Apologies for the lateness of this post, folks. Doing Blindness a few days late has thrown me off. I'm going to try getting the next one up shortly after this one.
While Legionnaire may have been the most pleasant surprise thus far of the Film Themantics films, A Patch of Blue is by far my favorite. I can't tell you how much I fell in love with these characters! The disheartening thing about sequels and remakes is that they're so infrequently a by-product of such wonderfully compelling origin material. If ever a movie could be remade and updated for modern sensibilities (recast Poitier's role as an Arab American and BANG we're off!), this is it. And this is definitely a film that begs the question, "What happened next?" Which is really the hallmark of great, compelling drama. But once again I'm getting ahead of myself. The basic plot:
Blind Selina (Golden Globe winner Elizabeth Hartman) has been sheltered her whole life by her abusive mother Roseanne and her drunken grandfather Old Pa. Selina almost never leaves the tiny, shabby apartment that she shares with her mother and grandfather, but one day she decides to take her work (stringing together bead necklaces) to a nearby park. A neighbor took her on a walk there recently and Selina has decided that she'd like to go again. At the park, Selina discovers the joy of sitting under a tree but panics when a caterpillar crawls into her shirt. Passerby Gordon (Poitier) stops to help Selina out with the caterpillar and the two strike up a conversation. Selina's shy of strangers but Gordon's a very friendly guy. Gordon accidentally knocks over Selina's box of beads and stays behind to help her clean them up. Slowly the movie develops the friendship between Selina and Gordon, who meet several times in the park. Gordon teaches Selina several techniques to manage her blindness, amazed that nobody has taught her this before now. For her part, Selina is an engaging and delightful student, taking joy in each new discovery. Unfortunately Roseanne senses that something is afoot with her daughter and makes efforts to prevent Selina's park meetings. Old Pa isn't much help, leaving Selina alone in the park until well after dark. Eventually Gordon brings Selina to his apartment, where she reveals two startling facts: 1) she used to have a friend named Pearl but Roseanne forbade their friendship upon learning that Pearl was black and 2) she was raped by a gentleman caller of Roseanne's. The heartbreaking stories strengthen Gordon's resolve to help Selina become independent. Selina begins to fall in love with Gordon, whose own feelings are uncertain and challenged by Gordon's classicist brother Mark. Roseanne spies the pair from afar one afternoon and treats Selina horribly when she returns home. The following day Roseanne tells Selina that they're going to move in with a friend of Roseanne's to start a "business", which the movie strongly hints is an underground brothel. Desperate, Selina strikes out on her own to find Gordon. Gordon and Selina come together in the park and he tells her that he's enrolled her in a school for the blind. Relieved that she can escape Roseanne but saddened that she will have to leave Gordon behind, Selina accepts the offer. Roseanne finds the couple in the park and causes a huge scene. To Roseanne's surprise, everyone in the park sees her bigotry and abuse for what they are and shield the couple from Roseanne's further abuse. That night, Selina and Gordon wait for the bus that will take her away. Selina tells Gordon that she loves him and wants to be married to him. Gordon begins to tell her that he's black, but Selina beats him to it and tells him that she knows. Gordon is struck that Selina still loves him, but the bus arrives to take her to the school. They part, Gordon vowing to see her at the school but leaving the audience wondering if that will actually happen once Selina begins to live for herself.
As I said, A Patch of Blue is my favorite of the films I've watched thus far for this blog. The story is a simple romantic drama whose complications are enormous but entirely relatable. And the characters are absolutely lovely. I think if you don't fall in love with either or both of the leads, you have a heart of stone. It would be easy to see Selina as a pitiful victim if it weren't for her spirit, her indominatable will. It's truly rewarding to see her realize, thanks to Gordon, that her guardians have been completely abusing her and that she doesn't have to rely on others for everything. Again, it would be easy to see Selina as ONLY a victim and thus less dramatically compelling, but the movie makes it very clear that she was only victimized out of ignorance. And for as much as she's been infantilized by her guardians and her condition, Selina clearly has a young woman's desires. Not just sexual desires, but freedom and autonomy. I can't imagine having to face the kind of life Selina faced, and the fact that she's such a kind-hearted, big-spirited girl despite her crummy life makes her absolutely lovable to me. Then there's Gordon. Characters like Gordon give me hope for the world and hope for myself. It's possible to be kind to others and want better for them without having ulterior motives. One of the great tensions in this film is the fact that Gordon wants Selina to have a better life and he feels like Selina getting involved with him would just make things worse for her. He makes the argument to his brother, and later to Selina, that he wants her to be her own person before he even begins to think about what he feels for her. THAT, my friends, is chivalry. THAT is the way that a real man should act. My ideal for masculine behavior is 100% exhibited by Sidney Poitier in this film. Gordon is kind, he's suave in a goofy but charming manner, he's concerned with bettering others before himself... he's everything that I would like to be as a male of the species. I completely fell in love with these characters, and every time their friendship/relationship was threatened I got incredibly worked up. Shelley Winters does a fantastic job of playing the abusive mother, but she really earned my hatred because of the way writer-director Guy Green (and source material writer Elizabeth Kata) wrote the romantic leads. I loved these characters so much I want to see what happened to them. Did Selina learn how to be independent at the school for the blind? Did she learn a trade? Did Gordon visit her? Did she make blind friends and begin to distance herself from Gordon? Even the saddest possibilities would be thrilling to me as long as I got to spend more time with these two characters. I wanted them to be real people, a real couple that I could hang out with and befriend. THAT's how much I loved these characters.
This isn't to say that the film is only good because of the character work. It's also a very "clean" story with a clear protagonist, a clear antagonist, clear desires, and clear obstacles. Nothing in the story is obfuscated by the director's artistic "vision" or by some ham-fisted metaphor. All of the tension is real/organic and obstacles arise naturally from one scene to the next as a result of actions taken in the prior scene. And those tensions become greater and greater, raising the stakes until the climactic confrontation in the park. From a structural writing POV, this is damn near perfect. As well, though Selina is a slightly "Cinderella" character and her isolation is hard to fathom in the age of overprotective parents and equally overprotective society, the situation in the film feels real. It's all too easy to imagine that a blind girl could be treated the way that Selina is treated, particularly in a large city. It's also worth mentioning the technical elements of the film. In particular, there's a poetry to the way that the film is shot and scored, giving the proceedings a romantic edge that serves to heighten the burgeoning love Selina has for her independence and for Gordon. It's subtle, but present, which is the way these things should be done. You should notice the technical flourishes when they serve the means of the story, not when they attempt to be ends of themselves. The visual poetry isn't a surprise considering that, according to the DVD case, Green received an Oscar for cinematography on 1946's Great Expectations.
I wanted to talk briefly about an interesting reaction I had watching the film. I found myself a great deal more shaken by the neglect and abuse that Selina suffers in A Patch of Blue than I did by the rapes in Blindness. I thought about this for a while and I believe that because A Patch of Blue is focused more on character development and realism, I cared more about what happened to Selina. In Blindness, the rapes felt like the visualization/realization of a message/belief about human behavior and thus I was left relatively unaffected on an emotional level. It's strange to say, but the rapes in that film felt far more abstract and intellectualized than the neglect and abuse in this film, which I felt more personally.
As usual, here are some random thoughts I had while watching:
- Music by Jerry Goldsmith. Holy shit, that dude has been around FOREVER!
- So acting like an out-and-out bitch got Winters an Oscar? She might as well twirl a moustache.
- hahahaha... Selina is doing that thing to Gordon that I hate: when you're trying to walk away from someone and they just keep calling you back. Finish your damn thought, Selina!
- Oh man, this is kinda heart-breaking. This poor girl hasn't been told ANYTHING?
- Fantastic job of making her so sympathetic. Give your protagonist HUGE hurdles right away and you engender sympathy right away.
- There is something crazy fascinating and great about watching someone getting empowered.
- Is the dog named Scumdog??? Weird.
- Poitier is a charming motherfucker.
- Oh geez, and he's singing now. I LOVE THESE TWO!!!!!
- Holy fuck!!! The movie just dropped a huge rape-bomb on me. Jeez, that hurt.
- Oh man... you just know that music box is gonna get tossed against a wall when Roseanne finds it. (10 seconds later) OH! Smart girl! Bury that treasure!
- Evil bitch Roseanne!!! Man, I don't know if being a shitty person is hard acting work, but if it is then Winters earned that Oscar.
- hahahaha... wow, Selina getting pissed and cursing is kinda awesome.
- Nice! Class prejudice from Mark. There's some great interplay going on with Mark and Gordon.
- Ah dammit, Selina's gonna run into Roseanne, I just know it. RUN, girl, RUN!!!!
- This movie is damn amazing. That Selina's grinning in the middle of getting run down because she realizes that Gordon is black and has been too afraid to tell her is just fabulous. That grin in general, the satisfied "fuck you, mom, I love him anyway" grin, is priceless.
- Don't you dare ruin this park moment, Roseanne, you horrible witch.
- This is a beautiful movie.
Regarding the theme, I think this movie did a good job of being relevant. It really shows you how difficult those initial steps into independence can be for a blind person. It also forwards the notion that blindness is a condition that CAN be overcome with willpower, a positive attitude, and some training. I still wouldn't want to be blind, but if I had to be, this movie makes me feel like it'd be okay.
So there you have it. Absolutely see this movie at your earliest convience, if you're in the mood for something dramatic and/or romantic.
I'll be back in another day or two for the final Blind People movie.
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