September 29, 2005

Criticizing movies is somewhat of an isolationist's job. You sit in the dark and you offer an opinion, more often than not with little more than the history of the filmmakers as an extended reference point.

During the Toronto Film Festival, I gave a mixed positive review to North Country. I wrote, "Half of North Country feels like a really great movie." My primary trouble with the film was that there was a lot of completely irrelevant, though beautiful, scenery, and it seemed that the film was a little compressed, especially with the Frances McDormand character, whose character develops ALS in the second act.

"In the second act…"

I've gotten two e-mails this week from family members of the real life person of whom McDormand plays a slightly fictionalized version. Her name was Pat Doyle Kosmach and she was one of the heroes of the real story of the first sexual harassment case in America. She passed away in 1994 and, according to a report in The Washington Post, her wish for the disposal of her remains was honored. Her ashes were thrown out of a plane over the Eveleth Taconite Mine that she, Lois Jenson (aka, the Charlize Theron character), and 19 other women sued for harassment.

 

(A spoiler that will not shock most people who are watching the film but does disclose a life changing event in the life of a major character follows.)

 

Both e-mails were upset with my comments about their family member… though my comments were about the character in the movie. As I wrote in the review, Frances McDormand is always great and her work here is beyond reproach. But I felt that the presentation of this character was reduced to a less complex part of the story than it seems she really was. It was six years between the time the real-life Ms. Kosmach signed onto the class action harassment suit and her passing. Generally, movies are not good at dealing with long stretches of time. And the demands of a movie narrative, in my opinion, cost the film a bit of weight, particularly in the case of Ms. Kosmach.

The real life trial was far more harrowing than portrayed in the film, which acknowledges being a fictionalized account. It was almost three and a half years between filing the case and a judge allowing the case to proceed at all. A year and a half later, it was determined that the mine should have made an effort to prevent the harassment… which then started the damages phase. By that time Jenson has stopped working at the mine because of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Kosmach was in the advanced stages of ALS. It was then, five years after the initial filing, that the real harassment began as the lawyers for the mines started investigating the sex lives and other vulnerabilities of the plaintiffs. Ms. Kosmach's brother describes an interrogation made in which his sister could only answer invasive questions by blinking once or twice.

By the time awards were suggested by a retired federal magistrate of just an average od $10,000 per woman, Ms. Kosmach had passed away. As a result of her passing, the magistrate disallowed her claim and did not allow her estate to be paid. The happier ending for some is that nine months later, the Eight Circuit Court Of Appeals reversed the small awards and set a jury trial for damages.

The group of plaintiffs had grown over the years to twenty-three. Ms. Kosmach was taken out of the case. Four of the remaining plaintiffs dropped out soon after the jury trial was set to avoid going through more years of harassing layers' questions. Three more later settled for an undisclosed amount. Finally, about a year later, fifteen of the twenty-one plaintiffs settled for about $250,000 each just before the trial was due to start.

Ms. Kosmach is not the only victim whose suffering went beyond the trial… and, in her case, beyond her death, to continue to impact her family. Don't expect Lois Jenson to turn up on the awards circuit in support of the film, as Paul Rusesabagina did for Hotel Rwanda last year.

Minnesota Public Radio spoke to Ms. Jenson and other plaintiffs in January as the film was shooting on location:

"The woman who started the lawsuit -- Lois Jenson - isn't pleased. She declined to talk on tape. But she says the book is full of inaccuracies, and ignores the men who did help her. Jenson says she wishes the movie weren't being made on the Iron Range, because it's raking up a lot of old pain.

She says she and the other women who worked at Evtac were hurt first by the harassment in the mine. They were hurt again when they were asked humiliating personal questions in court. She says the book caused more pain. And now, she expects the same from the movie."

In 1997, she told the Minnesota City Pages, ""My doctors told me that I'll probably never work again."

Perhaps she will soften her feelings as time passes. After all, the movie has clearly been made with the very best intentions. And Ms. Theron's work in the role is more-than-a-little-possible to draw a Best Actress nomination.

It would be a great idea for Warner Bros. to offer some sort of fiscal support for efforts to change things in Minnesota's Iron Range area. According to a number of people, things haven't changed as much as we'd like to believe out here in Hollywood. "If you ever spent time up there, you would know that to this day women are still treated that way. Yes, it's still happening today!!"

I find all of this interesting and sad and it does make me want to revisit the film again, which I expect to do soon. But this is not a film I disliked in the first place. I just wished it had taken more time with some things and less time with other things.

But when that e-mail hits the inbox, The Guilt Of The Blithe comes quickly upon me. What did I write? Was I less than generous? Was I inadvertently hostile to someone who is real… who has a real family… who didn't ask to be drawn into my line of vision?

I wasn't even critical of Ms. McDormand's performance, but by questioning whether her ALS in the movie was given so little time that it felt false to me it seems that it felt to family like I was somehow doubting the history of Ms. Kosmach. I wasn't.

I fell into a similar situation a couple of years ago with a tough review of Atom Egoyan's Ararat, which was about the Armenian genocide. In that case, I was a little too clever for my own good. But I never questioned the validity of the existence of the genocide. But dozens of letters that came in didn't seem to feel that way. I felt the movie was bad, but they felt I was saying that their pain was not valid.

Fortunately, this has come up less than once a year. But when it does, it is draining. Some of the people who feel bad about my occasionally abrasive style are really thin-skinned. But these people are defending their lives. And when you realize that you are touching them directly, you have to spend a bit of time looking into the mirror, reexamining your choices one more time, a little closer than the last time.

If you'd like to read a bit more on the subject o this suit, you can buy the book, "Class Action," which some of those involved seem to feel has some holes in it or you can read this 1996 Washington Post story, available here as a pdf file. There is also a timeline on the case here.

E-ME.