(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.)
From the moment we’re born, we begin learning.
When we speak of “education,” we usually mean formalized instruction, but in fact our education begins long before that. Compared to other animals, we’re born incredibly helpless, with very little wired into us as instinct and even less capacity to perform basic tasks. But one of our superpowers as a species is our ability to learn, and from our every earliest moments, we begin doing just that. (I recall a study which showed that when babies have their most vacant expressions on, their neurons are lighting up like a fireworks show: it’s as if they can’t spare any attention for their faces, because all their processing power is working overtime to understand what they’re seeing and hearing.)
It started with Black Narcissus, Michael Powell’s luscious adaptation of Rumer Godden’s book, because I was browsing Criterion Channel looking for amusement. Then I started thinking about classic movies featuring nuns, and graduated to The Song of Bernadette, starring the luminous, innocent face of Jennifer Jones, which led me to Portrait of Jennie, the bizarre ghost story featuring Jones and favorites of mine like Ethyl Barrymore (love her voice!) and a very young David Wayne (he might be rather obscure in his supporting roles in romantic comedies, a fabulous pianist and singer.) Something about William Dieterle’s dreamy direction of Portrait of Jennie (and the appearance of Lillian Gish as a nun), led me to think about Charles Laughton’s direction of Night of the Hunter, with Robert Mitchum’s portrayal of a frighteningly sociopathic preacher and also, there is Lillian Gish again—not a nun but a widow who takes in starving Depression-era orphans. This led to more favorite Robert Mitchum films—there are scads of them, but today the “Six Degrees” series has led me to Heaven Knows, Mr Allison—Deborah Kerr in habit again as Sister Angela. So series runs its full circle.
Last time I talked about some of the responsibilities the members of a critique group or writers’ workshop had to the writer whose work they were critiquing. This time, I’d like to address the responsibilities of the writer, which go beyond the helpful “Don’t panic!” and “There’s no crying in writing!”