~ Poet: Pablo Neruda ~
Clenched Soul by Pablo Neruda
This is — the credits tell us — a production of the San Diego State University School of Theatre, Televison, and Film. Alexander Ameen, Miles Feld and Kurt Conety jointly directed a disturbing and imaginative interpretation of Neruda’s “Clenched Soul” as translated by W.S. Merwin.
Walking Around (excerpt) by Pablo Neruda
http://vimeo.com/49642786
If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you know how much I appreciate unlikely combinations of text and moving image. In this case, I think the filmmakers may have gone a bit too far. But the result is so entertaining, I had to share it anyway. This is the Samuel L. Jackson reading of Neruda’s poem from Il Postino. Alessio Cuomo and Sander de Nooij of ColdSun Productions, a Dutch production company specializing in documentaries, indicate on Vimeo that this was
a little video we made just to celebrate the end of summer.
We came across this footage while doing some hard disk cleaning.
For a more serious take on the poem, see Four Seasons Productions’ interpretation of “Walking Around”, which uses footage from classic silent horror films. Unfortunately, though, the reading there (by Robert Bly, I think) isn’t as good as Jackson’s here.
Fábula de la Sirena y los Borrachos (Fable of the Siren and the Drunks) by Pablo Neruda
Moving Poems’ latest production takes advantage of a new free-audio site that other filmmakers might be interested in, too: pizzicati of hosanna: dead poets’ poems read by Nic S. in English & other languages. The footage is from Blackwater Falls State Park, West Virginia. I blogged all about it at Via Negativa.
Ode to Typography by Pablo Neruda
Directed by Julian Harriman-Dickinson at HarrimanSteel. Unfortunately, it’s kind of low-resolution, but the soundtrack helps carry it.
Sonnet XVII from 100 Love Sonnets (Cien Sonetos de Amor) by Pablo Neruda
Julianna Castigliego notes that this was an “Emerson College Film 1 final film project. 16mm. Shot on Bolex. Edited on Steenbeck.” This is the same poem, translated by Stephen Tapscott, that was featured in the motion picture Patch Adams.
Every Day You Play (Juegas Todos los Días) by Pablo Neruda
This is poem XIV from Veinte Poemas de Amor y Una Canción Desesperada (1924), envideoed by Will Jardine.
Ode for Ironing (Oda para planchar) by Pablo Neruda
This is a film called Saccharine, directed by Raivan Hall with camera work by Josh Hittleman.
The poem is not from Neruda’s Odas Elementales, but the later Plenos Poderos from 1962. Here’s the Spanish and here’s an English translation by Jodey Bateman. The film uses the translation by Alastair Reid, which carries a less literal title: “In Praise of Ironing.”
As with any popular poet, there are a ton of Neruda videos on YouTube, but most of them are, um, not so good. So it’s a real pleasure to see a professionally made film with a Neruda poem in the soundtrack.
Walking Around by Pablo Neruda
“Perhaps one of Neruda’s more disturbing poems, Walking Around, comes to life through a mosaic of classic silent horror films featuring among others the great John Barrymore,” says Four Seasons Productions. Recitation and translation by Robert Bly.
There are a number of videos for this poem on YouTube, but I find all of them flawed in some way — it’s one of my favorite poems. The approach here is at least original.
Four Seasons are, by the way, mistaken about the date: it was published in 1935 in Residencia en Tierra II, not in 1971 as they claim. The title is in English in the original.
Alabanza by Martín Espada
Standard Oil Co. by Pablo Neruda
Poem by Pablo Neruda, translated by Jack Schmitt (reading by Allen Dwight Callahan) — the text is here
Video by Four Seasons Productions
Here’s the Spanish original:
Cuando el barreno se abrió paso
hacia las simas pedregales
y hundió su intestino implacable
en las haciendas subterráneas,
y los años muertos, los ojos
de las edades, las raíces
de las plantas encarceladas
y los sistemas escamosos
se hicieron estratas del agua,
subió por los tubos el fuego
convertido en líquido frío,
en la aduana de las alturas
a la salida de su mundo
de profundidad tenebrosa,
encontró un pálido ingeniero
y un título de propietario.Aunque se enreden los caminos
del petróleo, aunque las napas
cambien su sitio silencioso
y muevan su soberanía
entre los vientres de la tierra,
cuando sacude el surtidor
su ramaje de parafina,
antes llegó la Standard Oil
con sus letrados y sus botas,
con sus cheques y sus fusiles,
con sus gobiernos y sus presos.Sus obesos emperadores
viven en New York, son suaves
y sonrientes asesinos,
que compran seda, nylon, puros,
tiranuelos y dictadores.Compran países, pueblos, mares,
policías, diputaciones,
lejanas comarcas en donde
los pobres guardan su maíz
como los avaros el oro:
la Standard Oil los despierta,
los uniforma, les designa
cuál es el hermano enemigo,
y el paraguayo hace su guerra
y el boliviano se deshace
con su ametralladora en la selva.Un presidente asesinado
por una gota de petróleo,
una hipoteca de millones
de hectáreas, un fusilamiento
rápido en una mañana
mortal de luz, petrificada,
un nuevo campo de presos
subversivos, en Patagonia,
una traición, un tiroteo
bajo la luna petrolada,
un cambio sutil de ministros
en la capital, un rumor
como una marea de aceite,
y luego el zarpazo, y verás
cómo brillan, sobre las nubes,
sobre los mares, en tu casa,
las letras de la Standard Oil
iluminando sus dominios.
