Post for two out of a thousand about my 10 favorite poems in movies.
I don't know if you know but I belong to a group of people who like poetry. I know that for some it is embarrassing (though not as embarrassing as writing poems from which only the immediate family and GP can be confessed). That's why, whenever I watch a movie, I come across poetry and I start cutting my ears. Because it is not easy to enter a poem into the story so that it is at the same time, it was well said (which as everyone knows is not easy art) and made the right impression on the viewer. However, at times when such moments happen, it is impossible not to smile broadly and not save the scene to a great gallery of beloved scenes. And today I invite you to hear the poetry. At the same time, I would like to point out immediately that this is a subjective choice (is there any other in the case of poetry?), and that I exclude from it (out of necessity and willingness) Shakespeare films where, of course, there is a lot of poetry, but in my huge brain catalog there are they were in a different compartment, I also tried to prevent the poems from repeating because the more of them the better. What we pour wine (it is 12!), put on a black turtleneck, light a cigarette and we are ready to read the post.
The Hour - we will start not typically because of the series and the scene that lasts only 26 seconds. Freddie, who we know that he is in love with his friend Bel, quotes E. Cummings, making the poem not such a subtle confession. Of course, Ben Whishaw is exactly the actor who, with twenty-six seconds of reciting a poem, can make a scene that I include as one of my favorites in the whole series. And the poem itself, like most of Cummings's work, is absolutely beautiful. And not only in this film, it served as an explicit confession of feelings (he also served the hero Hannah and her sister - the poem can be found at the end of the clip).
84 Cahring Cross Road - this is an absolutely wonderful movie that you have to see to fully understand how great this scene is and how many Hopkins play in it practically playing nothing. And it ends with a poem by Yets, which sounds exactly as it should in Anthony Hopkins mouth. Anyway, maybe no one should be surprised, because he is quite far with the poet but still related (Hopkins's mother was from the house of Yates).
Romantics - a film that is not particularly good, sometimes banal and sometimes perfect. Here we have a scene from the point of view of the whole story containing quite a large spoiler but from the point of view of this combination - convincing us that poetry is sometimes very sexy (for lack of a better word). I will honestly say that this is one of the better recitations of Ode to the Nightingale Keats I know (and I knows them surprisingly many). And I would never expect that Josh Duhamel knows how to play well and not just look - plus the song in the clip is excellent. It may not be the best way to recite poetry, but the scene plays perfectly.
Skyfall - a man watches Bond and suddenly gets a scene in which instead of getting excited about the secret agent rushing through London he is completely listened to in Tennyson's poetry. Perhaps if the poem was not recited by Judi Dench, a person would realize that Sam Mendes approached the viewer cruelly and broke the rules of making sensational films where there is absolutely no room for the hero suddenly reciting poetry. Oh, I fell in love with this movie right now. Even if it's illogical.
Four Weddings and a Funeral - it rarely happens that one recitation of a poem in one movie means that virtually everyone who recites a poem must take into comparisons. More, today, when someone mentions the poem Auden (Funeral Blues), then he usually adds that it is the poem is from Four Weddings and a Funeral. It does not surprise me at all - in the middle of a cheerful film we get two moving minutes of real deep, not looking for comfort, sadness after losing someone close to it John Hannah is unrivaled in this scene and regardless of how many times you have seen the film, you reach for a tissue.
Wit - if you haven't seen the movie then see it - Emma Thopson plays a woman dying of cancer who devoted her entire life to scientific work - on the poetry of John Donna. In this clip we don't get a lot of poetry but it is probably the best reflecting what attracts me in poetry - a simple conversation about punctuation in a poem (so my dear I love punctuation in interpretation of poems) turns into a conversation about what the poet could really have mean. Maybe not everyone will agree with me that the discussion about commas can be fascinating, but I am absolutely touched by this fragment. The poem then comes back in the movie at a completely different moment in a great recitation by Emma Thompson but I will not put it her because I would tell you too much by pasting this video into the post.
Invictus- even from time to time I change into one of those people whose heart softens when they listen to a well-recited (Morgan Freeman) poem juxtaposed with appropriately moving images (in this case the conditions in which Nelson Mandela was in prison) and music that strengthens the meaning of words. Eastwood apparently had no hesitation to move and so in Invictus there is a scene where the recitation of the poem by Henley under the same title moves deeply.
Back to School - imagine a comedy where a businessman who's also a father enrolls in college with his son to support him in his education. Back To School is one of those comedies about which people more or less know how they will end before they even start well. However, when at the oral exam our main character - with completely not student emphasis but with the manner of a real actor recites Do not go gentle in to that good night then supported by appropriate music evokes in us emotions that we probably would not expect while watching the series of this type. And the last sentence of the scene immediately brings us to earth. And that's good because we've already been in the stratosphere.
Bright Star - as you know, I'm not a special fan of Bright Star which does not change the fact that I think that the absolute best moment of this movie is the recitation of the title poem (and recitation of Ode to the Nightingale but this is not a list on which I proclaim the recital glory of Ben Whishaw or maybe is ...) - the heroine goes, weeps and recites. Nothing happens and yet for the first time while watching this movie, we suddenly started to care about the characters. Of course, the poem is Keatsa.
Eternal Shunshine of the spotless Mind - a recitation of a short piece of poem from Heloise and Abelard Alexander Pope, grass about twenty seconds. But the juxtaposition of these words from which the film took its real title with snapshots from the elephant parade suddenly makes this scene so poetic, understandable and moving piece of the film that it is difficult to remember that it was only a moment. Absolutely I love these few moments and I think that Kirsten Dunst's voice fits here perfectly.
I have to admit that I deliberately missed some titles - I never liked the way poetry is spoken of in the Dead Poets Society two Dylans in Dangerous Minds made me more nervous than worried, I never understood why there is so much talk about reciting a poem in Out of Africa. In addition, let's be honest - poetry is exactly something that either goes straight to the heart (or into the mind, because poetry is also listened to perfectly well with the head) or it is very difficult to find out that there really is something for us. Hence, you must assume that this is the most subjective post as possible.