This little film is a labor of love by Peabody Award-winning director Roger Sherman as well as a bow in gratitude to farming. It’s inspiring to see someone as passionately in love with their job as the titular farmer Patty Gentry is. It’s a calling for her. We should all be so lucky.
Farm Appreciation
Actually, I'd already appreciated farming. Here’s why: Those who attended Rudolf Steiner’s Waldorf schools in the late 1960s (with a parent on the faculty) were privy to spiritual esoterica that had long been considered the secret of secrets. Like, say, reincarnation and chakras. In 2021, you see chakras adorning the yoga attire of suburban housewives.Early Girl Farm
The landlady of this farmlet is none other than movie star and activist Isabella Rossellini, daughter of the legendary Ingrid Bergman, who speaks to the perfectionist standards of her tenant, relating that Farmer Gentry encourages Rossellini to feed the farm’s excess (garbage) to her various animals. Rossellini happily complies, but not without foraging through it herself first. She knows that Patty throws out produce that’s not 100 percent perfect in every regard, namely fresh, flavorful, and visually aesthetic—veggies most farmers would sell in a heartbeat.
“To make a healthy living, all you need is three acres,” says Gentry cheerily. However, it took her 10 long years to be able to make that claim. After a two-decade career as a chef, Gentry started providing farm-to-table produce to local Long Island restaurants, such as Beth’s Café in Quogue, via a farm stand. Only recently has she been able to make a financial breakthrough.
And even now, Gentry continues to live more of a classic starving-artist type of existence. If it weren’t for her partner providing financial support, as Gentry says, “I would probably still be farming, but I would most likely be living out of the back of my truck.” Small wonder that Rossellini calls Patty “the Picasso of vegetables.” Make no mistake about it: Patty Gentry is a true artist in every regard.
It’s All About the Soil
Just like potters live for finding good sources of clay, farmers live to discover ways to improve their soil—how to get more of that ideal, loamy, black, earthworm heaven that exponentially increases veggie yield. As Patty says, the soil tells a story through the plant. “It takes guts to let the plants speak to you. In modern agricultural practices, these plants are never allowed to tell their story. They’re being doused with pesticides and herbicides—we don’t want to hear from them. And consequently we’re being served a product that is dangerous for us, and vacuous of any nutrients.”As director Sherman relates in his own review of his movie: “It is the way she deals with the many setbacks Patty faces that makes her story so captivating. Early in the film, she tells us that to improve her soil, she spread 15 tons of basalt [volcanic rock dust] on her three acres, ‘by hand.’ But it didn’t help.”
She names her various plants, which, like children, have different personalities and nutrition needs. She also keeps in her head what can only be described as a taste version of a photographic memory or perfect pitch, which sets the zenith taste standard she’d like to consistently cultivate. Talk about raw talent—that’s like a farmer version of Mozart’s renowned ability to hear some other composer’s brand new concerto and go home and play it flawlessly on the piano.
Things Get a Bit Easier
As she approached 50, Patty realized that she no longer had, as she put it, “the energy to waste energy.” Realizing that something had to change, she implemented a series of infrastructure improvements and streamlined her entire farming approach, the most effective aspect of which is Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). CSA provides local families with weekly shares of produce. Everyone buys a share in the farm and pays in advance, which is not the case with restaurants.We see a festive gathering with tents, and Patty addressing CSA members on the microphone while Isabella Rossellini is out parking cars. Members with children in tow walk about the farm, selecting their own herbs, while Patty dispenses master-level cooking wisdom. As she says: “The CSA is so joyful and feels effortless. People are happy to try anything. This week I had a ton of long beans on the chefs’ list but no one bought them. So, I have enough to give each CSA member almost a pound of these magnificent beans.”
“What separates Patty from most other farmers, I believe, is that she is sustained by the poetic magic of farming. Every Saturday at daybreak, she writes a heartfelt, lyrical letter to her CSA members. Reading a portion of one letter, which ends the film, she begins, ‘I want you to know we think about you all week and anticipate with joy your arrival at the farm on Saturday mornings. ...’ She describes the wonderful bounty they’re soon to receive, sharing ideas of how to cook—and think about—her vegetables. This week’s hopeful sign-off: ‘Like a rose under the April snow, Patty.’
“As in all of my social-issues films, I was attracted to Patty Gentry’s story because it represents a crucial issue in America today: the survival of small independent farmers. At a time when organic, sustainable, farming has become so valued, delivering on that promise is increasingly challenged. In a cinema verité style, Patty shows us how difficult farming is and how much she loves it. She’s smart, engaging, articulate, self-deprecating, and funny.
“I believe Patty’s story will move people. It will open their eyes to the struggles of small American farmers, and how crucial they are to sustaining our environment.”
Roger Sherman funded the film entirely by himself.
