|
The Pearl of Hollywood's Young Actresses
Scarlett Johansson deserves the title "Best Young Actress
in Hollywood" simply because she's in this movie and
not Mona Lisa Smile. That movie merely exploits high
art to puff itself up; it's not really about art at all, just
Julia Roberts and some hot young actresses looking at art
and pretending to be profoundly affected. Scarlett Johansson
may not have the polished looks of Kirsten Dunst or Julia
Styles, or the indie-cred Maggie Gyllenhall earned in Secretary--but
Johansson is the best of her generation of young actresses.
First off, her face is imperfect (her lips are too big, her
cheeks are puffy, and she's got blemishes), but it's interesting--and
sexier. Johansson is human, unlike her china doll peers, which
grants us access to her internal world, but she's coy enough
to remain a mystery. It's fitting that the other three (who
have had their moments) chose to act with Julia Roberts, because
in Mona Lisa Smile they tend to act just like Julia
Roberts. Roberts telegraphs every expression, every line--mugging,
pursing, squinting, overacting to the point that any mystery
is revealed before the audience has time to think. Johansson,
though, keeps it inside, leaking out little bits of emotion:
Think about the mystery she and Bill Murray brought to Lost
in Translation, how the relationship's subtle, incremental
development built to a dramatic and completely earned emotional
pay off. Kirsten and Julia have had their moments, as has
Maggie--but none of them will developed into the actress Scarlett
Johansson is by pimping themselves to Mona Lisa Smile.
Far fewer people will see Girl With a Pearl Earring,
for sure, but those who do will be rewarded with a moving
portrait of art, not just some people pretending to be moved
by art.
Girl With a Pearl Earring is based on the novel of
the same name by Tracy Chevalier, a historical fiction about
the creation of Johann Vermeer's Girl With a Pearl Earring
(1665). The painting (see below) was christened "The
Mona Lisa of the North" when given to the Maurtishuis
in 1902, an allusion to the indecipherable expression of the
young lady. Since its rebirth early last century, the painting
has been immortalized in verse by Marilyn Chandler McEntyre
and John Updike; both poems are about the girl herself, not
comprehensive evaluation developed in Chevalier's book. Little
is known about Vermeer's life, so the fiction uses this liberty
to construct a fiction about how the painting came to be--the
story is actually an interpretive essay embodying both the
ideas and passion of the painting, where a a strict scholarly
essay would mute the painting into a clinical discussion.
The book and film--though I prefer the film, for reasons I'll
get to later--is not just an intellectual work, but an homage
that exalts itself into the realm of art.
The story concerns a maid named Griet who works in the home
of Dutch master Johannes Vermeer (Colin Firth) in the emotionally
repressed Netherlands of the seventeenth century. The film
interprets the girl as a pearl herself, obviously, with the
fiction constructed around her developing this idea on many
levels. Of course, she is closed off from the world by her
parents, her social class, and her role in the Vermeer's home.
In fact, Vermeer's studio is cloistered from the rest of the
house, like a closed oyster to the seafloor, I suppose. But
when Griet pries open the windows to let in a little light,
Vermeer sees her beauty in the corner of his room, and she
becomes ingrained in both him and the studio. Likewise, she
is an agitation to the social order of the oyster home. The
wife certainly doesn't like her spending so much time with
Johannes; she's a shrew, for sure, as is her mother, but we
see how the life of the Dutch artist is trapped within an
oyster of patronage--the stress of the family's dependence
on Van Ruijven (Tom Wilkinson, in a brilliantly smarmy turn)
is a supreme agitation, the resulting pearls the wonderful
works of the artist. This leads us to a discussion of the
conflicting nature of love and beauty (including a richly
symbolic scene in which the patron steals the servant from
amongst the family's white sheets and attempts to rape her).
This sounds like Altman-material, but had Altman directed
this movie, he probably would have flow-cammed it into a class
drama, with Vermeer standing in for the director himself.
Instead, first-timer Peter Webber develops a directoral voice
using perspectives rather than motion--like a painter would.
Most impressively, Webber retrains himself from directoral
histrionics even in the one scene in which Vermeer experiments
with the camera obscura, with both of his subjects under the
hood, taking in the beauty of the captured image.
Essentially, this historical fiction is an essay on the many
layers of symbolism held in the painting, one of the most
underrated of its kind. Even if you aren't interested in the
art history aspect of the film, movie lovers are rewarded
with remarkably restrained and deep performances from Scarlett
Johansson and Colin Firth. The novel was written first person
from Griet's perspective, which strikes me as a gross miscalculation--Griet's
lot had no voice, thus the glory of the fiction is the revealing
of her to the world. The film follows Griet's private life
from a small distance, as the artist himself does; the result
is a more observational fiction, which makes more sense. Also,
there's little dialogue in the movie, as the atmosphere of
the house and the social custom of the time would dictate,
so the performances are mostly physical--small gestures become
earth-shaking, as when Vermeer's hand accidentally brushes
Griet's while grinding paint. Griet is not to speak unless
spoken to, which requires Johansson to create this character
almost entirely from her face; the material is so precise
and delicate that each expression must be precisely measured.
Johannson spends almost the entire film encased in her maids
clothing; when she is asked to take off her bonnet, the result
is the single sexiest image of the year--a work of art in
its own right.
 
|
