~ Video Library ~
Sandpiper by Elizabeth Bishop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZyj3gXEUis
Filmmaker and television producer John Scott is working on a feature-length documentary called Elizabeth Bishop and the Art of Losing, which will include a number of videos like this one illustrating her poems. He wrote about the project at length for the Elizabeth Bishop Centenary blog.
Each scene will end on a poem whose inspiration comes from the tensions of the time period being described. And thus the poetry will not only be an aesthetically pleasing and rewarding study of genius, it will deepen the emotional content of her life-story.
I learned about the project from a feature at VidPoFilm back on Nov. 18. Brenda Clews sent Scott a couple questions via email. Quoting from his answers:
I am not interested solely in being illustrative — I am interested in at times being playful with the way the visuals/sounds and the words come together in an effort to use the expressive powers of visuals and sounds. There’s lots of potential in the medium itself that I think might otherwise be lost if it is simply slaved word for word to the text. […]
I believe the beauty of Bishop’s poetry is that it is so loaded with the spirit of the moment, in the fragmentary, in the lush, in the juxtaposition of contrasting images and in the point of view of its subjects.
Do read the rest. About this videopoem in particular, Scott noted on YouTube:
“Sandpiper” is a poem that was written by Elizabeth Bishop in 1965 and it is believed that it was based on observations she made on a trip she made as an adult back to Nova Scotia. Bishop’s adult life took her in many directions and places, and she has explicitly compared herself to the sandpiper and (presumably) both of their quests to endlessly seek (enlightenment?) through careful observation.
PROOF triptych: three poems by David Tomaloff
Swoon Bildos and David Tomaloff collaborated on a videopoetry triptych called PROOF, which has its own website. I didn’t want to split it into three posts since I think the videos are best watched together and in the intended sequence:
_object{-ions in the mirror
Thespianic Mythology No. 4
Proof
The first two poems were originally published (in text form) in the online magazine >kill author (here and here) while the third was written especially for this triptych.
Update (1/5/12): Swoon and Tomaloff are the featured artists of the month at CoronationPress.com for their creation of this triptych. The accompanying interview is full of fascinating details about their collaboration and methodology.
Andrew Wyeth, Painter, Dies at 91 by L.S. Klatt
Tom Jacobsen made this latest animation for Motionpoems, illustrating a poem by L.S. Klatt which was included in his collection Cloud of Ink as well as in Best American Poems 2011. According to a blog post from Pixel Farm, the production studio where he works, Jacobsen based his animation on a series of photos of landscapes reminiscent of Wyeth paintings: “On a 9-day Dakota road trip with his son, Jacobsen snapped photos of the Midwest landscape that were inspired by the painter and then incorporated into the finished piece.”
Let it be dark, and it was dark by John Siddique
http://vimeo.com/30260208
This is from a series of animations called Thirteen Moons. I’ll let the author, bestselling U.K. poet John Siddique, explain:
A series of 13 animated films based on a sequence of poems from Recital — An Almanac (Salt). The poems are based on the Full Moons of the year and the Celtic mythology which names each moon after a letter in the ancient tree alphabet.
The films were created when I was British Council Poet in Residence at California State University in Los Angeles. Made with determination, love, and goodwill. Animation director Walter Santucci, his students, friends and myself set to work before passing the pieces to composer Katie Chatburn. My aim was to gave each artist a free hand in what they came up with in response to the poems, interjecting as lightly as possible.
The paintings in this one are by Dania Strong. I’ll be sharing more of these in the coming weeks, but if you’re impatient, you can browse them all — or twelve of them, at any rate — at the album Siddique has set up for them on Vimeo (whence the above quote).
Ground by Alastair Cook
I’ve shared a lot of filmpoems here made by the Scottish artist and filmmaker Alastair Cook, but this one’s the work of someone else: Ginnetta Correli directed and edited this film using Alastair’s reading of some haiku he wrote for a multi-author linked verse sequence. He blogged about the film:
I don’t write terribly much (as you may have noted) and am perhaps unnecessarily precious about what I do write (see Abachan, for instance) and am pleased to see what such a wonderful, dark filmmaker can make of my words. Filmpoem is filmpoemed!
This was featured in VidPoFilm a few weeks ago.
Ground has an impenetrable quality. The film imagery, poem and reading approach each other without quite meeting. In that circle of visual and verbal imagery and the emotion of the voice of the reader, we witness a flame dancing without knowing who lit it, who blows on it, or why it goes out, if it does.
Something profound happens. But what? Is the poem notes on death and what resurrects us through life? Or the dream of a life?
Chanson d’automne (Autumn Song) by Paul Verlaine
When a sighing begins
In the violins
Of the autumn-song,My heart is drowned
In the slow sound
Languorous and longPale as with pain,
Breath fails me when
The hours tolls deep.
My thoughts recover
The days that are over
And I weep.And I go
Where the winds know,
Broken and brief,
To and fro,
As the winds blow
A dead leaf.(trans. by Arthur Symons, 1902)
For alternate translations and analysis of the original, see textetc.com.
British filmmaker Rachel Laine shot this on a Canaon 600D and edited in Fainl Cut Pro and Logic. It uses music by Carillion and Nic S.’s reading from Pizzicati of Hosanna.
Poetry in Motion by Brandon Wint
Don’t be put off by the title: Craig Allen Conoley, the director, told me, “We chose to use the cliche title in an ironic manner… we wanted to subvert the cliche!” If you watch this through till the end, that should become abundantly clear.
This was screened at Visible Verse 2011 and the 2011 Ottawa International Film Festival. For the full credits, see the page at Vimeo, which also includes this description:
The short film/music video provides a visceral account of a poet’s mind/body relationship, mediated through his prose and the language of story. Shot in the subways and busy streets of Montreal, the video was designed to subvert a voyeuristic and often conforming societal gaze by placing Brandon’s point of view in direct contest with everyday motion and its marriage to the status-quo. The video features Claude Munson on guitar.
For more about the Ottawa-based spoken word artist, writer and singer Brandon Wint, see the bio on his website.
Norangsdalen by Erlend O. Nødtvedt
A wonderfully abstract animation by Kristian Pedersen of Gasspedal Animert, who say in their Vimeo description:
Norangsdalen is one of Norways most narrow and steep valleys. It is notorious for its frequent avalanches and landslides. In 1912, an enormous landslide dammed the valley river, causing it to flood and submerge a farm and a small forest. This is today known as the lake Lyngstøylsvatnet – a popular expedition spot for divers.
According to the Norwegian Wikipedia and Google Translate,
Erlend O. Nødtvedt (b. 1984) is a Norwegian poet from Fyllingsdalen and the winner of the Youth Poetry Prize in 2008. He now lives in the city of Bergen, where he studies at the University of Bergen. Nødtvedt previously attended the Skrivekunstakademiet (Writing Academy) and is on the editorial board of the journal Vagant.
Philosophy by Jo Bell
Alastair Cook came out of a six-month filmpoem hiatus ten days ago with this new film for a piece by the English poet and poetry promoter Jo Bell. Quoting Alastair’s description on Vimeo:
It’s been swirling around my head all summer, while baby Rose has been born and grown; Philosophy is a joy, bright and full of life, bursting.
It has been long in gestation but it has been a real pleasure to make this one; the entire film was shot on Ektachrome Super 8 and processed at Dwaynes in Kansas, whose praises I cannot sing high enough.
And it has also been a pleasure to be able to include Vladimir Kryutchev’s incredible sound work again. His site at oontz is a wonder for binaural loving sound folks.
This one’s for my boy, Charlie.
Jo Bell blogged about the new videopoem here.
