The Talkies/Sowing Sally's Field
Podhoretz, John
teachers who thought teaching was a calling. It also helps explain the emergence of teachers unions. When teachers see themselves as workers, administrators as management, the superintendent...
...The seed-seller eyes Moze shrewdly, and right then Moze knows that he has violated a rule of proper behavior for a subservient race...
...Facing Edna, Moze is terrified and cowed, and does not look her in the eye...
...t !~;f~'.-'.~.:.'-":~t~J ~ . t ~ . ~ , . . ~ ! ~ . ~ . ~ : : ~ ; } ~ ~. : ~ ~ ~ ~,~1 The Good Old Days Weren't One thing about " t h e good old days -they weren't...
...But neither has socialism...
...The same is true of the millions of immigrants who flocked to American sweatshops from the hunger and hopelessness of Ireland, Italy, and Eastern Europe...
...And even though he has made a point of showing us how unjust life in Waxahachie can be, Benton caps his extraordinary movie with an extraordinary sequence, a daring bit of magic realism...
...She does not express any moral disapproval of their action, but rather seems to think that stopping by Edna's place with body in tow is inappropriate, and that the sight of the dust-ridden corpse will only further upset the grieving widow...
...Somehow they all survive despite their transgressions and the transgressions of nature...
...Any hypocrisy to be found in this tale, however, lies not in the decision to patronize the competition--that is, an affirmation of the importance of education and the idea that some schools are better than others...
...We have seen some of the town's residents dragging the young black man through the streets tied to the pickup truck...
...Capitalism has not wiped out poverty, injustice, or unemployment...
...People can be racists, like Margaret who speaks to blacks only in a clipped, officious tone, and yet have their own troubles as well...
...No good modern liberal grafted from later decades appears here to preach integration, or to offer maudlin, selfrighteous appeals to the natural brotherhood of man...
...L...
...Edna gives him a meal and sends him away...
...It was under heartless capitalism believe it or not, that the earnings of the A masses soared...
...This movie, which begins with the Spaulding family saying grace over dinner, concludes with Waxahachie in grace...
...He accepts his position as a given...
...Fortunately, we have come a long way from that kind of equality...
...Moze is saved from the Klan's noose by another boarder in Edna's house, a prickly and intelligent blind man named Mr...
...We are not pounded over the head with the great injustices being perpetrated on the black people in general and the young murderer in particu!ar...
...He keeps his eyes lowered, again obsequious, in the presence of the white men who are selling her the seeds, but whispers to her that she has been cheated...
...Although the Reporter's sample was not large enough to be statistically accurate for racial categories, the paper reported that "some educators feel black teachers are a particularly discriminating group...
...If the men had simply appeared in normal dress, the point Benton seeks to make--that the situation in the Spaulding household is an unusual one, and that in 1935 the time had not yet come when Moze or any black could assert himself--would have been stronger and more forcefully made...
...she just does not like them very much...
...We are in Edna's church during the Sunday service, and the camera slowly pans the congregation...
...People in Waxahachie are more concerned with mortgage foreclosure, marital indiscretions, and how to make ends meet...
...Hillsdale College Hillsdale Michigan For further informat, oo regarding the availability of a full series of these short, informative essays, 49242 contact Mr...
...And in our rush to perfectthe human condition, we would do well to remember the words of Winston Churchill: "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings...
...They go to church, they say grace, they struggle, they grieve...
...It is a bit treacly, but powerfully affecting nonetheless...
...G. Scot Hasted, Room D, Hillsdale College, HiUsdale, MI 49242...
...The inherent Virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery...
...In all fairness to my child, I don't think I would have a choice but to pull him out of public school...
...whose last film was Kramer vs...
...Set in Texas in 1935, the movie tells the sto~yxff~Edna Spa~lding:(Sally Field), the wife of Royce Spaulding, the town sheriff...
...No problem about that...
...The plot of Places in the Heart deals with Edna's great difficulties after her husband's death...
...The black man calls the sheriff "Mistah Royce," the sheriff deals with him as he would with a tiresome child...
...She is more concerned with her failing beauty salon and the philandering of her handb y John Podhoretz some, ne'er-do-well husband...
...Edna does not say, "I never really looked at a black person before," and Moze does not say, "Thank you for treating me like a human being," as one might expect...
...We reach the fourth row, and the first person we see is Moze...
...But at least Moze is not killed by the Klansmen...
...Edna will have none of it...
...It is a fine bit of irony that nearly half of those who know most about Chicago's public schools--the trained adults who teach in them--would reject them for their own children...
...And the family of the young murderer quietly cuts him down from the tree on which he has been strung up, as though they have been through this sort of thing before...
...The fact is, prior to the industrial revolution, all I ~ . . 4 - uu~ a very few lived in excruciating poverty, misery, and hopelessness...
...Moze, the vagrant black, stops by Edna's house looking for some work...
...Because it is so important it bears stating: What's good for the children of teachers is good for children generally...
...Another teacher, a union delegate, is quoted as saying: "Teachers know what is going on with the curriculum...
...34 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 1984...
...That they care enough to act on that knowledge--at least where their own interest is involved--is a very good sign...
...And as men became less poor, their [voices) grew louder and their...
...i..: ~:~;:~,..~:;i...
...Unfortunately, the logic of this position is too often lost on the teachers themselves...
...The black man has a gun, and in his stupor mistakenly fires it at the sheriff, killing him...
...Rather, the hypocrisy is to be found in the professional teacher organizations that oppose tuition tax credits and education vouchers while a substantial number of their urban members refuse to patronize the schools in which they work...
...Capitalism replaced not [Utopia], but indescribable poverty, illiteracy, and economic doom...
...Benton errs only once in this rich portrait...
...When the Chicago Reporter interviewed a random sample of teachers, these teachers sounded like any other parents concerned about their children--they select private schools because they are academically more demanding, physically safer, have higher expectations for their students, and maintain an orderly learning environment...
...She refuses to consider this possibility, and is saved by a traveling black man with a business proposition...
...No, Moze is only driven out of Waxahachie, which is crime enough...
...The town's sanctimonious bank vicepresident advises herto sell her house, send her children away to relatives, and eke by dh a small living...
...Will, to Edna's two children, and then to Edna...
...These incidents are allowed to speak for themselves...
...And it is a long way from teaching as an avocation...
...Alone that night in his makeshift room, he curses his own folly...
...Similarly, when the unhappy murderer is dragged through the streets of Waxahachie, Texas tied to a pickup John Podhoretz is critic-at-large and Capital Life editor of the Washington Times...
...Despite teacher organization claims that teachers have low incomes, teacher family income places them squarely in the upper middle class...
...As though they have full knowledge of the fact that the whites will exact this sort of price if any of their race steps out of bounds...
...One of the salutary things that Benton proves again is that in the realm of religious drama, as in race drama, less is infinitely more...
...She wants him to teach her how to farm :otton, "and if you ever steal a thing from me again," she says, "I'll kill you myself...
...We are being taught no lessons here...
...But as time passes, he becomes a full partner in the effort to get the cotton farm going, and feels completely comfortable in the presence of Edna and her children...
...He does not curse his fate as a black, or the unfairness of his position...
...He has a sentimental parting from Edna, who treats him--almost--as an equal...
...The murder is a freak accident, not retribution for an unpleasant, criminal mistreatment of an entire race...
...Edna has had time to reconsider Moze's offer, and tells the police that he does, in fact, work for her...
...There was no reason for this, even if the Klan had been an active presence in 1930s Texas...
...Neither of them says anything about this...
...Just as the racial tensions are depicted here in a quiet and detached way, so are the racial harmonies...
...political power boomed into a force such as had not existed within any political system before...
...Second, it reveals one thing teachers' professional associations are loath to admit--public school teachers do know the difference between good and bad schools...
...Not for most people...
...It pauses on her briefly, then continues on...
...The lynch mob looks discontented and solemn, as though they have had to perform a necessary but unpleasant task...
...As Professor Leo Rosten reminds us: "It was the factory system that saved the poor, gave them jobs and tools, produced better food and clothing and shelter, and offered unprecedented opportunities to millions...
...Those who moved into the stinking slums of English cities from the lovely English countryside moved out of stinking barns and hovels and ditches...
...But Benton dresses the seed-seller and company in the uniforms of the Ku Klux Klan...
...He says that her land would make a good cotton farm: He has been picking cotton since his childhood, he knows...
...As one teacher said, "I wouldn't send my own kids to the place I teach...
...An example is the private Ancona Montessori School that numbers so many public school teachers among its parents that the principal reports that she "schedules parent-teacher conferences on public school holidays...
...Margaret never injures a black...
...By bringing in the Klan, Benton turns his imaginative portrayal of the relations between the races into a standard, cliched morality play...
...The seeds she has been given are of inferior quality...
...The sample of Chicago teachers, for example, have a family income of more than $35,000 per year...
...truck, we do not see the cackling smiles of the evil posse, the vengeful glee of the dead sheriff's wife, or the unleashed fury of the young black's oppressed family...
...Edna takes Moze with her to buy cotton seeds...
...Edna's sister Margaret curtly tells the men in the pickup truck to drive away from Edna's house...
...The residents of Waxahachie, both black and white, are bound by a set of standards and rules that they simply live by...
...Choice, diversity, and quality outside the public school monopoly is not simply an ideological posture assumed by market-oriented economists...
...2~i.~..~Yi...
...When teachers see themselves as workers, administrators as management, the superintendent the CEO, the school committee the Board of Trustees, and the students the product, it is only a short step to unionization...
...Moze is finally run out of town by the seed-seller and a bunch of his cronies, who have decided that he is uppity and will only cause further trouble...
...He steals some of her silver as he goes, and is returned a day later by the police...
...Robert Benton, the writer-director...
...He has told the police that Edna has hired him on as a hand...
...Will...
...They went to the machines to get a precious job to live better and aspire higher...
...Seated next to her is Royce, her murdered husband...
...THE TALKIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SOWING SALLY'S FIELD What is most impressive about the very impressive new movie, Places in the Heart, is its cool, understated evocation of a time in this country when blacks were second-class citizens...
...Benton does not, as other directors have done, martyr his own character...
...L...
...This may be a racist community, but its racism is only one characteristic among many, and hardly the most important...
...We have seen the town in all its guises...
...They simply try to get by...
...At the beginning of the movie Royce goes out on a routine call to pacify and bring in to the station a sweet-faced young black who has gone on a drunken tear down by the railroad tracks...
...next to him, the young black who murdered him...
...They are used to these things, to the random acts of violence and the retaliatory lynchings...
...When the avocational tie is broken, institutional loyalty is diminished or destroyed...
...One reason Chicago public school teachers are able to send their children to private schools is that they can afford to...
...They do not rebel, they do not question...
...and later we have seen them battling a horrible tornado which guts the town and destroys their homes and livelihoods...
...The camera then pans to Mr...
...The THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 1984 33 police leave, Moze is obsequiously grateful...
...Already in this first scene we can tell that we are not about to see the typical race-relations hysteria Hollywood always foists upon us...
...She has no money, and has never done anything other than being a wife and a mother...
...Kramer, wishes to show us what life was like in Depression-era Texas, with all its great flaws and strengths...
...Immediately we are confused, since we have .~een Moze leave town in the previous scene...
Vol. 17 • November 1984 • No. 11
