Memoires / Memoirs by Paul Snoek

Poet: | Nationality: | Filmmaker:

A highly inventive videopoem from the indefatigable Swoon (Marc Neys), who described how it came about in a blog post last month:

Note to self: make more ‘Belgian’ videopoems
So I made one to start with. One I wanted to make for a long time, but never had the right idea for.

Now I did.
The poem ‘Memoires / Memoirs’ is by Belgian poet / painter Paul Snoek.

[…]

First I created a soundtrack so I had a time frame to work with once I would start filming. I used the recording of the poem that I found on Lyrikline. [listen on Soundcloud]

My idea for the visual was simple, but effective I believe.
‘Cut up flowers and create a house in the most simplistic manner and then destroy the house’
I filmed the whole process from different angles and with different lenses. Editing came naturally once I had the music and the visuals. I adapted the pace and feel of the soundtrack until there was a sense of unity. A translation by James S. Holmes (from ‘A quarter century of poetry from Belgium’, 1970) was used as subtitles.

Memoires is currently a featured film at The Continental Review.

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