POETRY ON FILMS: An Essay

POETRY ON FILMS: the hours and la vie en rose Published in the September Alewife, 2007 In my first poetry chapbook “Hot Rain” the opening poem is called Being Visited. And in it I wrote from the black vinyl couch of a NY Chelsea studio, “We film too much.” At that point, I had no TV set or VCR and little extra money to afford movies but there was something else at stake I thought, in writing that declaration. Life. I have always had a love/hate relationship with Hollywood films. Sometimes they are too manipulative for me, too gratuitously violent and I honestly think that people sell out their own emotional lives to the stars on the silver screen who’re getting paid millions of dollars to emote. And that bothers me. All our dramas should be big and deep and matter, in my ideal world anyway. On the other hand, I’ve always also had a hard time distancing myself from films enough to just use them as distraction or pure entertainment, the way most Americans do. My boundaries get broken down and I identify too much or get too caught up in the story, forgetting that it is, in fact, an artifice. The wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz, with her hideously pea green face gave me nightmares for years, until I realized that poor Margaret Hamilton the actress had nearly died under the trapdoor she had to emerge out of in a cloud of orange sulfur smoke. Another good example is when I took my Brooklyn Night High school students to see the film Glory, about the first black Union regiment to fight in the Civil War. They were essentially slaughtered but they died with the conviction that slavery had to be abolished and they wanted to do their part. So, there I was the Social Studies teacher in charge of the field trip weeping helplessly next to the Latino street kid who says to me, “But Miss G., it’s only a movie.” Well, it is, and then again, it isn’t. Because movies that try to depict actual historical events are meant to teach us lessons too and can be powerfully graphic tools, much more so than history books. The point here is that poets can change their minds, like everybody else and now I’ve realized the value of great films and have a little spending money (and even a DVD player), so I’m writing poems about films as a new collaborative project. So far I’ve written two: both films about women artists-- very different in style and substance. I haven’t come near to refining this craft because it’s not so much a critique of the film I want, but a visceral account of it’s movement and issues-- something that gives some sense of how the movie impacted me. The first piece is about the biopic just released on the life of French singer Edith Piaf, called, La Vie en Rose.” Piaf rose to fame in the 1950’s as a recording artist and concert hall singer after a nightmarish childhood and apprenticeship in rough Paris cabarets. Like many famous musicians, she became addicted to drugs and alcohol. One reason I chose this film is because I am also a singer myself. Many know her as “the sparrow” and though a petite woman, her voice could be thunderously and tremulously moving. ************************************* Edith Piaf: La Vie en Rose “Hold me close and hold me fastThe magic spell you cast. This is la vie en rose. When you kiss me heaven sighs. And tho I close my eyesI see la vie en rose” Louis Armstrong Oh the dream her boxer man comes to her and sits at her bed. She brings him coffee. She floats on love. Her voice is low and cream. The sparrow has wings. But the boxer has crashed over the Atlantic and the dream crumbles. The soul of the singer is shaking her apart. Breaking her heart. The boxer man from Morocco was her one joy. Both fighters and lovers. She shoots dope. She dreams death. She is pale and withered-- the sparrow, named by the booking agent in the cabarets whose father pimped her for La Marseillaise. She is France. She is the soul of her country. Om Khartoum in Egypt. Billie Holliday in the US. Raised by whores. Anesthetized by alcohol. St. Teresa sees all this. St. Teresa knows Edith Piaf, the sparrow. St. Teresa of the roses. No matter how hard you hit me, I will sing back. I will sing until I collapse on stage. My audience, knows Piaf, will hear my voice until the end. Like Judy Garland -- with those arms gesturing, that body swaying, conducting waves well beyond the lithe frame. My voice is my teacher and she will save me in the end. I will not drown. Then we see another sparrow -- sitting on the beach which is pale and dry like sober champagne. Sand surrounds her and she heals as the rhythms of the waves come in. She is at peace even though it is only silence she commands. Her face is ravaged; at 40, she looks 80. Yet her eyes are the eyes of an astonished child. She knows she too will be gone into an infinity sign, that treble Clef of God. Oh Teresa, where are you? In the end will the sparrow have your roses? Gone, gone, real gone, gone beyond even the most gone. And still her voice remains: the rose. La vie en Rose. ***************************** The second film for which I penned a poem is “The Hours” based on the acclaimed book by Michael Cunningham, who also wrote the novel “Specimen Days” which I highly recommend. The story follows three women living in three different eras whose lives are connected through time by Woolf’s novel, “Mrs. Dalloway.” The story of "Mrs. Dalloway," by Virginia Woolf, first appeared as a short story, "Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street," published in 1923. The novel was published in 1925. Perhaps I chose this film because I’m a writer and suicide is an important theme for me. As some of you may know Nicole Kidman won an Oscar for her amazing transformation (with the help of a prosthetic nose) from her bewitching blonde self to the dour moody and brilliant writer stuck in the English country-side. But it is a trio of female actresses who spin the story: Julianne Moore (“Laura”) living in LA in the 1950’with a doting but less than stimulating husband and their boy child who later becomes an award- winning poet dying of AIDS, and Meryl Streep who is for all intents and purposes, a reincarnation of Mrs. Dalloway herself, living in modern-day Manhattan. She is the one who is trying to hold everything together with social grace by throwing a party for the poet and who must come to terms with the fact that her flowers arrangements and catered food are not enough. That no, in fact, something is terribly wrong and a party won’t solve it. He will, in fact, throw himself off the window ledge and free himself from his pain. The party does not go on despite her nurturing ministrations and intense love for him. I wrote a longer version of this poem that still needs revision and a shorter one that I will give you here, inspired partly by Irene Koronas’ work who I interviewed last month for this column: ********************* THE HOURS, based on the book by Michael Cunningham To live or die because of reading Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. Shy Laura takes her friend’s chin and passionately kisses her on the mouth. Two housewives. String of pearls. The boy looks on. He will become the tormented poet. The meat is bloody in Richmond England. And what is this kiss? What does Virginia say to her sister? I AM REAL I LOVE YOU. I AM CRAZY. I WILL TAKE YOU ON THE MOUTH LIKE A MAN WITH MY MOUTH. SEE WHO WE REALLY ARE? THE BREATH OF SOULS. She walks into the river with a stone tied to her leg. The water swirls around her dress as she sinks deeper. She is leaving behind the kisses, and cigarettes, and words, and the breath. Mrs. Dalloway must be reconciled to her own life. We give each other flowers flowers flowers. (Postscript: Virgina Woolf’s beloved husband Leonard made many sacrifices in order for his wife to write and be herself. Eventually, though, she committed suicide so as not to be a burden to him anymore. For me the kisses between the women are significant because it is they who are trying to find themselves, reach each other and who understand that passion is, in fact, necessary for life.)