Maud Lewis
MAUDIE B
Ireland Canada (115 mi)
2016 ‘Scope d: Aisling
Walsh Official
site
A highly personalized and acutely intimate film whose
strength lies in the outstanding performances of the two central actors, Sally
Hawkins, who seems to specialize in playing kooky, offbeat characters, from
Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky
(2008) and Woody Allen’s 2013 Top
Ten List #7 Blue Jasmine, is Maud Dowley, whose brittle body is suffering
from the effects of having contracted polio at a young age, but also rheumatoid
arthritis, making it difficult to walk, and Ethan Hawke as Everett Lewis, an illiterate
fish-peddler raised in a nearby orphanage, a man living alone in a one-roomed
shack that is overly run down. Set in Nova Scotia, but actually shot in
Newfoundland, the film is an Irish-Canadian production, with both countries
heavily supportive of the arts. With a minimalist
script written by Sherry White, Maud is a quietly unsung heroine leading a life
that was easily overlooked, even by her own family, where she’s constantly
viewed as a burden, even an embarrassment, easily dismissed, where she’s grown
used to being called a “cripple.”
Forcing her into a miserable life that she wants no part of, with her ambitious
brother Charlie (Zachary Bennett) selling off the family home, sending her to
live in Digby under the religiously strict care of her Aunt Ida (Gabrielle
Rose), with no one ever asking what she preferred. Bolting out the door at the first chance, she
jumps at the opportunity to work as the cleaning woman for Everett, walking the
four miles to his isolated shack on the road to Marshalltown, a 10 by 12 foot dwelling
with no running water, plumbing, or electricity. As she’s a sight for sore eyes, he’s
reluctant to hire her, turning her away at first, calling her “slim pickins,”
forcing her to turn around and walk all the way back home. But upon further reflection, he’s desperate
for the help and gives her a second chance, driving to Ida’s home to pick her
up, where she gathers up her belongings, with her aunt furious for leaving, telling
her to never come back again, calling her a “whore.” Her first day is dreadful, ordered to leave
by nightfall, where it’s clear Everett, a man of few words, has no patience
whatsoever for those not already self-motivated to work hard, where if she has
to ask what to do, she may as well not show up at all. By morning, however, she can be seen
scrubbing the floors, making herself useful as he flies out the door on his
morning rounds. The intrusive camera
never leaves Maud, following her every step of the way, where she becomes part
of the viewer’s consciousness simply by immersing the audience into her highly
personalized world. Using a slow and
extremely spare film style that follows the changing seasons, with almost
whispering guitar music from Canadian Cowboy Junkie Michael Timmins, where
often not much happens, but this allows their world to remain distant and
remote, which heightens the individuality of their experience.
Lewis is brutally harsh with her from the outset, even
uncomfortably so, yet that is in keeping with his hard scrabble life, a guy who
scrounges anything that he can for a living, where he still occasionally eats
with the boys of the orphanage for performing needed work around the premises,
where the Catholic brother in charge, Mr. Hill (Greg Malone), is likely his
only friend in the world. When Maud’s
initial presence at the cabin surprises one of Everett’s customers, he
inappropriately whacks her right on the jaw for opening her mouth, punished for
just trying to be friendly. He makes it
clear that as far as he’s concerned, the order of importance is “Me, them dogs,
them chickens, then you.” There are long
sequences where little is spoken, as Lewis is away during the day, while Maud
discovers a can of paint, initially painting flowers and animals on the cabin
walls, as a form of decoration to brighten things up. As time goes on, she paints walls, doors,
breadboxes, even the stove, while also finding scraps of wood grabbed out of
garbage piles, using a clearly distinctive style, described as naïve art, due
to the simplicity of the images and her lack of artistic training. As a rule, she never mixed colors, but
painted only things she knew, like outdoor scenes or nearby landscapes, where
most are quite small, perhaps 8 by 10 inches, as the size was limited by the
limited extent she could move her arms. One
of the few unanticipated scenes concerns the arrival of a modern day woman, Sandra
(Kari Matchett), whose nice car and fancy clothes grab Maud’s attention, but
she’s there to settle accounts with Lewis, as he owes her for some fish that he
never delivered. When she steps in the
door, she’s impressed by the artwork she sees, offering to buy something,
allowing her to set a price, actually commissioning her first work for $5
dollars. Everett never saw much in her
work, but he certainly appreciated the $5 dollars. Maud decided to write down his business
arrangements, keeping it all tallied on paper, so there would be no
misunderstandings. When Everett and Maud
arrive at Sandra’s door with a handful of fish, Maud includes a receipt on the
back of a card she painted, which only sparks Sandra’s interest for more. Before long, they put a sign on a chair
outside their home that paintings are for sale, some sitting in front of the
windows, with more inside. Despite the small
asking price, Maud starts a healthy business on her own, deciding to put the
name Lewis on each painting, as they share in the profits. In their cramped quarters, with the only
available bed in an upstairs loft, it was just a matter of time before they
become intimate, with Maud insisting if they start doing that, they’ll need to get
married.
One of the turning points in the film is a visit from a
reporter and camera crew from a Canadian newspaper and television station, hearing
that she’s selling paintings from the side of the road, and quite affordable at
that, interviewing both in their home, though Everett barely utters a word, writing
up a story that appears in the newspaper and shows on television, which spreads
her fame across the entire nation, even receiving a letter from Vice-President
Nixon requesting paintings that still hang in the White House, with others
adorning the walls of the Legislative Building of Nova Scotia. Whether due to jealousy, or just his overall ornery
disposition, despite warming to Maud on occasion, Lewis maintains a gruff demeanor,
even after they get married, as he seems to be channeling a combination of a
down and out Tom Waits and an aging John McCabe (Warren Beatty) from McCabe
& Mrs. Miller (1971), cribbing one of his best lines from the film,
where “All you've cost me so far is money and pain,” becomes “All you’ve meant
to me so far is pain, pain, pain,” His
constant misery grows amusing after a while, as she’s quite the opposite,
always upbeat, even humorous, with a cryptic wit, seeing a brighter side,
appreciating the smaller things, where her vibrantly colorful paintings reflect
her interior world. Nonetheless, at some
point, feeling particularly low, Everett deplores all the trouble she’s worth,
claiming once again that she’s “less than a dog,” where his bleak and overly
glum outlook becomes a contentious sticking point in their relationship,
refusing to give her any credit, where she’s forced to walk out on him, moving
into a spare room with Sandra, where she’s actually able to appreciate some of
the finer things for a change. Missing
her dearly, however, and bemoaning his loss, Everett’s life isn’t the same
without her, where it’s clear he’s fighting his own instincts, as he hasn’t a
clue how to explain why he’s drawn to her.
There is no grand reconciliation, just a simple acknowledgement, “We’re
like a pair of old socks,” she says, as the two often misunderstood misfits seem
to be stronger together. Over time, Maud
receives all the work she can handle, yet they never think to move into a
bigger or more comfortable place to live, both quite happy where they are,
living on the edge of town. For the audience,
however, spending so much time in their cramped, claustrophobic quarters is
like being in the engine room of a submarine where there’s simply no elbow
room, constantly feeling confined and hemmed in. This is not without consequences. As they rely upon a wood burning stove for
heat, with Maud spending so much time indoors, she develops emphysema, making
it difficult to breathe. With her
decreasing mobility from her debilitating arthritis, causing a shortened range
of motion, Hawkins actually underplays her disability, which was much more
profound than what’s shown onscreen, though in keeping with the quiet spaciousness
of the film, there’s an eloquent acoustic refrain sung near the end by Margo
Timmins that seems to be a fitting eulogy of her life, Something More Besides You -
YouTube (2:02), with many of her paintings seen throughout the final credit
sequence, and while sold for less than $10 dollars, some have amassed an
auction price of more than $20,000. A
large collection of her work can be found in the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia,
including her fully restored house, which was saved by local citizens, going
through a 25-year struggle to maintain the home. While not shown in the film, the story has an
even worse end, as nine years after Maud died, Everett was killed when a
burglar murdered him during an attempted robbery in his home.
No comments:
Post a Comment