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Poets on Film

There’s been a spate of films about poets in recent years and this got me wondering whether there was still something ‘romantic’ about the figure of the poet in the public consciousness – a strange idea perhaps, given the ever-diminishing sales of poetry. But how successful are films at showing the creative process of a poet, or encouraging viewers to actually read the poets’ work?
As part of the Dylan Thomas centenary celebrations this year, A Poet in New York was screened on BBC 2, with Tom Hollander playing the heavy-drinking, womanising Thomas. Some critics have wondered what the film adds to our understanding of Thomas’s work, but at least the film includes excerpts from several poems, including the verse drama Under Milk Wood, which was originally written for radio. Hollander reads beautifully but perhaps Thomas’s work is particularly well-suited to the medium of film because of its relative popularity and accessibility.

Allen Ginsberg, played by James Franco, is the subject of Howl (2010), but rather than follow a traditional biopic format, the film focuses on the 1957 obscenity trial which brought Ginsberg’s book-length poem to public notice. The film switches between courtroom scenes, Ginsberg reading to a smoky hipster-filled room, fictional interviews with Ginsberg, and the poem being read over animated scenes of New York. By the end of the film most of the poem has actually been read, although (somewhat ironically) the monotone intonation actually put me off the poem itself. However, all credit to the film-makers for engaging so directly with the poem, and also for including discussion about the nature of literature (a key debate in the obscenity trial) as well as Ginsberg’s thoughts on the composition of Howl.
Sylvia Plath’s life story has generated an entire ‘Plath industry’, her tragically short life picked over many times by scholars, biographers and scandal-mongers. In Sylvia (2003) she finally gets the Hollywood treatment. Plath is played by Gwyneth Paltrow, with lots of shots of her cycling around an idyllic Cambridge, Alice band held firmly in place. Perhaps the most cringe-worthy scene is where she and Ted (played by Daniel Craig) take a boat out onto the river and recite poetry to each other. There’s no poetry by Plath because the filmmakers were unable to secure the rights to it: the Plath estate therefore is partly to blame for a film which focuses so exclusively on Plath’s love life rather than her work.
Bright Star (2009) is one film about a poet that I would happily recommend. Written and directed by Jane Campion, it is beautifully shot, with the dazzling scenes of the countryside which seem suggestive of Keats’s powerful, vivid imagination. Although it focuses on a poet’s love life – Keats’s passion for Fanny Brawne – the life and the work are sympathetically intermingled.

Elizabeth Bishop is a ‘poet’s poet’ whose star has been rising in recent years. She was a notoriously private individual, so it’s hard to imagine a writer who would less like to be the subject of a biopic. Reaching for the Moon (2013) is a Brazilian film focusing on Bishop’s  relationship with Brazilian architect Lota de Macedo Soares and Lota’s tragic suicide. I haven’t seen the film yet, but will be curious to see how many minutes are devoted to Bishop’s painstakingly re-drafted masterpieces, and how many to the details of her unhappy personal life.
Most of the films mentioned are more interested in the life of the poet than their work, and what these poets have in common is a life marked by tragedy or scandal. If the films do show the poet at work, it’s usually in a frenzy of inspiration, typing it out as if the polished piece arrived directly from the muse in its finished form.
Perhaps the truth is that the process of writing – the drafting, the starting again, the fiddling with commas – just isn’t that interesting to watch. But without their poetry, we wouldn’t even be watching films about these people. It seems a wasted opportunity that many of these films buy into the cliché of the poet as the mad eccentric and neglect their poetry.
This is a far from comprehensive survey of films about poets – there are many more. Have you seen any, and did it make you want to read their work? Thoughts and recommendations most welcome!


Posted by author: Vicky MacKenzie

3 thoughts on “Poets on Film

  • I’ve just been to the National Portrait Gallery touring exhibition called Picture the Poet. The purpose of the exhibition which has been undertaken in collaboration with the writing organisation Apples and Snakes is to interest kids in in poetry and get them writing. But as with biopics, the photographic portrait doesn’t really have much to do with the poetry. I’m not sure how these portraits, fascinating as photography, will help kids to write their own poetry.
    Added to which, out of 55 poets presented, only 9 are women – not a very good press for women poets, nor does it give the right educational message to aspiring youngsters, male or female. When I mentioned this to Sandy Nairne, the Director of the National Portrait Gallery who opened the exhibition in Sheffield, he replied that he always thought women were better at novels than poetry anyway. I promised to send him a list of women poets who might have been included.
    Incidentally, many of the portraits are by women photographers, at least eleven by Madeleine Waller, several by Jemimah Kuhfeld, and Layle Silbert, Polly Borland and Maud Sulter are also represented. So women photographers have a better deal than women poets. But what I found interesting was not so much the fact that these were poets who were being photographed, but the variety in the photographs themselves, full length, head only, odd positions, sitting, standing, hair forward or back, garden,field or indoor background; black and white or colour. And none of this seems to relate in any way to the poetry.
    I think poems and photographs have a lot in common but I also think that photographs of poets have very little to say about the poems written by those poets. There are a few poetry books on a table in the exhibition room. These might indeed evoke responses from visiting youngsters, but they could equally write worthwhile poems if the portraits had been of engineers, nurses, dog-trainers or chefs!

    • Hi Liz, thanks for your reply.
      I’m reeling from Sandy Nairne’s comment about women being better at novels than poetry. I’ve been fortunate enough not to come across that kind of crass gender stereotyping for a while, it almost feels like a body blow encountering it again. You’ve probably seen that the New Gen Poets promotion has 12 female poets among its 20 names this year (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/11/next-generation-20-poets-poetry-book-society-kate-tempest).
      In terms of the exhibition, perhaps kids might feel that poetry is something they could consider doing themselves if they saw that poets don’t have to be white middle-class, middle-aged men (nothing wrong with that, of course!), but are actually a pretty diverse bunch. Doesn’t sound like the exhibition was giving a very accurate picture about who poets are today though. And I totally agree that they could just as easily have written poems responding to pictures of dog-trainers – hmmm, I’m getting an idea for a poem now!

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