Last night I watched, on Netflix streaming, the movie "Sometimes A Great Notion" (1971) which I first saw as a first year law student in Eugene, after I had gotten back from the Army, at a theater near The Vally River Mall. I actually went with a future U.S. Senator from Oregon and his then girlfriend. Too bad the movie's political point of view of 19th Century rugged individualism did not rub off on him. I loved it 40 years ago and I still love it. I liked it so much 40 years ago I actually saw it several times at the theater before it moved on to TV. The Netflix copy is in very good condition and the cinematography of the Oregon coast is beautiful. The movie is not on DVD and should be !
The movie stars Paul Newman as Hank Stamper; Henry Fonda as Henry Stamper; Lee Remick as Viv Stamper; Michael Sarrazin as Leland Stamper and Richard Jaeckel as Joe Ben Stamper.
Here is Wikipedias description of the Movie:
Sometimes A Great Notion is a 1970 American drama film directed by Paul Newman. The screenplay by John Gay is based on the 1964 novel of the same title by Ken Kesey, the first of his books to be adapted for the screen.
The economic stability of Wakonda, Oregon is threatened when the local logging union calls a strike against a large lumber conglomerate. When independent logger (jippo logger) Hank Stamper (Newman) and his father Henry (Henry Fonda) are urged to support the strikers, they refuse, and the townspeople consider them traitors. Hank struggles to keep the small family business alive and consequently widens the rift between himself and his complacent wife Viv,(Lee Remick) who wants him to put an end to the territorial struggle but is resigned to his doing things as he sees fit. Also complicating matters is Leland Stamper,(Michael Sarrizan) Henry's youngest son and Hank's half-brother, who returns home with a college education and experience in urban living. A heavy drinker, Lee eventually reveals he attempted suicide after his mother killed herself and has been suffering from deep depression ever since. Despite the fact he is uncomfortable living with a family he barely knows, Lee joins forces with them when they are forced to battle both the locals, who have burned their equipment, and the elements, which threaten their efforts to transport their logs downriver.
They filmed much of the movie on the Central Oregon Coast near Lincoln City and in fact the crew stayed at the Salishan Lodge while making the movie. In watching the movie 40 year later I was struck by how much the movie took me back to my youth and growing up on the Oregon Coast in Coos Bay/ North Bend as well as inland in Roseberg, all logging communities back then.It was fun to see actual logging trucks, log rafts, and hear terms like "jippo logger" and "choke setter". I believe in reforestation but the "tree huggers" have ended that way of life here in Oregon. The movie brought it all back!
WARNING SPOILER:
In the late 1960's and 1970's most movies were made from a liberal perspective about "doing your own thing" but this movie is about getting up every day and going to work and honoring your commitments. In the movie near the end the Paul Newman character has just lost his father and his cousin in fatal logging accidents, his wife has left him, the entire community hates him for his anti union stand but he is true to himself, and with the help of his half brother, floats his logs down the river to the mill to honor his commitment under a contract. As he pulls the logs to market he gets his father's arm and hand, which fell off in the logging accident, and mounts it on top of the tug pulling the logs and extends one of the hand's fingers as a gesture to the watching union men and their sympathisers, standing on the river bank, to tell them what he things of them !
My favorite line from the movie is when the Paul Newman character is told his wife is leaving him and he says defiantly:
"I don't tell other people what to do!"
