Jodie Foster naked in Nell (1994)


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Another pretty terrific film.

My comments follow.

idioglossia [Gr. – of distinct tongue], a form of dyslalia in which the person affected consistently makes substitutions in his speech sounds to such an extent that he seems to speak a language of his own.

“Idioglossia” doesn’t have the sexy ring of a blockbuster movie title, but it was the painstakingly accurate title of Mark Handley’s original source material, a stage play about Nell, a “wild child” from the Great Smoky Mountains who spoke her own language. Raised by her mama in complete isolation from society for decades, she and her mother developed their own form of English. When the mother finally died, the State of North Carolina had on its hands a thirty year old woman who was incapable of communicating with the world, or understanding its ways, but who owned just about enough property to form her own state.

How does the Modern State come to grips with such a situation in a compassionate and civilized world? In this story, the courts assigned two psychologists to study the woman, to learn to communicate in her idiolect, and to make a recommendation back to the court. I think that is the way we humans would like to visualize ourselves disposing of such a case, just as we all like to envision ourselves as champions of educating our children. In the real world, teachers generally have too many students and are rarely allowed to do their jobs, while social workers have so many cases to handle that it is unlikely that two such compassionate, intelligent, high-level professionals would be assigned full-time to a single case for three months. If such a thing were possible, however, the result might turn out something like it did in this film. At least I like to think it would. Like most of us, I would like to believe that the failings of our species can be attributed more to our limited resources than to some kind of malice intrinsic to our natures.

There are many different reasons why we love people, and there are just as many reasons why we love movies – entertainment, education, emotional stimulation, thrills, and intellectual engagement, to name a few. One of the most powerful reasons is that some films have the ability to mix images and sounds and ideas in a way that penetrates into the deepest levels of our brain, transports us into a different mood, and makes us aware, if only for a short time, of the greater possibilities of humanity. We call them “feel-good” movies, often with a sneer of contempt attached, but I mean for no pejorative meaning to be attached to that term here. Nell is a ‘feel-good” movie that is intended to open our eyes to see the luminous angels which can sometimes lurk inside of us.

The film is filled with beauty. The “wild child” turns out to be neither retarded nor feral, but a perfectly capable woman who has been raised in a different culture with a different language. She turns out to have a great spiritual purity which affects those around her. The two shrinks have their weaknesses, but are also special people whose intellectual curiosity about Nell is matched by their concern for her welfare. The fourth beautiful main character is the luminescent mountain country of the Carolinas, made glorious in summer by the sun and shadows, and photographed here to look more like a dream of Eden than a mere chunk of planetary sod and water.

Some critics felt that the film was false. In some ways they are right. It may have some clumsy moments and artificial elements. Foster looked much too beautiful for the role, for example. Her dentition was perfect, not that of a woman raised in the woods, without contact with civilization for 25 years. That certainly struck a false note. In my opinion, the film would have worked better if Nell had looked like what such a person really would have looked like, and that lack of physical beauty would have made the script richer as well. It is always easy for us to love beauty, but it’s a greater triumph if we can overcome superficial ugliness to find inner beauty.

In general, however, those sorts of problems seem like quibbles in light of the film’s greater generosity of spirit. The script handles an ambitious and difficult premise in a reasonable and thoughtful way.

7 thoughts on “Jodie Foster naked in Nell (1994)

  1. Roger, good answers. Comments are closed in the Biden had Putin’s plan thread. Hopefully we haven’t left terribly much open ground for a continuation here.

    A) I thought Obama hadn’t thought thru his “red line” remark before it came tumbling out of his mouth. Reneging on his implied promise to punish Assad under some condition but then rescinding punishment under a pretense that the goal posts have moved, yes, that was a green light to bad actors. It showed Obama’s implied threat had been cavalier, not deadly serious. Just as it was Reagan’s withdrawal from Beirut that told terrorists that when pressured, the U.S. backs down. That we’re a paper tiger. Or, as you say, Obama showed weakness. Which as you say is Putin’s catnip.

    B) No, of course not, Putin’s a crook. Before Moscow, he was a crime boss in Leningrad. But the logic of Putin’s world view is the same as The Donald’s. If the powerful can break international law & be answerable to no one, then the laws are illegitimate. They’re for suckers. First B Clinton & then W Bush exposed the laws the world takes for granted as fraud. They didn’t matter to anyone powerful enough to make up their own rules. The key is only to have such power. Putin thinks: still got nukes, got army, got cyber. I guess I’m that guy.

    My own take is that killing people is bad diplomacy. Soldiers & guns make incidental enemies whenever we call on them to do their job. OTOH, time & again, sanctions have not worked. Hurt the innocent most. Afghans are starving… the Taliban & their army, not so much.

    C) Absolutely. Yes, what I’m saying is very different from Trump’s base. I want to go forward. Going backwards is not just bad, but not possible, fundamentally. America is good in many ways, bad in some ways, and I want us to try & fix things. Which I believe that, in effect, we’re not doing. We’re not really trying, effectively. We’re stuck. Left, Right, alike in that way.

    I do think actions Dems have taken recently & tried but failed to take, are in a right direction. There remain big problems that no one knows how to solve yet. Runaway healthcare cost, for one. For another, the huge fraction of our economy stolen from us by useless financialization. We know from experience that throwing money at problems isn’t good enough. Subsidies support high prices. When what we really need is to stop the spiral. But throwing some money at certain problems has to be a thing we’re willing to try when we have good reason to believe in it. That can work, sometimes. In cities, we need to end the tyranny of single family homes. There are things we could do. We aren’t hopelessly lost. But if we stay right where we are… Sorry, I don’t want to go there.

    1. Thanks for your reply, MyKey.

      About (A), you could very well be right. I have an opinion, but no facts or cogent arguments, so I should stop arguing about it. I barely remember that event.

      With (B), I think breaking those rules have been going on a LONG time. I think breaking them is how the US got into Vietnam. The trivial Tonkin Gulf incident and the ensuing congressional resolution are what come to my mind. But so does Russia crushing the Hungarian revolution in 1956, and the Prague Spring of 1968. I have a hard time believing Clinton did anything transgressive in that way. Bush the Younger, maybe, but that’s probably because I despise him, so my opinion doesn’t count.

      And most of all, I am glad we agree on (C). That is the way forward. There will always be arguments about specific goals, ways, and means, but accepting the general direction of progress is the main point.

      1. Good. I’ll concede that the U.S. has held itself above international laws since at least the start of the Cold War & a “superpower” became a thing. As Congress exempts itself from laws. As for Clinton, really, it was Albright’s idea. But to quote a bad line from a good movie, “You are what you do.”

        Our heart was pure, arguably. Putin’s is not. I was trying to suggest Putin’s rationale — rationalization — not yours or my own. He puts zero stock in our intentions. It’s only that, if we mumble some lies — in the mind of a liar like Putin or Trump, everyone’s always lying — in some particular shape, that’s a definition of justification. That’s what he’s doing. He mumbles some lies, in that shape. Ergo, his legalistic “casus belli” is met.

        I hope Ukraine repels the invasion. If not, Europe faces terrible pressure. OTOH, if the U.S. can’t right its ship, the world will lapse into disarray. That’s my fear.

        1. One crucial point: Masha Gessen was who pointed this out to me. She was talking about Putin having wanted to restore the USSR’s status quo ante for a quarter century. That is, trying to read Putin based on his life. The U.S. taking sides in a civil war in a neighbor to Russia rankled him. That crossed a line. Yes, a Cold War line. But Putin was a KGB cold-warrior for 16 years. There was no Iron Curtain in Albright’s mind in 1999, but it never left Putin’s. The other transgressions you talk of, Putin didn’t live them. That’s why the decision to bomb Kosovo looms. Because it presages the invasion of Ukraine.

  2. Good review, Scoops. Thanks. TBH, I’m easily distracted by a pretty face & by nudity. Maybe I didn’t like this as much as I ought to have.

      1. Yeah. OTOH, I loved Normal People. I read the book after. The impression that gave me was that Daisy was too pretty to be cast as Marianne. I suppose not everyone sees Daisy as quite as pretty as I do. Still, Marianne’s supposed to be not exactly unattractive, maybe a little pretty when dolled up. But to me, Daisy is definitely attractive. On balance, I was willing to overlook it. Her acting & the directing maximized the impact of the emotional shock moments, of which there are several.

        There’s also copious nudity & sex. It’s integral to the story. It’s done well. It’s thoroughly modern. Which is refreshing. Sex & love are entwined. You get a sense that the lovers are meant for each other. Yet they crash & break up, repeatedly. Even when they’re together, when they’re like the two sides of a coin, to say they complement one another is to ignore all the ways they’re so different. It’s a romance story, yet it’s so — not Jane Austen.

        YMMV. I dislike Jodie personally bc I dislike Mel. I’ve liked their work, mostly. I might watch Nell again one of these days, bc you’ve opened some daylight for the possibility that I can swallow the things I wasn’t willing to, before.

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