NR | 1h 32min | Drama | 1945
Regarded as his most “American film” because he fell in love with America during filming, “The Southerner” secured French-born screenwriter-director Jean Renoir his only Best Director Oscar nomination.
Texan Sam Tucker (Zachary Scott) and wife Nona (Betty Field) work a landlord’s sprawling cotton field to support their children Daisy (Jean Vanderwilt) and Jot (Jay Gilpin), and Granny (Beulah Bondi). Before Tucker’s uncle Pete dies from the blazing heat, he warns: “Work for yourself. Grow your own crops.” So, Tucker starts afresh, growing his own crop on a tenant farm. That doesn’t stop neighboring farmer Henry Devers (J. Carrol Naish) from trying to ruin Tucker’s farm so he can buy it cheap off its owner.
Together, the Tuckers brave the worst weather—summer heat, winter cold, rainstorms, and flooding. They deal with dwindling resources of seed, fertilizer, farm equipment, water, and livestock. A sickness in spring strikes little Jot, their son. After long resisting his friend Tim’s enticing offer of regular work and pay in a city factory, Tucker grudgingly begins to wonder if the charm of rural life and farming is all it’s made out to be.
Tucker’s dilemma on his farm mirrors Renoir’s in film. In the 1940s, Nazis who’d just invaded France tempted Renoir with a flattering offer for him to head all new French film productions. How could he possibly spurn the security of making and earning off guaranteed films? Unsaid, of course, was their plan to exploit him, including for propaganda. Renoir responded by fleeing France and becoming an American citizen.
Here in “The Southerner,” Renoir references that dilemma. One landlord lets Tucker rent one of his many plots but cautions: “If you’re workin‘ for a big outfit, maybe you don’t get rich, but you still get your pay, even if your crops is bad. But the little guy, who’s growin’ his own, if his crops is ruined, he’s got nothin' left.”
Unsurprisingly, when Renoir resumed filmmaking in America, stifled by its studio system and accustomed to freedom as an independent filmmaker, he gravitated toward producers who gave directors freedom.
Rather than opt for a star, Renoir backed lesser-known, Texas-born, Zachary Scott to portray the Southerner’s steadfastness in the face of adversity. Scott looks ordinary enough, but his steady, deep voice makes clear that he’s no ordinary farmer.
Realism, Pessimism, and Optimism
Renoir weighs Tucker’s and Nona’s optimism against Devers’s and Tim’s realism and Granny’s pessimism.Realism, Renoir argues, is the refuge of those who risk little and win even less. Like Tim and Devers, they can’t bear losing, so they rarely win, let alone win big. A mistaken notion of the truth keeps them wedded to what is, rather than to what could be. They end up fulfilling that reality instead of bravely reimagining or re-creating it.
Pessimists whine about what they don’t have rather than cherish what they do. Renoir ignores them, except through Granny’s caricaturish whining. It’s meant more for laughs and to spoof naysayers who’d rather blame than build.
Renoir explains that optimism isn’t idealism or utopianism, but shelter and shade to both realists and pessimists until they, too, make the journey to optimism. Meanwhile, optimists look at rundown houses, leaky roofs, empty dinner tables, dry wells, parched or flooded land, and sickness and respond with resolve. They work creatively and collaboratively to craft a new, better reality.
Tim likens Tucker’s optimism to gambling or daydreaming. Through his actions, Tucker clarifies that his optimism exudes love, integrity, and gratitude.
It isn’t by chance that it’s Tucker who finally catches “Lead Pencil,” the mammoth catfish that Devers has long been after. Nor is it by chance when friends turn up with a gift of a heifer just when the Tuckers need milk to nurse Jot back to health. Both catfish and heifer represent what’s often called luck, but what is more akin to the inexplicable fruit of work, patience, and persistence.
Watch Tucker insist on a thanksgiving prayer before the first real meal they have in weeks, or fend off unwanted womanly attention at a bar, or toil in the field and near the river to put food on the table. Watch Nona work the land and livestock alongside Tucker, show him affection, hold his hand, and embrace him. She’d rather imagine what they’ll have for tomorrow’s breakfast than cry that there’s no dinner tonight.
