An art teacher from California goes a prestigious women's college on the East coast only to discover that it is a glorified finishing school. This is after she discovered that her class already knew the material and at least a few of them did not consider her UCLA degree worthy of respect. Oh, yeah, the administration and some of the teachers are not fond of her either. She it was with whom they were left when the preferred candidate took a job at Brown.
As the class already knew the names of the pieces of art along with their artists and the textbook described significance of each one, Catherine Watson decides to ask them “What is art?” She presents them with modern pieces starting with the “Carcass” and asking, “Is this art?” Her next piece, though, is of a lamb on a field of green, primitive in style, very childish. The girls say that they suppose it must be art because it is being presented. The teacher says that one person even identified it as a masterpiece. That person was her mother. She had painted it as a child. As she identifies the “critic”, the next slide is a photograph of her mother. She asks the students to consider whether the photograph is art. They are more cautious now, and one half scoffs that it is “just a snapshot.” She asks them, “If I were to tell you that it was taken by *important name*, would that make a difference?” She sets a new goal for the class; they are going to study the question of what makes art art, who gets to say? They are also going to look at modern works.
One of the most powerful scenes in that regard comes when she takes them on a field trip to a museum or art gallery, but they do not go through the main halls. They go “backstage”, so to speak, where the artifacts are being brought in and unwrapped. There they are when this great, big crate is brought in. It could easily be a wall. They loosen a whole side of it, which then appears to be a sideways lid which crashes down to reveal a paint splattered canvas, immediately recognizable as by Pollock. The thing is, it is so massive. Miss Watson walks up to it with face alight. It dwarfs her. Her assignment to them is to consider the painting. She does not ask for a paper for this one, just for them to consider it. The view dips in close so we can see the textures and the depth of the paint, it takes on an emotional quality--the colors in soft lavender and gray over soft crimsons almost evoke a sunrise.
On the personal side, though, the stories take a devastating turn. One could receive the impression that Miss Watson came here to clear her mind concerning a somewhat dominating lover. The lady who runs the house where she is boarding is a very desolate woman whose fiancée left during the war, but stayed away to marry someone else. She never moved on. The other lady in the house is the school nurse, clearly indicated to have been had a female companion. She provides birth control for the students and is fired when she will not publicly apologize and promise to not continue doing so.
Among the students, Betty Warren is a young woman groomed to be manipulative and controlling by her mother. She has a venomous tongue. She marries, her husband is unfaithful, and she lashes out at people close to her. Joan is her best friend. Joan had an interest in going to law school, applied and was accepted to Yale, but she chooses to marry her boyfriend/lover and go with him to Pennsylvania. She gives a powerful defense of choosing motherhood that is undercut by the way the scene is set up. Giselle is the bad-girl-with-the-heart-of-gold. She carries on two different affairs in the film, not concurrently, one with a teacher the other with an older, married man. She flirts with everybody and is very affectionate, and very lost. Her father had abandoned her mother and her when she was young. She is the one through whom it is revealed that the nurse is distributing birth control. Then there is Connie. Connie is regularly put down by Betty and thinks she is not attractive. She is attentive to others’ needs and is genuinely funny. One of my favorite lines comes from her. A young man was dancing with her and talked about how his mother said his life was opening up in front of him, just on the horizon. She says that he should tell her, “that the horizon is an imaginary line which always recedes as one approaches it.” The dance being over she says good bye, but he asks if she is brushing him off politely. She thought he was just doing a favor in dancing with her, but he really wanted to dance with her. So they dance some more. Their story, even with a misunderstanding thrown in due to his cowardice and Kirsten’s maliciousness, is sweet.
Meanwhile, Miss Watson carries on an affair with the Italian teacher after breaking up with her former lover who was about to railroad her into marriage. Her one condition to the Italian teacher is that he not carry on relations with students. She leaves that situation after she discovers that he has been living a lie. He had never actually left the states during the war, but because he knew Italian and did not correct people's false assumptions, he had the reputation of having served in Italy with distinction.
When it comes down to basics, the women are almost all of them either excessively domineering or excessively desolate and needy, and the men are almost all passive, with the exception of a couple of controlling and jealous men. It was pitiful. Surely, there are good men and women in the world, even in the late 50’s in academia, but where are they? Lost.
I did enjoy the movie, and I appreciated the main character, though she seemed confused in her personal life. The overarching message of “question everything, because tradition and traditional constraints are suspect at best and likely evil” combined with self-determination is not what we need to hear today. We are perhaps too aware of 50’s conformity and lack an awareness of today's form of ironic conformity. “To question is the answer” is almost taken for a truism. Self-determination has been radicalized to accept people’s self identity even if that identity is delusional. The message of the movie is generally accepted as truth with little questioning. And, oh, the pressure to conform!
The thing is to live a considered life, which is why I hated that they made Joan’s defense of her decision seem hollow. She points out that Miss Watson had encouraged them to think for themselves and make their own decisions. Joan may want to study law, but she wanted to be a wife and a mother even more. She also observes that being a wife and a mother did not make a woman less intelligent. She had learned much and was grateful for her education, but this was what she decided she wanted--to get married and raise a family. She was not entering it blindly. In all, I think she could have been one of the better examples of femininity, but it seemed as though the directors wanted the viewer to think she was cutting off a part of who she was, rather than that she was simply choosing among different good options. They, with Miss Watson, wanted her to take it all--Yale, career, marriage, family--and but for her boyfriend, they tell us, she could have. Maybe they are right about Joan, but maybe a woman can also have a highly satisfying and happy life as a wife and mother. Maybe a human can have a better, more whole life by giving up some dreams in order to live out the dreams they most desire.
