Over the holidays, one of the films I saw was Greta Gerwig’s lively interpretation of “Little Women.”
“Little Women” is one of my all-time favorite books. As a child, I was handed my mother’s copy of the book and told she loved it, so, of course, I wasn’t going to touch that book if my life depended on it. But somewhere along the line — maybe when I was in college? — I picked it up and fell into the rich world of Jo, Meg, Beth, Amy and Laurie. I now reread the book about every 10 years and have seen every English-language production that comes along. Every time I do, I marvel at Louisa May Alcott’s industry, sensitivity to the inner lives of girls/women and the secret corners of human nature.
So when Greta Gerwig’s gorgeous version premiered on Christmas Day, I was in a movies seat on Dec. 26. I loved it. LOVED it. And I was struck by what I interpreted as a sly nod to the real Louisa May Alcott’s childhood religious upbringing.
Some background - LMA’s father was Bronson Alcott, an education reformer and free-thinker whose ideas were so revolutionary he had a lot of trouble keeping a job - the family moved 20 times in 30 years. In “Little Women” he is portrayed as a clergyman who goes off to minister to the Union Army in the Civil War.
Alcott was also one of the first Transcendentalists, one of the many uniquely American religious/philosophical movements that cropped up during the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century (see Mormonism, Adventism, Methodism, etc). Transcendentalist pioneers included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and the much overlooked Margaret Fuller, all great family friends of the Alcotts.
Like the fictional Marches, the Transcendentalists did not attend church. They shunned the idea of a triune God for a great “Over-Soul,” a kind of great one-ness of all human spirits (and precursor to the contemporary Unity movement). They believed societal structures, like governments, political parties and churches corrupted the human spirit, which was at its purest in nature. Think of Thoreau and his cabin in at Walden Pond.
I think there is a wink to this in the current “Little Women” when the March sisters take their Christmas breakfast to a poor family. There is a shot of Jo March (played by the wonderful Saoirse Ronan) walking past a church on the way; the rest of Christian Concord, Mass. is headed into the church while the March sisters pass it by. To me, that shot spoke volumes about the March and Alcott families’ religious beliefs.
There are glimpses of Transcendentalism in the novel, too. The Marches never go to church and the pastor-father does not have a pulpit of his own. The girls read “Pilgrim’s Progress,” the Christian parable that was a pivotal book in Bronson Alcott’s life and one that influenced his ideas on the teaching of children. The March sisters paraphrase bible quotes, like the Golden Rule and Jesus’ admonition about casting the first stone. And when Jo encounters atheism in New York, her Professor Bhaer defends it:
He bore it as long as he could, but when he was appealed to for an opinion, he blazed up with honest indignation and defended religion with all the eloquence of truth . . . Somehow, as he talked, the world got right again to Jo. The old beliefs, that had lasted so long, seemed better than the new. God was not a blind force, and immortality was not a pretty fable, but a blessed fact. She felt as if she had solid ground under her feet again, and when Mr. Bhaer paused, outtalked but not one whit convinced, Jo wanted to clap her hands and thank him.
In the book, the March sisters live out their faith without explaining it or proselytizing it and the Gerwig film sticks to that and is the better for it.
Now what else is there to read or see or watch this month that involves religion, spirituality etc?
Netflix has a new series called “Messiah” in which a man may or may not be Jesus. I have not yet watched it but I will. Still have not seen “The Two Popes,” but I will. More Netflix — “Greenleaf,” about an African-American church and its families, is not new but I have heard it is very good. I am so behind. There is too much to watch/see/read.