{"id":6798,"date":"2017-09-25T06:45:14","date_gmt":"2017-09-25T10:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6798"},"modified":"2017-10-05T08:02:49","modified_gmt":"2017-10-05T12:02:49","slug":"maudie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6798","title":{"rendered":"Maudie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Maudie,<\/a>Maud Lewis today is one of Canada\u2019s best-known primitive painters\u2014quite an accomplishment for a poor, chronically ill woman from a townspeck between the Bay of Fundy and St. Mary\u2019s Bay. This charming film, written by Sherry White and directed by Aisling Walsh (trailer<\/a>), tells her story. At least in the way that biopics do, leaving you wondering, was Maud\u2019s husband really so prickly? Did they really live in a tiny one-room house? Further research indicates the answers to those questions are probably not and yes.<\/p>\n

Maud suffered from painful juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, which may have stunted her growth, \u00a0and an equally painful awkwardness in social interactions. In marrying Everett Lewis, she finds a man even more emotionally and socially stunted than she is. I can\u2019t say enough about how beautifully Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke play these odd characters. Physically, it had to be a taxing role for Hawkins, because Maud walks with difficulty and, as time passes, becomes more and more bent over. But a wide smile comes readily to a woman who can look at a window and say, \u201cThe whole of life, already framed, right there\u201d\u2014both to Hawkins and in photos and film of\u00a0 the real-life Maud.<\/p>\n

They find each other when Everett looks for a woman to cook and clean his one-room house while he runs his fish-peddling and junk collecting businesses. Maud is looking for an escape from under the thumb of her judgmental aunt. When he advertises for help in the general store, this tiny woman appears on his doorstep. She brings order to the house, but Maud\u2019s real desire is to paint. She starts by decorating the walls of Ev\u2019s house, then scrap construction materials he\u2019s brought home. From there, her career as an artist blossoms like her paintings, but since they charge about $5 per picture, it never makes them much money.<\/p>\n

Maudie<\/em> is an uplifting story about a person who made the most of her gifts and whose efforts were recognized in her lifetime, far outside their Marshalltown, Nova Scotia, home. Because she had modest goals\u2014\u201cI\u2019ve got everything I want with you, Ev. Everything.\u201d\u2014she found tremendous satisfaction and joy in her life, despite its challenges.<\/p>\n

(Many of Maud Lewis\u2019s paintings are now in the <\/em>Art Gallery of Nova Scotia<\/em><\/a>, as is the Lewises\u2019 actual house, restored after the Gallery acquired it in 1984. In May 2017, a Maud Lewis painting sold at auction for $45,000.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maud Lewis today is one of Canada\u2019s best-known primitive painters\u2014quite an accomplishment for a poor, chronically ill woman from a townspeck between the Bay of Fundy and St. Mary\u2019s Bay. This charming film, written by Sherry White and directed by … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[265,366,56,104],"tags":[598,324,1123,1124,1125],"class_list":["post-6798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biography","category-drama","category-film","category-the-morgue","tag-canada","tag-ethan-hawke","tag-maud-lewis","tag-maudie","tag-sally-hawkins"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s2NkiT-maudie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6800,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6798\/revisions\/6800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}