I doubt I will ever get much response from this question as this film is rarely ever shown, but here it goes. Barbara Stanwyck is made fun of early in the movie for saying that the cabbage fields are beautiful. Obviously the farmers know how much hard work and toil goes into working in the fields. I wonder if an artist ever feels the same way about his painting or poem etc. Many times the artist puts great work and toil into their work. Just a thought.
shareWhile I can't speak as a visual artist, I can assure you that many (most?) musicians put so much blood, sweat and tears into their practicing and performances that the thought art is being performed is often unfortunately forgotten. Cheers.
shareSuch a pleasure to come across such an insightful comment/question. Thanks for elevating the discussion on imdb!
As a hopeful novelist several years ago, I attended a rigorous, FT graduate MFA program, and I can tell you that 5 hours of writing was mentally and physically draining -- and at that time in my life, I was no stranger to hard work, both physical and mental: I had worked retail FT for about 3 years and PT (alongside FT work) for another 7; I had washed dishes PT for a year; and I had worked as an editor in a deadline-heavy environment (so busy we couldn't even take a bathroom break for the final 4 hours of the shift) for 4 years.
True, I can't compare writing to the intense physical labor or farming -- but I can tell you that it's hard work. All of your energy is focused on it, and that's what makes it exhausting. Depending on what you do for a living, you may know how tiring it is to focus your intellect for 8 or more hours a day -- but you don't have to call on your emotions and your spirit, bc they're neither needed nor wanted in the workplace. They're essential to the act of writing, tho, and that combined exertion of every abstract part of yourself is exhausting.
"All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people."
Your response reminds me of a brief passage in the book The Razors Edge. The main character in the book Larry has written a novel and sent an advanced copy to his former lover Isabel. The narrator of the story Somerset Maugham asks Isabel what she thought of Larry's book. Isabel replies something along the lines of "It has been sitting here for months and I just haven't gotten around to reading it." Maugham then makes a comment to the reader that a writer will toil and work for years to write something, only to have it ignored.
shareI think your premise is all wrong. The people making fun of Selina are the very ones who work the fields. Perhaps they laugh at her because when they look at the fields they think of all the back-breaking work that went into getting them to where they are or they may know it wasn't a particularly successful crop that year. Selina, on the other hand, can romanticize them because she's removed from the daily toil of producing and maintaining the crops. She can appreciate them visually and ideally but that's about it. That passion she had was later put into her work when she becomes a farmer herself.
As for Roelf, even though he works the farm with his family, he's really an artist at heart. He's able to see things from a different perspective than his family. When looking at the fields, he may also notice light, shadow, and color etc. The fact he has a little crush on Selina makes it easy for him to agree with her too.
In real life someone like Selena, or anyone who consumes produce but is not involved with farming, probably would take the fields for granted; hardly noticing them. The farmers though who earn their living off the land would appreciate them so much more. In the same way, an artist who labors long and hard on a project; puts time, blood, sweat, and tears into it would assign greater value to it than the random person.