Word and pictures dvd

…and once again, not only was I not disappointed, I was deeply enthralled. She has buried “the hook” deep in my brain (and, no doubt, a few million other men). The hook was set when I first saw her many years ago in Krzysztof Keslowski’s “Three Colours – Blue.” She is matched well with Clive Owen, who plays the part of Jack Marcus. Both are teachers at a preppie “back East,” high school, Croyden, somewhere along the coast of Maine. Fred Schepisi, the director, had a thoughtful plot, with both intellectual and sensual components, and two great actors. He turned out a wonderful film, which was released in 2014.

Juliette Binoche plays the part of Dina Delsanto, a newly arrived art teacher at Croyden. She already has a good reputation as an accomplished artist. She walks with the aid of a crutch. She also has wrist support. As the viewer will learn, she has rheumatoid arthritis. At the relatively young age of 40, she is “damaged goods,” and her “edge” reveals that she knows it. (I thought of the “edge” of Marlee Matlin, deaf since birth, in “Children of a Lesser God”.) The scene in which Delsanto could not take off her own clothes, during a flare-up of RA, truly underscored the “damaged goods” aspect.

Jack Marcus is a long-term teacher at Croyden. He is a wordsmith. And he inspires and pushes his students to creatively use words to express feelings. (Where was this guy when I was in school?) He is also “damaged goods,” but more of his own making. He is an alcoholic. Carries the vodka in his thermos, kept in the car, for a few “hits” at lunchtime. He has a 19-year old son, at college, with a girlfriend the son would like dad to meet. Oh, the pathos of the scene in which the son, in the phone conversation, realizes his dad is too drunk (again!) to meet his girlfriend, or even drive. Earlier than most in life, the son becomes the adult, having to take away the car keys from dad.

Marcus is “Words.” Delsanto is “Pictures.” There is a lot of playful repartee between the two of them on the relative importance of each. And both teachers push their students in a friendly rivalry to think about, and give examples of which is most powerful. Of course, the cliché about a picture being worth a thousand words is used and debunked. Marcus quotes Updike about the birds on the wire, and he also quotes the Declaration of Independence in a moving section.

Better than Lourdes, and for the “au courant,” also better than Chimayo. The “magic wand,” that is. As one might suspect, given all that building tension and repartee, it finds horizontal fulfillment. The crutch is not literally hung on the wall, but it is missing in the following scenes. (What a great pick-up line, Cherie.) As for the alcoholism, well, that takes its own turns and twists, harder to hang on a wall.

If I had any doubts how to rate this movie, they were fully resolved towards the end when one of the students of the wordsmith chose to quote from one of the most moving passages in the English language, James Agee’s prologue to “A Death in the Family.” It commences: “We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville, Tennessee when I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child.” The time was 1915. In that “lower middle class” neighborhood, the fathers had come home, had dinner, and it was now time to water the front lawn, just when “ the locust were started and the fireflies were out.” In the movie, they student quoted: “…then the fathers sank out leisurely in crossed suspenders, their collars removed and their necks looking tall and shy.”

Thanks again, Juliette, as well as Clive, for a powerful, moving movie. 6-stars.

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So few movies really portray teachers as dedicated public servants trying to better mankind through education and instead make them look like salacious lechers, lazy bums or trying to harm students when most are good folk. This movie is a very good portrayal of teachers and the good they do every day. The only draw back is the drunken behavior of the male lead teacher who drinks booze out of a thermos at lunch during the school day and is basically drunk for half the movie. I went to a prep school as a post graduate (after high school) for a year. I can honestly say a drunken teacher would be fired on the spot at every prep school because parents are not going to pay $$$$ high school tuition for a teacher who smells like booze. This same teacher was so drunk he was banned from a local restaurant. Again, this behavior would put teachers in private schools on the fast track to unemployment. The irresponsibility of the drunken teacher is so over the top it takes away from a good film about teachers. The woman playing a co-lead role as a teacher was profound and captivating as a person dealing with a serious disease trying to teach. Unlike the drunken male teacher this teacher who was inflected with an illness was warm and realistic. Good movie on teaching. Boozy male teacher not realistic in today’s prep schools.

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The actors are magnificent, each reacting and acting always in character. Owen’s breakdown scene should be shown to acting classes of how to convey true feelings of desolation. A couple of problems: the resolution is expected in the «war» (although done beautifully) and their relationship is resolved too quickly given his severe alcoholism. But I can forgive that given this is a film not real life. It would have been more dramatic to have the two resolve to work through their problems rather than have a «rom com» ending. One false note was Amy Brenneman who I had loved in Judging Amy. She had a small part but no grip on her character and her performance was as amateur as in a high school play. Another small annoyance that is frequently in films: his son looks nothing like him, not facially in any way nor in size. Why cast someone who obviously doesn’t look like he remotely be!songs to Owen’s character? And it’s not as if he had any acting chops! Was it a favor to someone?

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Words and Pictures is a romantic comedy about a surly, alcoholic middle school English teacher, and a brusque, newly ill middle school art teacher, who butt heads unceremoniously but flirtatiously over whether words or pictures are more important. The back-and-forth, the pedantic lines, and especially the portrayal of our artist losing the ability to finesse her work are powerful and enthralling. Further, the plot has a number of levels (well-done, not thrown together) where we see how our protagonists interact with family (strained, loving, imperfect; all too human) and deal with a galling sexual harassment case on campus. All in all, I highly recommend the film, having enjoyed it very much

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