Lilies of the Field (1963)

Director: Ralph Nelson

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“We build a scha-pel,” says the Mother Superior, to the young black handyman who has showed up for a day’s work and a day’s wages.  She has a thick German accent.  She and her sisters are newcomers to America, refugees in fact.  And the scene is not promising.  We are in a near-desert somewhere in Arizona. “Who’s we?” says handyman. “You!” she says, pointing at him.  She is used to command. “I ain’t gonna build you no chapel,” says he.

Our Film of the Week, Lilies of the Field (1963), might well be described as an artistic exploration of several powerful verses from Scripture, without any attempt by the director, Ralph Nelson, to drum them into people’s heads.  “Except the Lord build the house,” says the psalmist, “they labor in vain that build it.”  But how can you build, when you lack the materials for it?  Should you then consume yourself with worry?  But Jesus says, “Behold the lilies of the field; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these.”

It’s not a sentimental film.  There are no great saints in Lilies of the Field, and no spectacular sinners, just the ordinary run of human beings with their ordinary shortcomings – a bit of pride here, some ingratitude there, a cut of racial prejudice here, some lassitude there; and yet we sense also that there’s enough that is extraordinary in ordinary man doing ordinary things, enough for us to honor.  Sidney Poitier, who plays the handyman Homer Smith – “Schmidt,” as Mother Maria calls him, usually by way of badgering him or reminding him to do something he may already have done – won as Best Actor for his performance in this film, the first black actor to win that award.  But Nelson handles the racial matter with a very light touch; no more is needed.  Smith has much to learn about himself and other people and God, though not once does he ever say so or pontificate on the lessons.  Mother Maria (Lilia Skala) has much to learn about herself and other people and God, and she too does not pontificate.

Instead, there is great humor in Lilies of the Field – imagine the young Sidney Poitier sitting at table with some German nuns, trying to teach them a little English, and their getting confused about “white” and “black” – and always a touch of sadness.  For the temptation is ever near, not to be like those lilies of the field, but simply to give up, with a dry and sophisticated laugh, and move on, going from nowhere to nowhere.  But God in his mercy will not let us stray too far.

If you have not seen this film, you must. Homer Smith is perhaps an unlikely disciple — and at first, at least — an unwilling laborer. This is one of those films which we watch again and again and again at our house. It’s a film for all ages and one for the ages.