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osprey_archerHeartland Film Festival has begun! At the last minute I got tickets to go see the opening film, Julia, a documentary about Julia Child directed by Julie Cohen and Betsy West (who also directed the documentary RBG), and it was delightful although there was a criminal lack of pear tart to assuage my cravings after the long, luscious pear tart sequence in the film. ("Food is sex," a French food critic informs us, as the camera lingers on the sensuous curves of the wine-poached pears.)
After the film there was a Zoom talk with the filmmakers, who told us that the pear sequence was actually shot in two locations, New York and Paris, because the Parisian cinematographer couldn't come to the US because of Covid at the time. "If you look closely, you can see that the cinnamon stick in the Paris shots is slightly bigger." Of course none of us were looking closely because we were all lusting after the tart: those two widely separated shots came together so seamlessly that nothing distracted us from its lusciousness.
Of course, the food shots are only a small part of the documentary, accompaniments to the moments when Julia Child is testing recipes or demonstrating a recipe on TV. The documentary cuts back and forth between the black-and-white television programs to the full-color recreations so our Food Network-trained generation can see just how mouth-watering these dishes really are.
I already knew the outlines of Julia Child's early years with Paul Child from Julie and Julia, but the information of Julia Child's later years was mostly new to me. In particular, I hadn't realized that she advocated for Planned Parenthood and gave many benefit dinners for them, or that during the AIDS crisis (after her lawyer, a dear friend, died of AIDS) she began giving AIDS benefit dinners, too. At this point she was in her seventies, which is a time when many people's attitudes have calcified, so it was lovely to see that it is possible for someone to still grow and change and shake off the homophobia of their conservative upbringing at that age.
Also Julia's classic dinner party roast beef with potatoes fried in the drippings looks to DIE for. That will be my new answer when anyone asks "If you could go to a dinner party with any famous person in history...?" Julia Child, of course!
After the film there was a Zoom talk with the filmmakers, who told us that the pear sequence was actually shot in two locations, New York and Paris, because the Parisian cinematographer couldn't come to the US because of Covid at the time. "If you look closely, you can see that the cinnamon stick in the Paris shots is slightly bigger." Of course none of us were looking closely because we were all lusting after the tart: those two widely separated shots came together so seamlessly that nothing distracted us from its lusciousness.
Of course, the food shots are only a small part of the documentary, accompaniments to the moments when Julia Child is testing recipes or demonstrating a recipe on TV. The documentary cuts back and forth between the black-and-white television programs to the full-color recreations so our Food Network-trained generation can see just how mouth-watering these dishes really are.
I already knew the outlines of Julia Child's early years with Paul Child from Julie and Julia, but the information of Julia Child's later years was mostly new to me. In particular, I hadn't realized that she advocated for Planned Parenthood and gave many benefit dinners for them, or that during the AIDS crisis (after her lawyer, a dear friend, died of AIDS) she began giving AIDS benefit dinners, too. At this point she was in her seventies, which is a time when many people's attitudes have calcified, so it was lovely to see that it is possible for someone to still grow and change and shake off the homophobia of their conservative upbringing at that age.
Also Julia's classic dinner party roast beef with potatoes fried in the drippings looks to DIE for. That will be my new answer when anyone asks "If you could go to a dinner party with any famous person in history...?" Julia Child, of course!
