A Thought on the Emmys

I didn't watch the show, since I was out at dinner with friends, but I am completely thrilled that Claire Danes won an Emmy for her performance as Temple Grandin. The role is in some ways a conventional biopic: character overcomes struggles, emerges triumphant. But it's a strikingly original movie about a strikingly original woman. Visually, the movie works hard to show us the world through Grandin's eyes, and to make clear how differently she sees and experiences things, and that we're not merely being asked to sympathize with a loner, or someone who is misunderstood—we're being asked to surrender the way we see and feel the universe around us. That's a significant demand for a piece of art. And for all of Grandin's triumphs, the movie is absent the kind of personal developmental signposts that we've been trained to look for. There is not a love story here, and the triumph involves something most of us will not experience directly, the improvement of industrial agriculture. Temple Grandin is without question one of the movies I've enjoyed most this year, and I'm glad to see Danes' excellent work it in recognized on a night when Emmy voters made so many other deeply conventional choices.