Cinema: A Tissue of Implications

SILKWOOD Directed by Mike Nichols Screenplay by Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen

In the nine years since her death, it has pleased many people to think of Karen Silkwood as a sort of Joan of Arc of the nuclear age, an ignorant peasant lass who was martyred after she heeded the voice of a developing conscience and dared to point out the lack of adequate safety measures and quality controls in a plutonium-recycling plant where she was employed. This facility was owned by a corporate giant (Kerr-McGee) working under a Government contract, and Silkwood...