The Yearling (at the Clark)

This was the first time I programmed a film I’d never seen, and it was amazingly good. The technicolor landscapes of Florida scrubland certainly earned a spot in this "Hop-Skip-&-Jump Across America: In Search of the Cinematic Landscape" film series, and nicely typified the settler era, between last week’s exploration of aboriginal wilderness (Black Robe) and next week’s complete domestication of the wild (All That Heaven Allows.) Makes nice connection to Louisiana Story too, the middle film in the “Heartland” triad. Will also make for superior back-to-back performances by Jane Wyman, here as the stern but loving mother, hardened by a harsh life but with just a touch of the soft showing through. As the father, Gregory Peck warms up for the role of Atticus Finch -- wise, brave, understanding. Claude Jarman is just wonderful as 11-year-old Jody, who adopts and adores the fawn who will become the troublesome yearling -- hard to believe he didn’t have much of a career thereafter, though he did get an honorary Oscar for child performance. The film also got an Oscar for cinematography, as well as other nominations and awards across the board. I was expecting an embalmed “classic” and found a very lively film. Marjorie Kinnan Rawling’s novel obviously has a good deal more going on than just a heart-tugging family story, and Clarence Brown’s direction brings in a lot of truth and beauty, very believable action and emotion. The bear hunt sequence has hardly been surpassed in sixty years of increasingly sophisticated nature documentaries. The family dynamic in the crucible of hardship is well delineated, and loads of local color are artfully interwoven. (1946, dvd@cai, n.) *8*

I heartily thank Michael Cassin, the Clark’s curator of education, for recommending this for the American landscape film series.

Meanwhile, I’ve gotten my first scolding by the p.c. police, in a review in this week’s Williams Record of Black Robe, the first film in the current series. Okay, so she didn’t like the movie, everyone’s entitled to his or her opinion, but the reviewer makes herself ridiculous with overwrought abhorrence of Native American stereotypes -- the mote in her eye prevents her from seeing what’s actually on screen, which is much more astutely balanced than she can credit. She’s “dismayed,” she’s “disturbed,” she thinks such films should not be shown, and concludes, “When museums, as arbiters of standards and culture, show such works as part of an exhibition, they risk conferring undue importance on occasionally ignorant viewpoints.” I am barely stung by what is clearly itself an occasionally ignorant viewpoint. Oh well, I suppose bad publicity is better than no notice at all.

I’ve been on the road for most of a week, but I have managed to watch a few films, and will catch up with my reviews immediately below. I can promise more daily blogging in the future.