The Humanist Approach to Film: My Brilliant Career

Everyone seeing a film for the first time makes a value judgment, even if it is only based on an emotional response, but the humanist goes back to probe these initial responses more deeply. The student of the humanist approach seeks to learn what film can tell about the human condition by searching for the answers to several questions asked of other art forms. What kinds of ideas—political, religious, historical, or philosophical—are hidden beneath the surface of film? What sort of symbols are used to convey these ideas? Who is the artist behind the creation of the film? What is the quality of this film compared with some ideal product of the past? “The humanist seeks to understand human nature and humankind’s place in the scheme of things, asking the traditional question—who are we and what is life all about?” (Bywater 26-7).

The humanist approach to writing film reviews has two main assumptions. The first is that movies are more than simple entertainment and “deserve a backward glance, some extra thought, some writing about, in order for us to understand the experience of film-going more thoroughly.” The second assumption is that, since movies are about the human experience, “any human who has some interest in intellectual matters in general can write intelligently about the experience of the movies” (Bywater 25).

The humanist approach acknowledges film as an art just like other arts such as painting music, and literature. “Looking closely at the movie experience and trying to discern there the mark of human excellence is no different from looking closely at the experience of reading novels, viewing paintings, or listening to music.” Within film, just as in other art, lies the potential for stimulation of the human mind and inspiration of the human spirit. The humanist writer seeks to find these values in the experience of film and then share them through the written word. “…the humanist approach to film attempts to make sense of the individual’s emotional and intellectual experience of a film…to draw conclusions about the value of that experience, and then to communicate that value to others” (Bywater 25-27).

Looking for representations in film of general human values, the humanist searches for the truth of human experience through the most basic aspects of life—aspects that everyone experiences at some time. Birth, death, love, aggression, happiness, sorrow are all universal to an existence shared by humans. To reach a greater depth of understanding of film, the humanist writer might ask, “What have I encountered, endured, or enjoyed in life that will help me to more clearly comprehend the message in film?” Evaluation of these experiences may lead to a deeper and more meaningful awareness of the “variety and complexity of the human heart and mind” shown in film (Bywater 27).

However, it should be noted that the “broadness and generalness of the humanist approach, the emphasis on an individual’s intuitive insight and sensitive interpretation of a film, is also its major weakness.” Though the humanist written criticism may cause a reader to return to see a film again and see that film with a new awareness leading to an enlightening experience, it is often criticized for its “theoretically unfounded, unscientific, and sentimental assertions.” Too much intuitive thought leads many to believe that the humanist approach does not meet an organized, developed method of informing readers. “Many feel it is not a method at all, not an approach, but simply elevated taste, only as good as the sensibility of the critic, only as convincing as the rhetoric of the prose.” But, in light of these negative reflections, many feel that the humanist approach is
valid since, in the world of the arts, “human experience is the primary area of activity” (Bywater 27).

Humanist criticism is not written as a guide for readers to use in choosing to attend a specific film. It is written for readers who have already seen the film. Whether the film chosen is classic or new, it is determined to have some kind of lasting value for movie-goers. The intention of the criticism is to comment on the shared event. It is assumed that the writer has seen and evaluated the film several times and it not just making a vague analysis. And the reader may disagree with the writer and return a rebuttal. Still it is assumed that the writer and reader have a “common body of experience and knowledge” and that they “take the subject of discussion seriously” ( Bywater 31-2).

Films that are chosen for humanist criticism are those that stand out from others. “In a certain sense…the films chosen for analysis are self-selecting: they make use of symbolism; they work by analogy and allegory.” Often characters in a specific film “cry out for interpretation.” Unlike the Hollywood genre films, which leave little to the imagination or interpretation, certain films need further discussion, discovery, and intellectual inquiry. Often deeper meanings are held within the dialogue and narrative and beg to be investigated. ”Movies have their identity not in what they are physically but in what meanings they embody” (Bywater 33-4).

Besides the major questions of humankind—Who am I? Why am I here? What gives meaning to life? What is the good life?—the humanist must ask and interpret how and by what means are these questions answered within a film? What pictorial effects, lighting, sound, and editing are used? How do the elements of sight and sound project the feeling the film conveys. What meanings are brought to fore through symbols? “Movies, like any other form of creative endeavor, can be evaluated on the basis of their craftsmanship.” The humanist recognizes individual human achievement—for example, the artists who have authored the film. Finally, the humanist literary inquiry should “bring about in the audience member some increase in moral understanding” (Bywater 35-7).

It is human nature to enjoy stories—stories about characters who portray “possible lives.” Film-goers can live to some degree vicariously through these characters’ stories. Moral conflicts, confrontations, and choices made by characters often teach truths about life. These experiences may never be available if not through stories. Films with stories of value should “somehow transmit effectively the knowledge of what it means to be human” (Bywater 37).

My Brilliant Career is one such story that imparts truth through the moral conflicts, confrontations, and choices made by the main character Sybylla—and provokes a powerful emotional response. A timeless masterpiece authored by women for women, this tale addresses sexism in a patriarchal society and oppression of women but contains hope through our heroine’s drive and determination to break free of the boundaries set for her by a male-dominated society.

Though Miles Franklin’s novel was published in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1901, it remained a pertinent story for Director Gillian Armstrong to re-author, in the form of film, in 1979. And it is still relevant today as it follows a young girl’s hungering for life, love, and freedom in the outback plains of New South Wales. “…underneath its extravagances and its melodrama, which have their own charm of period, Miles Franklin’s spirit flashes indomitably; and in its picture of country life and in its image of the rebelliousness of youth there remains an abiding vitality” ( Middlemiss).

Judy Davis, “Australia’s best known leading lady,” received wide acclaim for her portrayal of “the defiant heroine in Gillian Armstrong’s My Brilliant Career” (Moghaddam). Davis—perhaps just a particle too pretty for a young woman described by her mother as useless, plain, and Godless—indeed gives a stunning performance as Sybylla. She is completely believable in her role of the recalcitrant young woman who dares to challenge the prescriptions of patriarchal society.

The theme of this film concerns the breaking of barriers of oppression set forth for women by men who would have them stay focused on marriage, children, and serving males needs. Armstrong reveals the theme through Sybylla’s determination not to follow the dictates of a male-dominated society and marry Harry but, instead, to acknowledge who she is as a person—to seek her own dreams in the world of literature and words. Sybylla’s refusal to succumb to society’s mold of a respectable woman, is a show of strength for women in breaking down barriers constructed by men to keep women in their service. “I want more than a pretty dress,” she exclaims.

This is not to say that Sybylla’s choice is an easy one. She is obviously ambivalent about leaving Harry behind as she sets out to form her own future. Armstrong does not minimize the difficulties women must face in making choices to reject the status quo. Sybylla is not portrayed as an uncaring, unconcerned, non-sexual female but rather as a sensuous woman with a passion for life, love, and family. Her paradoxical nature causes her no small pain, but she is certain that if she does marry Harry she will soon render him helpless and miserable. She knows she will cause him pain either way but it is the lesser pain he will have to suffer by her leaving him now before the damage is done. When Harry tells her he wants to marry her and asks, “Don’t you trust me?” she replies, “It’s me I don’t trust. The last thing I want is to be a wife out in the bush. Maybe I’m ambitious, selfish, but I can’t lose myself in someone else’s life when I haven’t lived my own yet. I want to be a writer. I’ve got to do it now and I’ve got to do it alone” When Harry asks, “Don’t you love me a little?” she replies, “Yes, but I’d destroy you and I can’t do that.”

While Armstrong guides us through this story with apt attention to Sybylla’s rebellious nature and unwillingness to conform—almost always followed by warnings from her mother, suitors, grandmother, and aunt that she must learn to “cultivate feminine values”—this film is not just about one woman’s plight. It is also a politically motivated film about the oppression of women—as a group—through boundaries and barriers established and promoted by society. Throughout the film, Armstrong employs unique and symbolic pictorial views of these boundaries and barriers through the use of fences, cages, and class conscious societal traditions such as table, parlor, and conversational manners required of respectable people.

Armstrong’s frequent use of fences is extremely effective. Fences are built as control measures, either to keep someone or something contained or to keep someone out of a contained area. These symbols of control and containment guide the film-goer through the entire story. There is an irregular wooden fence in front of Sybylla’s family farm which could be interpreted as a boundary which hems her in. When she arrives at her grandmother’s house, she must pass through a white picket fence and tall archway, indicating she is entering a place of respectability and expected reserve. In another scene, Uncle Julius suggests to Grandmother that Sybylla should be an actress but Grandmother responds that she would rather see her hair shorn off and have her put into a convent. There quickly follows a shot of Sybylla walking along the fences that border the sheep pens—the message clearly indicating that women have little more rights than the lowly sheep. In yet another scene, Armstrong sets Harry and Sybylla on opposite sides of a fence, showing their division of attitude and thought.

Armstrong uses an aerial shot of an outdoor bird conservatory—and the chilling cries of caged birds—to indicate that women are like birds of oppression. Marilyn Frye in The Politics of Reality, asks readers to consider a birdcage in reference to the oppression of women. “If you look very closely at just one wire in the cage, you cannot see the other wires and are unable to see why a bird would not just fly around the wire any time it wanted to go somewhere.” But the bird remains because it has been conditioned into passivity. One can study the elements of an oppressive structure with great care and some good will without seeing the structure as a whole, and hence without seeing or being able to understand that one is looking at a cage and there are people who are caged, whose motion and mobility are restricted, whose lives are shaped and reduced” (4-5).

Surrounded as Sybylla is by the class conscious expectations of societal traditions, she refuses to conform. When one of the male dinner guests at Aunt Gussie’s ball remarks, “I’ve just bought a fine new bull,” Sybylla decides to respond as a man might. “That ought to make a few cows happy,” she jokes to the astonishment of her companions. Sybylla is warned that her willfulness will get her into trouble…but she is not afraid.

In the final scene, piano music of Sybylla’s childhood accentuates the successful completion of her book. Her journey to fulfilling her dream of becoming a writer finds its conclusion as she steps beyond the garden gate, places her book in the mailbox, and leans against the fence that might have kept her from her goal. My Brilliant Career contains hope for all women, putting us in tune with our own abilities and confidence to fight the constructs of male domination—flee the cage, tear down fences if necessary, and take up our places in the world as individuals with important issues and choices.

My Brilliant Career nurtures the spirit of wild creativity and determination in women. It urges us to keep faith in ourselves, to realize that we can reach out to take control of our lives, to understand that we may refuse to be molded into submission by a patriarchal society. While My Brilliant Career is a portrait of a young girl growing into womanhood and defying the unreasonable requirements of class respectability, it is also a vehicle for feminist cause and necessary change for the future of women. The individual women artists who have made this film possible are to be congratulated for creating a work of art that will continue to cause women—and men—to question the morality of a patriarchy that presses women into the service of men.

By Coralie Cederna Johnson

WORKS CITED
Bywater and Sobchack. “The Humanist Approach: Traditional Aesthetic Responses to the Movies.” Introduction to Film Criticism. New York: Longman, 1989: 24-47.

Frye, Marilyn. The Politics of Reality. The Crossing Press. Freedom, California. 1983: 4-5.
Middlemiss, Perry. “My Brilliant Career.” 1999. Online. Netscape. 5 Oct. 1999. Available: http://ncc1701.apana.org.au/~larrikin/lit/authors/franklinm/bcareer.html.

Moghaddam, Baback. “Judy Davis.” Biography from The Film Encyclopedia, Ephraim Katz, ed. 1994. 5 Jan. 1999. Online. Netscape. 5 Oct. 1999. Available: www- white.media.mit.edu/~baback/JD