THE FARMER’S WIFE (David Sutherland, 1998)

One feels as though one is breathing fresh air while watching the bountiful exterior shots of David Sutherland’s wonderful 390-minute The Farmer’s Wife, which documents the struggles of a young loving couple to maintain both their small, independent farm in South Central Nebraska and their marriage, which also is immersed in the stressful waters of unpredictable weather, securement of loans from the F.H.A., debt, the restructuring of debt, the constant threat of slipping and drowning, the enormous competition of corporate farms and factory farms. Over the course of three years, Sutherland and crew visited 26 times for daylong shoots, capturing conversations between Juanita and Darrel Buschkoetter inside and outside their dilapidated house, even in their bedroom after lights-out. The couple has three young daughters. In addition to the terrific demands of farm work, Darrell “pushes steel” full-time and Juanita cleans people’s houses at one time or another—anything to survive. This is a film about many things, hard labor, shown here in detail, among them. It is grueling simply to watch Darrell at monotonous factory work that he hates doing and then, once back home, doing the farm work that he loves, but in darkness and in a state of exhaustion, until three in the morning.
     It is amazing how effectively the Buschkoetters become an index for the plight of their dwindling number, the independent farmer, without any sentimental pleading or academic abstraction. (Sutherland remains unheard and invisible throughout.) But that is another way of saying we are riveted by the particularities of this persevering couple—so much so that we keenly feel Juanita’s anguish that her husband remains painfully attached to his farmer-father, who never praises his son (and never will) and denigrates his daughter-in-law’s contribution to his son’s farming operation. Similarly, Juanita’s family disdains Darrell for being beneath their college-educated lot; one sister—Juanita has seven siblings—voices the opinion, stated with self-righteous certainty, that Darrell doesn’t love his wife and daughters, regarding them all as “his property.” This tears at our heart because we know how loving a spouse and father Darrell is, how devoted he is to family. Upshot: the mysterious privacy of a marriage evolves into a metaphor for the lack of public appreciation that independent farming attracts. Social generalizations arise from the specifics of human lives.
     In addition to conversations, there is voiceover from both Juanita and Darrell. Sutherland has beautifully edited these (remarkably analytical) remarks so that (cross-couple) they sometimes dovetail or contradict one another. Sometimes Juanita and Darrell are on the same page; sometimes they are not even in the same book.
     The two may appear to be efficiently observant Catholics, but Sutherland, I believe, has captured their essence by creating a deeply spiritual film. There are numerous shots at dusk and in darkness, Sutherland is fond of continuing the sound of family conversation as the camera shifts from indoors to outdoors, and his favorite method of continuity is the fadeout, usually on the house late at night or on some other shot of the farm at night. All this evokes the mystery of the eternal, in which the Buschkoetters’ lives and struggles participate. Gracefully, Sutherland evokes a sacramental and timeless universe.
     In an interview (included in the DVD of the film) Sutherland speaks of the invisibility of his camera. I chuckled. Tracking shots, especially trackings in and out, not to mention one jaw-dropping application of the zoom lens: none of this “hides” the camera. I, for one, felt the presence of the camera throughout. One difference between Rossellini and Sutherland is that, while Rossellini knows that his camera is a principal character, Sutherland does not. In one striking passage Juanita meets in succession with two of the couple’s creditors, hoping to extend the debt payments due over the next two years. The next two years! Both creditors agree—and we instantly know that the presence of the camera facilitated this outcome! For the record, a bumper crop, which seems to turn the tide of their luck, enables the Buschkoetters to pay off their debts.
     “I’m hoping our hardest times are behind us,” Juanita says at the last. Indeed, the couple has so strengthened their bond and expanded their options that viewers may experience something greater than hope: faith.