Women's Work - Thursday Noon Videos for March

This March, the Art, Music and Recreation Department will sponsor the library’s noon film program with a series of movies exploring strong women and the idea of ‘Women’s Work.’  Half the films in this series are fictional and half are "based on a truestory."  All portray characters attempting to break from traditional gender work roles.

In The Help (March 7), a white southern college graduate in the 1960s makes her way into the field of journalism by writing an expose on the lives and aspirations of her community’s hard-working, African-American women.

Coal Miner’s Daughter (March 14) explores Loretta Lynn’s ascent from the traditional role of wife and mother in 1950s rural Kentucky to that of a hugely famous country singer.

Set in the early 1900s, The Songcatcher (March 21) follows musicologist Dr. Lily Penleric as she leaves her university post after being denied promotion and heads to Appalachia where she discovers a wealth of 17th century English ballads still being sung.

Finally, the last film in the series is set in California in the 1990s. Erin Brockovich (March 28) tells the story of a legal file clerk and working single-mother of three, who helps win a 300 million dollar direct action lawsuit against Pacific Gas and Electric.

Each film in the series offers a great story as well as excellent performances by their female leads, as evidenced by their Oscar award nominations. The Help’s Octavia Spencer won Oscar in 2012 for Best Supporting Actress. Other nominations for the same film include Viola Davis for Best Leading Actress, Jessica Chastain for Best Supporting Actress, and the film for Motion Picture of the Year. Both Sissy Spacek (1980) and Julia Roberts (2001) won Best Leading Actress Oscars for their respective work in the Best Picture-nominated films Coal Miner’s Daughter and Erin Brockovich.  While Songcatcher was not nominated for Oscars it was nominated for awards at Sundance and its leading actress, Janet McTeer, has been nominated for twice for Best Actress Oscars in other works.

Our Thursday noon videos are shown in the Koret Auditorium on the Lower Level of the Main Library.  All Library programs are free and open to the public.

To learn more about each film, please visit the links below. In general, books on acting, film shooting scripts and song books are located in the Art, Music and Recreation Center on the 4th floor. Audio CDs, including motion picture soundtracks, are located on the 1st floor in the AV Center.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2009) - is the novel the film is based upon.

Honky Tonk Girl: My Life In Lyrics by Loretta Lynn (A.A. Knopf, 2012).

Loretta Lynn: Coal Miner's Daughter by Loretta Lynn with George Vecsey (Vintage Books, 2010) - the memoir that the film is based upon.

Still Woman Enough: A Memoir by Loretta Lynn with Patsi Bale Cox (Hyperion, 2002).

The Music Hunter, The Autobiography of a Career, by Laura Boulton (Doubleday, 1969) - a memoir by a real song catcher.

A Song Catcher In Southern Mountains; American Folk Songs of British Ancestry by Dorothy Scarborough (Columbia University press, 1937).

The Ballad Collectors of North America: How Gathering Folksongs Transformed Academic Thought and American Identity, edited by Scott B. Spencer (Scarecrow Press, 2012).

Singing Family of the Cumberlands, by Jean Ritchie, illustrated by Maurice Sendak (Oxford University Press, 1955). 

Erin Brockovich : the shooting script, screenplay and introduction written by Susannah Grant (Newmarket Press, 2000).