Places in the Heart

Places in the Heart (1984) is set in Texas in 1935 and follows a woman fighting to keep her farm. Edna's husband is killed in an accident. She is left with two children, a mortgaged house and no income. The bank's only suggestion is to send the children to relatives and sell up. She refuses and decides to plant cotton, having no idea how to farm. Two people join her: Moze, a Black drifter who turns up at her door, and Mr Will, a blind lodger the bank forces on her. None of the three could stand alone in that town. The film does not prettify Texas in the thirties. The Ku Klux Klan is present and what happens to Moze is shown plainly; racism is not background detail, it cuts directly into the story. The final scene occupies its own place in cinema. Communion is being passed in a church, and among the people in the pews are the dead, sitting calmly alongside the living. Nothing is explained. The whole feeling of the film is in those two minutes. Sally Field won her second Oscar for this. Her acceptance speech has been misquoted for decades; what she actually said differs from the version everyone repeats. It runs 111 minutes. Good for: period drama, quiet American cinema, and strong roles for women. Less good for: it contains racist violence and a death, and the pace is slow.