Contusion by Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath would’ve been 83 yesterday, and to mark the occasion, Marc Neys A.K.A. Swoon released this film, Don’t look at me (Contusion).
It’s not the first time I create a work using her poems. But I consider this my best effort to capture something of her spirit.
Contusion was one of the first poems I wanted to make a video for (5-6 years ago) but I never got a satisfying result out of the process. This time tried a film composition with text on screen and I had a clear idea what kind of images to use. […]
I composed a track especially for this project. Called it ‘Don’t look at me’ (and kept the appropriate title for the film composition) [Bandcamp link].
I had to re-edit the length of the composition to the footage I had gathered. Contusion is a rather short poem (compared to some of her other works).
A lot of night and dusk. Dim images. I especially wanted the footage of a swimming lake (deserted and empty) by Bart van der Gaag. Also some snow and winter footage by Jan Eerala, stuff filmed by me and a few pieces of Videoblocks. I composed all the footage to the lines of the poem (using a small and almost unreadable font and placement of the text by times) and the pace and feel of the soundtrack. I also graded some of the footage for an even darker feel.
As I said before; I’m happy with this one.
Play full screen (and preferably with headphones!)
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Dave Bonta is a poet, editor, and web publisher from the Appalachian mountains of central Pennsylvania.
