Lilies of the Field

The story goes that I was five years old when I watched my first complete movie. My mother told the story, and you know how it is, my mind started building an actual scene around it. I can see myself sitting on the floor before the TV set in our wall unit, in my typical position, knees in front, feet at my sides - I was lot more flexible then - simply because that's how I used to do it later.
Anyhow, as a kid I loved to hear my mother tell me the story of my first "real" film and how I was glued to the screen.
The film was "Lilies of the Field" from 1963 which after watching it at least dozens of times is still one of my favorites.

Of course I chose a picture from
"Lilies of the Field" to make a beaded
portrait of Sidney Poitier for my fan wall.

Let's start with the movie (there will be spoilers for both the movie and the book it's based on).

Homer Smith stops at a small rundown farm because he needs water for his car. There are five women there, and when one of them, who introduces herself as Mother Maria, sees Homer she thanks God for sending her a strong man.
Homer, however, doesn't intend to stay. As there's not much in his wallet right now, he agrees to repair the roof - one man for hire for one day. At the end of the day he hands Mother Maria the bill and she just takes it and says she'll let him know about dinner.
Homer is surprised to see that the women are in fact nuns. They come from Germany, Austria, and Hungary and try to learn English, so he gives them a lesson after the very meager meal.

The next morning Homer is ready to move on, but instead Mother Maria takes him to a construction site where she wants him to build a chapel. Once again ignores the bill.
After cleaning up the site, Homer tries again in the evening, this time by quoting from the Bible, but the Mother quotes from the Sermon on the Mount - hence the title of the film - and informs him that he will drive them to Mass the next day.
Being a Baptist himself, Homer doesn't attend Mass. He goes to a diner for breakfast where Juan, the owner, tells him about the nuns coming from an East German order which inherited the farm and that they escaped over the Berlin Wall.

My favorite scene - Homer orders "a real breakfast" after
having to endure the "Catholic" meals. His passion
about wheatcakes with maple syrup, coffee, and fresh
orange juice makes me hungry every time I watch it.

Despite himself, Homer gets drawn in more and more. When he decides to leave for good, the Mother has him take her and one of the sisters to town to ask Mr. Ashton, the owner of a construction company, for donations. They tell him that Homer is their contractor, and not wanting to give Ashton the satisfaction of confirming his doubts, Homer says that he is indeed.
He starts working on the chapel, but also for Ashton two days a week and uses the money to buy groceries for the nuns.
Mother Maria has no luck getting more money and bricks, though, and one evening emotions rise so high that Homer leaves.

He does come back eventually, though, even if a little the worse for wear.
That impresses the people in the Hispanic community so much that they finally decide to help, both with supplies and their labor. At first, Homer refuses to let them help and admits to the nuns that he always wanted to build something by himself, but then he realizes how much it means that everyone wants to help with this special project as he tells Mr. Ashton who donates bricks after all.

When the chapel is finished, Homer signs his work. He knows that it's time for him to leave now although Mother Maria already has new plans for a school and more.

No matter how often I watch the movie,
I wonder every time why the h is lowercase.

On the evening before the dedication of the chapel, Homer and the nuns sing together once more.
Then he gets up, still singing, packs his things and drives off into the night.

Now what could it have been about the movie that attracted a five year old so much that it became one of her all time favorites? I never tried to dissect my feelings before, I just know the film makes me feel good.

One point is easy to find - I love "Amen", the Baptist spiritual Homer is singing with the nuns, and I'm afraid I might have turned it into a bit of an earworm at home back then, just the "Amen" part of course. I still sing along today.
Actually, I like the whole score.



Poitier didn't sing himself, by the way. "Amen" was written and sung by Jester Hairston (if you would like to know more about him, check the sources).

But obviously I was drawn to Poitier himself and the humor he's bringing to the film. I adore his smile and laugh and I love that the humor is warm and gentle, especially in the scenes with him and strict Mother Maria. 
The role was offered to Harry Belafonte first, but Belafonte thought it was demeaning and missed the social justice topic and Homer was too plain a character, so he turned it down. He even discussed that with Poitier who defended his reasons for not doing so.
Indeed the movie doesn't dwell much on racism except the one time Ashton calls Homer "boy" to which Homer reacts by calling him "boy" back. Instead it shows how people from different circles - the black handyman, European nuns, a Hispanic community, an Irish priest, and even a white businessman - can work together to accomplish something no one thought possible, despite the differences in race, wealth, and faith.
Although the spark for the plot was Mother Maria's unbroken faith in God, to me this was never a religious film (once I was old enough to think about it) although I'm aware others might not see it like that. For me, it's about community, communication, cooperation, understanding, and tenacity. Have I used the word gentle yet (I know I did)?

Sidney Poitier won an Academy Award for Best Actor (the first African-American to win that one), a Golden Globe, and the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the Berlin International Film Festival and was nominated for other awards as well.
Lilia Skala as Mother Maria Marthe was nominated for several awards as Best Supporting Actress.
Not that I cared much about that as a five year old (as if I even knew! 😉)

It wasn't easy for Ralph Nelson to get financial backing for the movie. It was even suggested to add a love interest, a nun who hadn't taken her vows yet. Another studio wanted Steve McQueen as Homer.
Ralph Nelson finally found a studio who offered a budget of $250,000 but demanded a collateral. Nelson offered his own home. At the time, Poitier had already been a respected actor and earned about twice that budget per film. Poitier accepted a deal of $50,000 and ten percent of the gross earnings. And as the budget was so low, he actually had to do the heavy work in the movie himself. Both of them really believed in this movie which only took 14 days to shoot, by the way.
Well, and it did become a success making $2.5 million in the first six months.

Now to the book.

My German copy.

William Barrett was a writer of novels three of which got adapted into movies including "The Lilies of the Field". He was Catholic and also wrote essays, reviews, and biographies, one of them about Pope Paul VI.

The story of the nuns is actually based on the true story of the Abbey of St. Walburga in Colorado. In 1935, three sisters  were sent from the Bavarian motherhouse Abtei St. Walburg to Colorado where they bought land cheaply from monks who said it was "un-farmable". Originally, it was meant to be one potential place of refuge from the Nazi regime if needed, but eventually the farm turned into a priory taking in novices and then became an abbey.
The book of course changed the time to that of the Cold War and the nuns fled East Germany as mentioned above.

It also explains a bit more about Homer.
He's 24 (that's younger than Poitier was when he made the movie), he "lives his life one day at a time, there is laughter in him". He has a bit of money after leaving the Army and wants to go see the West (while the film is set in Arizona). And he cherishes his freedom, being able to go where he wants when he wants, only working if he needs to. "A man was free when he could say 'yes' or say 'no'." And still he feels he can't just say no to Mother Maria Marthe.

There are also some small differences which aren't really important, though. The priest isn't Irish but Hispanic, and he doesn't have to hold the service from the back of a car, there is a little church. There's no Mr. Ashton, he's called Livingston in the book.
The book also explains what Homer does when he leaves for the first time. He gets himself a job with a wrecking company in the big city, but although his days with the nuns feels like a dream, he thinks of them when they tear down a row of houses. He goes through the salvage thinking that the nuns need a bath tub. So he buys one and takes it back as a present.
In the movie he just returns with a black eye, but the book doesn't say anything about him getting into trouble nor what made him come back.

The biggest difference, however, is the ending.
Homer drives into the night alright, but the book doesn't end here.
A legend is evolving around Homer and his chapel. Tourists start visiting. Thanks to contributions, the nuns can build a school and take in boys from broken families to help them make their way in life. And in the chapel there's a painting of Saint Benedict the Moor by Sister Albertine which looks like Homer.
To be honest, I'm glad the movie left that part out.

Now excuse me, I think I'm going to watch the movie one more time.


Sources and further information:

1. Brian Bergen-Aurand: Lilies of the Field (1963). On: Foreign Influence, February 3, 2017
2. Ron Olesko: "Amen" and Jester Hairston. On: Sing Out!, March 22, 2008
3. Abbey of St. Walburga History
4. David A. King: The heart of Barrett's 'The Lilies of the Field'. In: The Georgia Bulletin, March 20, 2014
5. "Lilies of the Field: The Story Behind the Film" on YouTube