ons stival . - California Film Institute

Feature
the CaMera and the spoon
intersections of Food and Film
By Carrie Laing Pickett
As a nation, we are in the middle of a
vigorous debate about food. Our current
culinary craze has introduced Americans at
large to the parlance and activities of the
food world. From ratatouille (2007) we
learn the stations of a traditionally run
upscale restaurant kitchen, while social
critiques like super size Me (2004) and
Fast Food nation (2006) inform us of the
nutritional and environmental hazards and
fat profits of the fast-food industry.
Often in this debate the deeply pleasurable
experience of cooking and dining is pitted
against the need for convenience and
inexpensiveness, and more in-depth
discussion about health, economics and
well-being becomes a casualty in the fray.
Meanwhile, we all struggle on, working out
how to get something to eat between the
other activities of our lives, and how to care
for and enjoy ourselves as best we can.
For those of us passionate about food, any
film that reveals an authentic connection
with it is rich with meaning. One such
cinematic benchmark is Babette’s Feast
(1987). At the heart of this sincere and
elegant film about the meeting of high
european culture and plain-living
Protestantism is an exquisite homage to the
intersecton of art and spirituality that is
illustrated by an age-old and basic activity:
a cook’s desire to express herself through
her work, and the absolute, wholesome
effect of her efforts.
The lengthy feast scene in the film gives
viewers such fine detail that we
subconsciously yearn for a sip of the Clos
de Vougeot or a taste of the turtle soup, to
find out for ourselves just how good they
are. We become part of the legendary
French dining experience: hours long, with
myriad courses carefully designed down to
the smallest nuance of a single ingredient,
color or preparation, to give the diner a
succession of sensory experiences that
together create an extraordinary sense of
well-being and fellow feeling.
Following along so closely, by the end of the
film we look around for a little something to
complete the experience, or wish we could
head out right then for a truly well-made
repast.
BaBEttE’s FEast
When the camera focuses so clearly on food,
or on its preparation or on the experience of
eating, one immediately senses something
important is being said. Small movements,
such as the licking of a fingertip after
touching the icing of a cake, or pausing to
smell and look at a piece of fruit before
taking a bite—movements that show real
appreciation or consideration of food—
suddenly give that moment a real-time,
depth: a moment of a person’s lived
experience.
German director doris dörrie’s How to
Cook Your Life (page 93) focuses expressly
on this rich, lived experience. Through the
medium of cooking, the film’s subject,
edward espe brown, renowned Zen priest,
suPEr siZE ME
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cook and food author, connects the many
facets of being human. Contrasting massproduced
food with the choosing and
handling of ingredients ourselves, he
draws out the hazards, satisfaction and
importance of preparing food under the
influence of life. For brown, nourishment
doesn’t “come out of a package, it comes
from your heart.”
Attentive food films like How to Cook Your
Life and Babette’s Feast aside, there are
other equally vital ways that food appears in
film. like clothes, living spaces and modes
of transportation, food is often used on
screen to set a location or scene, or to
establish characters’ personalities and their
cultural, class and social background. In
august Evening (page 84), for example, a
point is made about a character’s eating with
his hands. In Blame it on Fidel (page 86),
the protagonist’s parents alter the family fare
from fine bourgeois cuisine to beans and
rice, indicating a significant lifestyle shift.
Within a film narrative, the sharing of a
meal is frequently used as a time in which
characters interact with one another, working
out problems, making plans, revealing
themselves. In the Darjeeling Limited (page
89), a family dynamic is revealed in the
ordering of food, and stages (page 105)
plays out an estranged couple’s relationship
over meals.
Meals are often times of reckoning, too,
when moments of meaning spring up amid
the act of communal dining. A boy’s