09 May 2010
No Real Beauty (Places in the Heart)
)Published on May 9th, 2010 @ 09:29:38 pm, using 390 words, 288 views
Mr. Will: Mrs. Spalding?
Edna Spalding: Yes.
Mr. Will: Could I trouble you for a cup of tea?
Edna Spalding: Of course. I’ll put the water on for you.
Mr. Will: Do you mind if I wait in here?
Edna Spalding: Not at all. I’m trying to fix Frank’s shoe. It’s got a big hole in it.
Mr. Will: Mrs. Spalding, can I ask you a question?
Edna Spalding: Yes.
Mr. Will: What do you look like?
Edna Spalding: I have long… long hair and I tie it up in the back. And I have brown eyes. I always wanted to have blue eyes like my mama… but Margaret got those. And my teeth stick out in the front… cause I sucked my thumb a long time when I was a little girl. Well, I’m… no real beauty. I’m all right.
Mr. Will: Thank you
(kettle whistles)
Edna Spalding: Your tea is ready.
(Places in the Heart)
Click here for screencaps.
As I transcribe these lines, I feel like I’m deleting everything about them that matters. Every remarkably subtle and precise expression of Sally Field’s and John Malkovich’s that pushes this moment out of the realm of words and into the realm of living, the realm of magic, the realm of bringing things to life.
This scene has always moved me beyond words and it has always struck me as the quietest and loveliest of tributes amongst the recognition scenes that never fail to pull at my heart strings. No better day than Mothers’ Day to post this gem of a cinematic moment. No better person to be at the center of it than Sally Field, an actress who’s personified so many strong, admirable screen mothers. [Think of Norma Rae gathering her children and leveling with them about their respective fathers. Think of Edna Spalding, recently widowed, rolling up her sleeves and fighting valiantly to keep her farm and her children.] No better tribute to this woman than to have inspired such sincere admiration in a cantankerous blind man as to be asked by him (suddenly sheepish and docile) to describe herself.
And no, Mrs. Spalding. Hardly just all right. Instead, a thing of true beauty.
Happy Mothers’ Day!
This post is the creative work of Iris Watts Hirideyo and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Scenes, films, mothers, day, Spalding, blind, man, look, like, tea, real, beauty, long, hair, brown, eyes, teeth, admiration, tribute
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