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Girl With a Pearl Earring, directed by Peter
Webber. Lions Gate Films, 2003, 95 minutes.
A Portrait of Servitude
by Max Orhai
"Girl With a Pearl Earring" is a motion picture about a
still picture of the same name, one of the most famous ever painted by the 17th
century Dutch master Johannes Vermeer. The painting is a simple portrait of a
young woman against a dark background, her hair wrapped modestly in a blue
turban, her head turned, bathed in light. Her earring is a luminous accent in the
center of the picture, although painted with only the most delicate strokes. She
stares out at us steadily through the centuries, a timeless, nameless
representative of feminine reserve — distant, although clearly present. Like
anyone in any masterful portrait from long ago, the viewer can't help but wonder
what she was thinking about, what her life was like. Understandably is the
painting sometimes called "the Dutch Mona Lisa."
| | Max
Orhai is an editorial intern at Liberty. |
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The transformation from painting to movie comes by way of a novel, also of the
same name, by Tracy Chevalier. By Chevalier's conjecture, the girl's name is
Griet. Scarlett Johansson portrays her in the film. She is the junior maid in
Vermeer's middle-class household, of little social standing, tossed about bravely
in the drama between the women of the house, the master himself (played by Colin
Firth), and his lecherous patron, Van Ruijven played by Tom Wilkinson. Johansson
has very few lines throughout the movie, but her nuanced portrayal of the teenage
Greit conveys by cold stares and sidelong glances the wonder, hope,
disappointment, and resignation common to anyone coming of age in any time or
place. She is fascinated by the paintings in the studio and begins to learn the
mysteries of pigment and form. But her beauty catches the eye of her master's
patron, who, unable to possess her sexually, commissions her portrait, which
disrupts the delicate power balance of Vermeer's household.
Greit's world is a rather more limited one than what we now enjoy. Her destiny
is firmly set by her culture, and the story is largely that of her dawning
awareness of, brief and restrained struggle with, and inevitable abandonment to
that destiny. Her eye for color and composition will never guide her hand as a
painter in her own right: she will marry the butcher boy, do a lot of laundry,
cook a lot of meals, wash a lot of dishes, raise a lot of children. Her freedom,
we find, is in the end not much less than that of her master: Vermeer himself
must defer to his degenerate sponsor and paint what he is commissioned to paint.
He is left to deal, as best he can, with his jealous and pregnant wife, mean and
impudent child, whiny and manipulative cook and nursemaid, shrewd and overbearing
mother-in-law. The bond that develops between Vermeer and Griet is less a romance
than a kind of spiritual kinship, although nobody else can recognize or accept it
as that. |
| People toiled so that
some wealthy few might enjoy a pitiful fraction of what everyone nowadays takes
for granted. |
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What really struck me about this movie is the economic background. Delft was a
regional metropolis, and in the 1660s the Netherlands was still recovering from
the collapse of the boom (which included the infamous tulip bubble) of the early
part of the century, — but not yet to experience the crash of the art market
during the later wars with France. Things were going okay for most people,
although the fear of poverty which drives many of the film's characters is well
conveyed by the neighbor's bankruptcy. This isn't the Middle Ages — nor is
it, by a long shot, our modern industrialized Europe.
I got the distinct sense that the extras playing the men poling the boats in
the canals didn't really know what they were doing: they seemed clumsy. The sheer
effort of the women's work required to maintain the simple dignity of a civilized
house is alien to modern sensibilities. People toiled so that some wealthy few
might enjoy a pitiful fraction of what everyone nowadays takes for granted. The
prosperous, pompous, cultured merchant villain is a material pauper compared to
any trailer-park-dwelling, lower-class American. Technology obviously makes a
huge difference in terms of the real wealth and freedom we enjoy. Somehow, this
difference is more striking in this film than in other historical dramas I've
seen, set in poorer, more miserable places. The culture is similar enough that an
accurate portrayal is possible, and it's this subtlety that makes the story so
real and gripping.
This is a quiet, refined film which will be enjoyed by moviegoers who can
appreciate understatement. Those, like myself, who tend to slip into false
nostalgia and idly romanticize "simpler times" will do well to watch it
carefully. Given the choice between our world and Greit's, I'll take the
complexities of modern society and modern relationships any day.
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