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MINI FILM REVIEW:
"Girl With a Pearl Earring" is a study of beauty, beautifully done. Also quietly done and very thoughtfully
done.
Griet is the young, 16 year old daughter of a Delft tile maker who has fallen on hard times due to his blindness. Her
family is no longer able to support her, so she is hired out as a maid to the Johannes Vermeer family.
Here is the story of a young girl who is allowed to inspire a famous artist due to a rare alignment of the stars. A rich,
older patron wants her, but must settle for her picture. Vermeer's materialistic mother in law conspires with Vermeer to hide
this commission from his jealous wife. And Griet herself, well, she is not only the picture of beauty, she also has the soul
of an artist even though she is a poor girl from a humble background. Her surprising sensitivity to artistic color and proportion
inspires Vermeer to make love to her in the only way he can, which is to capture her soul on his canvass.
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MOVIE CRITIQUE:
Scarlett Johansson gives her second astonishing performance of the year as "Griet," the subject of one of Vermeer's
most famous paintings, "The Girl with the Pearl Earring"(1665). Just look at the pictures above! How can anyone
doubt that she was made for this role and this role for her?
"The Girl With The Pearl Earring," adapted from the novel by Tracy Chevalier, is a study of two dynamics. A
thoughtful artist of very low productivity is living in a less than harmonious household with a shrewish, materialistic martinet
of a mother in law and a wife who serves as a baby factory, but otherwise is a whiney, jealous, small minded and tasteless
wretch of a creature. Finally, there is a daughter from hell who spies upon everyone as she spends all her days looking for
ways to stir up trouble.
One could easily surmise that Johannes Vermeer's low productivity might be due to the lack of support from his own family
members as none of them appreciated what he did for a living. They were in it only for the money and an enhanced station in
life. Vermeer never painted enough to satisfy them. Perhaps he painted less to deny them.
Now into this mix is poured a youthful vision of beauty and vitality. Griet, the new servant, is not only easy on the
eyes but is also an easy person to have around. She is quiet and thoughtful and observant. Griet has no sharp edges while
the other women in the Vermeer household have few, if any, soft edges. The daughter of a Delft tile maker, she seems to have
in her uneducated blood the soul of an artist. She instinctively understands color, light and proportion. Her is a muse to
inspire Vermeer, if only such a thing were to be allowed in his family.
In another, kinder, and more Twentieth Century world, Johannes and Griet would have run off together. She would have had
a basic public education and perhaps even a few courses in art. But this is 1665, and Griet is beautiful but, sadly, illiterate.
Men of station will mate with these visions of beauty, but they will never marry them. Worse yet, getting pregnant will condemn
these young girls to a life of prostitution. These are the days of class consciousness, and few are brave enough to risk the
wrath of society by marrying beneath their station.
So Griet is allowed to stay on for a short time as she inspires Vermeer to produce one of his most beloved and enigmatic
paintings. And then she disappears forever and nothing more is known about her.
Chevalier's novel is a wonderfully woven quilt of imagination as to how Griet and Vermeer came together, what happened
when they did, and the sad results of their short collaboration beyond the production of his masterpiece. I have to admit
to great admiration for Chevalier and her efforts to peer behind the vale of time, as who has not looked at a famous painting
and wondered about the story behind it?
This movie has little to do with anything other than two souls connecting on an artistic level, one to inspire the other.
There is no physical love affair here. The only love affair left is mine for this brief moment when I was allowed to look
back at a distant period of time when the daily rituals in the life of a family and a few neighbors from a time 350 years
ago were so faithfully recreated for our pleasure.
Yes, this movie is dark and slow and consists mostly of the unspoken, interior thoughts of Johannes and Griet as reflected
on their quiet faces. We are left with a few non-verbally communicated glances, the rare touch of hands on a pestle, and the
eventual "child" of their collaboration, a great work of art. This is enough, especially given the contrast between
these beautiful moments of quiet artistic creativity and the shrill whining of a jealous wife or the bossy commands of an
imperious mother in law.
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MOVIE SYNOPSIS:
Delft, Holland in the late 1600's is a dark city with filthy canals spewing their fumes forth on a hot day and their copious
collections of diseases every day. People traveled on these waters, washed with these waters, cooked with these waters and
sometimes drank from these waters. There was, however, public water available by pump in the better parts of town. Johannes
Vermeer and his extended family lived in a smallish townhouse in a better part of this town.
Griet (Scarlett Johansson) is the young, 16 year old daughter of a Delft tile maker who has fallen on hard times due to
the onset of blindness, perhaps because of an accident at work. Her family is no longer able to support her, so she is hired
out as a maid to the Johannes Vermeer family.
She treks across town to the Vermeer home and is welcomed by the head of staff, Tanneke (Joanna Scanlon). Griet meets
the women of the household first and their meetings are not at all auspicious. Maria Thins (Judy Parfitt) is a tall, imperious
woman who still sports the very wide collar of nobility even though her present circumstances are decidedly more modest. She
runs the family purse and picks out each coin of payment as if it were blood snatched from her heart.
Vermeer's wife, Catharina (Essie Davis), needs a new maid as she is pregnant again. Catharina is a well dressed woman
of slightly Rubinesque inclinations. Unfortunately, she is not as jolly as her bulk would suggest, as she is small minded,
ignorant, and highly jealous of her husband. She plays the pianoforte modestly well, but she is even more concerned with rank
than her mother. Catharina quickly warns Griet when Griet makes the mistake of speaking first, "You are not to speak
unless first spoken to!"
Griet does not meet the head of the house, Johannes (Colin Firth), for some time as she is forbidden to disturb him in
his artist's loft in the attic with its wooden shades that can be lifted and lowered as the need for more or less light is
desired.
Johannes does eventually see his new employee and is entranced by her beautiful face, as that is all that would have been
visible of an unmarried woman in those days. A young girl's hair is tightly wound and hidden behind a modest cap tied with
a bow to help keep everything in place.
Griet settles into her duties as a maid. She sleeps in a small, dark bunk room with all the other maids as each has their
own little space much like a logs on a pile. She takes on small household chores, like picking up the daily meats from the
local butcher. He is not able to foist spoiled meat on her as she knows better and demands better of him. The butcher's son
comes out with much fresher meat from the rear. He sees a product that he would like himself to take home. Pieter (Cillian
Murphy) is quickly smitten and pursues Griet like a lovesick puppy.
When asked to clean the dirty windows in the loft one day, she surprises Catharina with the question as to whether or
not this might be desirable given the change of light that would occur with cleaner windows.
Vermeer quietly looks from the rear of the room as she frames a picture in her hands or admires a wooden model dressed
in the clothes of a subject currently being painted. The more he looks, the more he likes about this new servant. Johannes
manages to request her help in cleaning out his loft and then her help in fetching materials for the manufacture of his paints
from a local merchant. His paints are all made by hand by grinding up a highly colored material with a mortar and pestle and
then mixing it with an oil. Soon he has Griet helping him with this chore as well.
Vermeer is finishing his new painting of a woman at the window of the loft with a table and chairs in the foreground.
There is an especially telling (and tender) moment one day when Griet looks at this scene being painted and decides to move
one of the chairs. Vermeer is not in the room. The next day Griet enters the room only to see that the chair is still off
to the side and, even more surprising, has been wiped out of the painting.
Some time passes and then Vermeer speaks to Griet. "Why did you move the chair?" Griet quietly answers, "Because
she looked trapped" behind the table with chairs blocking her way on both sides. Vermeer says nothing, but his painting
this scene as she has suggested shows that he has accepted the fact that Griet was correct. A humble, ignorant servant girl
has given a small lesson to a great master.
Another servant is hired, and Tanneke is told that she will have to sleep on the floor as there isn't any other room for
her. She looks very distraught at the prospect. Vermeer speaks up, "Why not have
Griet sleep on the mattress up in the loft?" His very jealous wife, Catharina, looks at him as if to say, "What,
do you think that I am that crazy or stupid? I know how pretty she is." But Vermeer has the answer all ready as he places
the key to the loft in her hands with the instructions that she is to lock Griet in at night and unlock the door each morning.
This gives Catharina the measure of security that she is looking for, and the deal is sealed.
The wealthy, older Van Ruijven (Tom Wilkinson), is Vermeer's best client and patron and the two families are celebrating
the completion of a new work of art which he has just purchased. A man with young daughters of his own, he still finds enough
time to sport with any young woman who might be available to him. Tanneke whispers to Griet that a young maid recently had
to leave his house in shame after becoming pregnant.
Van Ruijven spies the beautiful Griet and makes several tactless comments to Catharina about Vermeer himself probably
sporting with their new family maid. He only serves to make the heavily pregnant Catharina even more jealous than she already
is of this very pretty young thing. One warm day a short while later, Van Ruijven sees Griet hanging up the laundry outside
to dry and he attacks her with every desire to rape her on the spot. She fights him off and he realizes that she is still
a virgin. She never would have been so vigorous in her rejection of him had she already lost her virginity to Vermeer.
If Van Ruijven can't physically possess her, then he will settle for a painting of her and he argues with Vermeer to paint
this young lady. He is tired of paintings of old women. Such things were not done in those days as Vermeer had heretofore
limited his portraits to ladies and gentlemen of the upper classes. While Vermeer is at least receptive to this radical idea,
he fears to take it on because of what his wife might say if she finds out that Griet has been posing for her husband. "He
never asks ME to pose," she often complains.
However, Maria Thins overhears their conversation and suggests to her son in law that she will set everything up so that
Vermeer can pursue this commission from his wealthy patron. Money means more to her than loyalty to her own daughter.
She even "borrows" her daughter's pair of large pearl earrings when Vermeer complains that Griet needs something
visually striking, a pictorial center piece, to be hanging on her now uncovered ear. Vermeer even pierces Griet's formerly
unpierced ear to accommodate the placement of this expensive bauble.
A strange thing happens and, like Vermeer, we all gasp when Griet changes out of her maid's cap to a wrap for her hair.
Her never before seen long brunette tresses cascade down her neck and shoulders. We are shocked at how beautiful she is and
how sensual this moment is. Vermeer, like us, is watching speechless from behind a curtain. This is a very strange psychological
moment for us in the audience who are so jaded today by being able to see everything on the silver screen. What is sensual
is truly a matter of the mind, and in this particular instance we were not prepared to see Griet suddenly uncover her hair.
Vermeer is allowed to make love to Griet in his own special way, by capturing her soul on his canvass. She admits as much,
and the popularity of this much beloved work over the last three centuries has proven beyond anything else that this pretty
young girl with a large earring and a slightly enigmatic look has captured the hearts of succeeding generations of art lovers
ever since.
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