Kärlek är inte lika med symmetri

Sista filmkvällen inleds med skratt och igenkännande. Det är inte min favoritfilm men många uppskattar den, inte minst för huvudrollsinnehavaren Renée Zellwegers insats.

To Autumn, by John Keats (1795-1821)
(From The Classic Hundred Poems (Second Edition). Harmon, William, ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.)

(Förekommer i Bridget Jones's diary från 2001. Regi: Sharon Maguire.)

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, 

  Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless 

  With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, 

  And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; 

    To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells 

  With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees, 

Until they think warm days will never cease,

    For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? 

  Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, 

  Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep, 

  Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

    Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep 

  Steady thy laden head across a brook; 

  Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

    Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? 

  Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 

  And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 

  Among the river sallows, borne aloft

    Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; 

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 

  Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

  The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, 

    And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

***

Vi fortsätter med en småmysig film i katolsk skolmiljö. Den lockar till skratt men innehåller även en del allvar.

The Tyger, by William Blake (1757-1827)

(From Collected poems ; edited by W.B. Yeats ; with a new introduction by Tom Paulin. London :Routledge,2002.)

(Förekommer i The Dangerous Lives Of Altar Boys från 2002. Regi: Peter Care.)

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 

In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies. 

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain, 

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp, 

Dare its deadly terrors clasp! 

When the stars threw down their spears 

And water'd heaven with their tears: 

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright, 

In the forests of the night: 

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

***

De fem veckorna med poesi ur filmer, avslutas med ett kraftfullt och välspelat ödesdrama. Den är värd att engagera sig i.

The earth turned to bring us closer, by Eugenio Montejo (1938-2008)

(Förekommer i 21 grams från 2003. Regi: Alejandro González Iñárritu.)

“The earth turned to bring us closer,

it spun on itself and within us,

and finally joined us together in this dream

as written in the Symposium.

Nights passed by, snowfalls and solstices;

time passed in minutes and millennia.

An ox cart that was on its way to Nineveh

arrived in Nebraska.

A rooster was singing some distance from the world,

in one of the thousand pre-lives of our fathers.

The earth was spinning with its music carrying us on board;

it didn't stop turning a single moment

as if so much love, so much that's miraculous

was only an adagio written long ago

in the Symposium's score.”

We will never forget

Fjärde filmkvällen börjar med en film som är älskad av många, "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind". Dikten, ur vilken en textrad gett filmen dess titel, publicerades redan 1717.

Eloisa to Abelard (utdrag), by Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

(Förekommer i Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind från 2004. Regi: Michel Gondry.)

       How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;
Labour and rest, that equal periods keep;
"Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep;"
Desires compos'd, affections ever ev'n,
Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to Heav'n.
Grace shines around her with serenest beams,
And whisp'ring angels prompt her golden dreams.
For her th' unfading rose of Eden blooms,
And wings of seraphs shed divine perfumes,
For her the Spouse prepares the bridal ring,
For her white virgins hymeneals sing,
To sounds of heav'nly harps she dies away,
And melts in visions of eternal day.

***

Vi fortsätter med dokumentärfilmen om USA:s försvarsminister Robert S. McNamara, "The Fog of War".

Little Gidding (utdrag), by T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

(Förekommer i The Fog of War från 2003. Regi: Errol Morris.)

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring 
Will be to arrive where we started 
And know the place for the first time. 
Through the unknown, unremembered gate 
When the last of earth left to discover 
Is that which was the beginning; 
At the source of the longest river 
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree

Not known, because not looked for 
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always-- 
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded 
Into the crowned knot of fire 
And the fire and the rose are one.

***

Filmkvällen avslutas med den sanna historien om galopphästen Seabiscuit. 

We never know how high we are, by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

(Förekommer i Seabiscuit från 2003. Regi: Gary Ross.)

Seabiscuit 2003 (filmklipp)

We never know how high we are  

  Till we are called to rise;  

And then, if we are true to plan,  

  Our statures touch the skies—  

   

The Heroism we recite

  Would be a daily thing,  

Did not ourselves the Cubits warp  

  For fear to be a King—

Long time ago

Det är tisdag och dags för bloggens tredje filminlägg. 

Jag börjar med en dikt av Edgar Allan Poe som skiljer sig rätt rejält från den produktion han är mest känd för, skräckromantiken. Dock är det en sorglig kärleksdikt.

Annabel Lee (vers 1-3), by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

(Förekommer i Holes från 2003. Regi: Andrew Davis.)

It was many and many a year ago,
   In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
   By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
   Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
   In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
   I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
   Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
   In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
   My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
   And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
   In this kingdom by the sea.

***

Även nästa dikt förekommer i en rätt sorglig kärlekshistoria. Filmen "In the bedroom" handlar om en ung kille som har en relation med en äldre tvåbarnsmamma, och konsekvenserna det får för familjen och samhället.

My lost youth, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882).

(Förekommer i In the bedroom från 2001. Regi: Todd Field.)

There are things of which I may not speak;
      There are dreams that cannot die;
There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,
And bring a pallor into the cheek,
      And a mist before the eye.
            And the words of that fatal song
            Come over me like a chill:
      "A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

***

Dagens tredje text är ett utdrag ur den ganska långa dikten Spontaneous Me, av Walt Whitman, som förekommer i den älskvärda filmen "The Notebook".

Spontaneous Me (utdrag), by Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

(Förekommer i The Notebook från 2004. Regi: Nick Cassavetes.)

The real poems, (what we call poems being merely pictures,)   The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men like me,   
This poem, drooping shy and unseen, that I always carry, and that all men carry,
(Know, once for all, avow’d on purpose, wherever are men like me, are our lusty, lurking,
     masculine poems;)   
Love-thoughts, love-juice, love-odor, love-yielding, love-climbers, and the climbing sap,   
Arms and hands of love—lips of love—phallic thumb of love—breasts of
     love—bellies press’d and glued together with love,   
Earth of chaste love—life that is only life after love,   
The body of my love—the body of the woman I love—the body of the man—the body of
     the earth,
Soft forenoon airs that blow from the south-west,   
The hairy wild-bee that murmurs and hankers up and down—that gripes the full-grown
     lady-flower, curves upon her with amorous firm legs, takes his will of her, and holds himself 
     tremulous and tight till he is satisfied,   
The wet of woods through the early hours,   
Two sleepers at night lying close together as they sleep, one with an arm slanting down across
     and below the waist of the other,   
The smell of apples, aromas from crush’d sage-plant, mint, birch-bark,
The boy’s longings, the glow and pressure as he confides to me what he was dreaming,   
The dead leaf whirling its spiral whirl, and falling still and content to the ground,   

Faith, faery and a short flattery

Ett försenat Movie Day-inlägg inleds med en lång dikt av Matthew Arnold och avslutas med ett kort Shakespearecitat.
I kväll fortsätter Poetry Slam Team Contest.

*

Dover Beach, by Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)

(Förekommer i The Anniversary Party från 2001. Regi: Alan Cumming, Jennifer Jason Leigh.)

The sea is calm tonight.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits; on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

Only, from the long line of spray

Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,

Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery; we

Find also in the sound a thought,

Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

***

From The stolen child, by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

(Förekommer i A.I. : Artificial Intelligence från 2001. Regi: Steven Spielberg.)

Where the wave of moonlight glosses

The dim gray sands with light,

Far off by furthest Rosses

We foot it all the night,

Weaving olden dances

Mingling hands and mingling glances

Till the moon has taken flight;

To and fro we leap

And chase the frothy bubbles,

While the world is full of troubles

And anxious in its sleep.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

***

From Venus and Adonis, by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

(Förekommer i Intolerable Cruelty från 2003. Regi: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen.)

Dismiss your vows, your feigned tears, your flattery;

  For where a heart is hard, they make no battery.’

Tuesday becomes Movie Day

Poetry with Blues får nya sommarrubriker. Under fem tisdagar blir det dikter som förekommer i olika filmer.

*

The Song of the Hiawatha, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807-1882.

(Förekommer i "Spider-Man 2", 2004. Regi: Sam Raimi. Peter Parker's citat i fet stil.)

Listless, careless Shawondasee! 
In his life he had one shadow, 
In his heart one sorrow had he. 
Once, as he was gazing northward, 
Far away upon a prairie 
He beheld a maiden standing, 
Saw a tall and slender maiden 
All alone upon a prairie; 
Brightest green were all her garments, 
And her hair was like the sunshine. 

Day by day he gazed upon her,
Day by day he sighed with passion, 
Day by day his heart within him 
Grew more hot with love and longing 
For the maid with yellow tresses. 
But he was too fat and lazy 
To bestir himself and woo her. 
Yes, too indolent and easy 
To pursue her and persuade her; 
So he only gazed upon her, 
Only sat and sighed with passion 
For the maiden of the prairie. 

Till one morning, looking northward, 
He beheld her yellow tresses 
Changed and covered o'er with whiteness, 
Covered as with whitest snow-flakes. 
"Ah! my brother from the North-land, 
From the kingdom of Wabasso, 
From the land of the White Rabbit! 
You have stolen the maiden from me, 
You have laid your hand upon her, 
You have wooed and won my maiden,
...

***

From Out of the cradle, endlessly rocking, by Walt Whitman, 1819-1892.

(Förekommer i L.I.E. från 2001. Regi: Michael Cuesta.)

Demon or bird! (said the boy’s soul,)
Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it really to me?
For I, that was a child, my tongue’s use sleeping, now I 
   have heard you,
Now in a moment I know what I am for, I awake,
And already a thousand singers, a thousand songs, clearer,
   louder and more sorrowful than yours,
A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me,
   never to die. 
O you singer solitary, singing by yourself, projecting me, 
O solitary me listening, never more shall I cease
   perpetuating you,
Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations, 
Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me, 
Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before
   what there in the night,
By the sea under the yellow and sagging moon, 
The messenger there arous’d, the fire, the sweet hell within,
The unknown want, the destiny of me.

***

The Lake Isle of Innisfree, by William Butler Yeats, 1865-1939.

(Förekommer i Million Dollar Baby, 2004. Regi: Clint Eastwood.)

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.