Movies & Poets
Recently enjoyed a DVD evening with my absolutely better half, watching, once more, The Raven, a big favorite. Edgar Allan Poe must help the police find a killer who is copying his scary stories, & finally threatening his own true love. Mystery solved but our hero dies at the end. Nobody really knows how Poe died & the movie’s solution is not the least bit convincing, but suspenseful good fun. Somewhere in the literary oversoul Poe is high-fiving all those minor writers who will never be portrayed by John Cusack.
Possibly even the Bard is doing similar after Shakespeare in Love; Joseph Fiennes as Will himself, scoring Gwyneth Paltrow, even if she must sail away at the end. Thus inspiring one lovely filmic non sequitor, because he pictures her as Viola, washed up on the foreign shore of Illyria & ready for her adventure in Twelfth Night, which – as it chances – the queen has asked him to write. Clever clever, even though Romeo and Juliet – the subject of the film – was written in Shakespeare’s youth while Twelfth Night is one of his very last great efforts. It all works so well, & moviegoers who would never open a script by Shakespeare are still entertained with wit, true love, lyrical language & admiration.
Then there is Finding Neverland, where J.M. Barrie, who wrote Peter Pan, takes the beauteous form of Johnny Depp. Both Edgar Allan Poe & J.M. Barrie were – by our standards – little squirts. Johnny Depp is middle sized, John Cusack tall dark & handsome. (Off the subject – Michelangelo was an even littler squirt & I have never forgiven 20th Century Fox – Hollywood at its worst – for casting that big dumb moose Charlton Heston to play him in The Agony & the Ecstasy in 1965. That one I skipped; I would have been sick all over my popcorn.) Depp & Cusack are terrific as Barrie & Poe. So is Ben Whishaw as John Keats in Bright Star. He actually looks a bit like Keats & is properly pale & delicate. Who else could you cast in that role? He reads the poetry beautifully too. Made me want to read it all again. I haven’t seen Howl, but more of same – James Franco as the young Allen Ginsberg. Maybe Ginsberg was handsome when young, but I remember him as fairly gross-looking, no matter what you thought of his poetry. James Franco looks yummier than spaghetti carbonara & soulful as well.
And let’s not forget the women, although there are fewer films in this category. Becoming Jane, filmed in Norwich, where Jane Austen really did come, starring Ann Hathaway. Excellent – even Ann’s name is literary. Little Women – the most recent in this lineup – is not technically a biography of its author, Louisa May Alcott, but close enough, & Saoirse Ronan full of charm & determination in the role of Jo, who goes on to become a famous author.
A very new film is currently up here in Denmark – The Pact – about Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen, author of Out of Africa and many tales, gothic & otherwise, & her young protegé Thorkild Bjørnvig. I trust it will be exported to countries where her books are popular.
You know, I really love it that poets & writers get movies made about them with high class stars leading the cast. High five, Edgar; I swoon, Will; 2 thumbs up, J.M.; oooh John; what a hoot, Allen; how becoming, Jane; you go, Jo! All these films, except the Danish one, were made years ago, but the point is that there are all sorts of heroes & movie studios have figured it out too. So who’s next? I suggest Tom Hiddleston as James Joyce in The Dubliner. Or, if the film is about the author’s later years, Eric Bana; what a challenging mix of dialects. I can hardly wait.