mill (there are echoes of "Norma Rae"), or on an assembly line, or for the Chicago public schools. The movie isn't about plutonium, it's about the American working class. Its villains aren't monsters; they're organization men, labor union hotshots and people afraid of losing their jobs.

As the movie opens, Karen Silkwood fits naturally into this world, and the movie is the story of how she begins to stand out, how she becomes an individual, thinks for herself and is punished for her freedom. Silkwood is played by Meryl Streep, in another of her great performances, and there's a tiny detail in the first moments of the movie that reveals how completely Streep has thought through the role. Silkwood walks into the factory, punches her time card, automatically looks at her own wristwatch, and then shakes her wrist: It's a self-winding watch, I guess. That little shake of the wrist is an actor's choice. There are a lot of them in this movie, all almost as invisible as the first one; little by little, Streep and her co-actors build characters so convincing that we become witnesses instead of moviegoers.

The nuclear plant in the film is behind on an important contract. People are working overtime and corners are being cut. A series of small incidents convince Karen Silkwood that the compromises are dangerous, that the health of the workers is being needlessly risked, and that the company is turning its back on the falsification of safety and workmanship tests.

more at: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19831214/REVIEWS/312140302/1023




Academy Award for Best Actress (Meryl Streep, nominee)
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (Cher, nominee)
Academy Award for Best Director (Mike Nichols, nominee)
Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen, nominees)
Academy Award for Best Film Editing (Sam O'Steen, nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Meryl Streep, nominee)
BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Cher, nominee)
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture (Cher, winner)
Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama (nominee)
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama (Meryl Streep, nominee)
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture (Kurt Russell, nominee)
Golden Globe Award for Best Director (Mike Nichols, nominee)
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress (Meryl Streep, winner)
Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay (Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen, nominees)

[orleans]

1. it's a great movie. n/t

[jillan]

2. THANK you - going to set up my DVR now. Love that movie.

[Iris]

3. kick

[formercia]

4. Those of you who wached the movie.

If you remember the character who was First Nations and one of Silkwoods co-workers?

I spent the afternoon with the real co-worker talking about the Kerr-McGee Cimarron facility. It is located right next to the Cimarron river near Crescent OK.
He was telling me that the facility was so lax that they would take handfulls of defective Plutonium fuel pellets outside with them on lunch break and use them as slingshot ammunition to shoot at Seagulls. The bottom of the Cimarron river is contaminated with thousands of the pellets, let alone the fact that they were eating lunch at the same time they were handling the pellets with their bare hands.


n about 1965 Kerr-McGee started producing uranium fuel at its Cimarron Fuel Fabrication Site. This was located near the Cimarron River and Crescent, Oklahoma. From 1973-1975 it would also produce mixed Plutonium-Uranium Oxide (MOX) 'driver fuel pins' for use in the Fast Flux Test Facility at the Hanford Site in Washington State. The plant shut down in 1976.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerr-McGee

[Mnemosyne]

5. What a nightmare. Did he mention hearing of any cancers from the radiation?

'Silkwood' helped me to understand how much the odds are stacked against any whistle-blowers. No wonder the media tries to demonize them.

[formercia]

6. The plant closed down in 1976

I spoke with him in 1979. He didn't mention any, but it can take many years for the cancers to show. I had not spoken with him since.

My thinking is that there are undoubtedly some. especially anyone who inadvertently ingested Plutonium. It's scary.

[Mnemosyne]

15. I've no doubt some became very ill over the years. I wonder if anyone tracked them.

Think I'll do a bit of research and see what comes up.

Thanks for sharing.

[formercia]

16. You're welcome.

I think there are regulations that require it. The ironic thing is that the areas where the weapons are maintained and stored have an extremely low background count. Even the concrete used to build the facilities is specially formulated, so that, in the event of a contamination incident, every trace can be located and decontaminated.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

9. About 20 yrs ago

I got a box of stuff from one of my dad's sisters that included some things from my dad's funeral in 1963
One was a little card from some flowers that had been sent from Kerr-McGee
Dad was from the Cushing/Drumright area and the plant Karen Silkwood worked at was over near Guthrie and I don't know who sent the flowers, but I think one of my uncles may have worked at a different facility
Kinda gave me a start tho when I saw it
I'll record the movie in case I don't wake up in time (early riser)

[formercia]

10. They had a plant west of Edmond as well

I interviewed for a tech job there but declined when I saw what I had to do. It was working in an enclosed booth, grinding up Uranium samples for testing. Everything in there was covered with a thick film of Yellow Cake (Uranium Oxide). I couldn't get out of there fast enough.
Ruthless Bastards.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

14. I found this by typing Kerr McGee Cushing

Kerr McGee used part of the former Cushing Refinery Site from 1962 through 1966 to process natural thorium and natural, depleted, and enriched uranium under two Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) licenses. The site was decommissioned and the licenses terminated in 1966. Contamination on-site resulted from the disposal and spraying of contaminated solid and liquid waste on portions of the site during operations, and the burial of wastes during decommissioning.

[niyad]

7. thank you for letting us know. will definitely watch it again.

interesting that we were just talking here on DU a few days ago about "silkwood" and "norma rae" and how all the stations should be running them.

[Ilsa]

8. I'm not at home, but i used my iphone to tell my DVR to record it for me.

I saw the movie in 1984, IIRC, and it was intense and excellent. Cher was awesome, as was Streep.

[BlueIris]

11. I watched it in 2007 and thought it was great.

Also very scary and sad.

[H2O Man]

12. Thanks for

the heads-up.

Definitely recommended -- the OP and watching this important movie.

[Bozita]

13. Please keep this thread kicked.

[Iwillnevergiveup]

17. K&R

for Meryl Streep on Oscar day.