May by Karel Hynek Mácha
This is The Tone of a Broken Harp, The Sound of a Snapped String performed by the composer, Jiří Kadeřábek, and Fourbythree. It uses two brief excerpts from the poem, which may be read in its entirety here. Kadeřábek writes,
This piece is inspired by the dark, almost decadent level of the Czech romantic poem May by Karel Hynek Mácha. Poetic images of love and spring nature mix with description of ruin, despair and death. The quotations, used in the piece as well as in its title, have been taken from the latest English translation of the poem. The concept of the piece as well as the exact image of the video came to me, when I suddenly and unusually took a nap one afternoon.
My spirit – my spirit – and my soul!
that’s how his words, each one distinct,
escape from his clenched lips.
Before the voice reaches the ear
these awful words are once more nothing –
they die – as they were born.It was late evening – first of May
was evening – the time for love.
The turtledove invited love
to where the pine grove’s fragrance lay.
The video is as effective as the music, I thought. It was put together by Avion Film and Sound Postproduction in Prague.
The Carcass (Une Charogne) by Charles Baudelaire
A mesmerizing film and reading in French, with the English translation by Geoffrey Wagner provided in subtitles. I am guessing that the filmmaker, Koustoz, is Greek.
Shuttered Windows by Yahia Lababidi
Update: Video has been made private.
Swoon has been busy lately, so again we end the week with one of his creations. This one’s based on a poem by Yahia Lababidi — a collaboration sparked, I think, by this very blog. Which makes me happy.
Subway by Charles Reznikoff
http://www.vimeo.com/20036498
I’ve been surprised to run across several videos for Reznikoff poems at Vimeo in the past month. This one’s by Canadian film student Alan Sencich with Jonny Page, Luke Banville and KinHang Ho.
Dwa Nieba by Bożena Urszula Malinowska
http://vimeo.com/20305333
Filmmaker Marcin Konrad Malinowski‘s first videopoem, for a poem by his mother. Here’s the English translation he provided:
You and me,
Two heavens,
With a little bit of hell,
With the energy of a volcano
That has gone somewhere,
You and me.
His mother passed away four years ago, he told me in an email, leaving behind a box of poems.
UPDATE: Marcin has started a blog on Tumblr about the project, which hopefully will give rise to many more videopoems of this caliber: Dwa Nieba. (It’s in Polish, but Google Translate can give a pretty good idea of the contents.)
Gaia by Stan Skinny
Stan Skinny wrote and performed the music as well as the poem. Filmed, edited and mixed by Laklop.
Lament by Dylan Thomas
Update: Video has been made private.
Swoon is at it again with a compelling contrast of public and private moods.
Based on the poem ‘Lament’ by Dylan Thomas (read by himself)
The lament for (his) decay together with the lament for growing protests (Prague 68 – Cairo 11) against the positive growth in nature. Everything in life evolves…hopefully for the best.
Street Boy by Gareth Owen
An interesting performance by Paul Townsend in a brief film directed and edited by Lewis Albrow. Gareth Owen is a British playright, novelist, children’s author, actor and director.
I Have a Rendezvous with Death by Alan Seeger
Zooey Park made this four-minute short in NYC for a 72-hour contest for Asian-American filmmakers with the theme “Time’s Up.” I like the way Park recontextualized what is traditionally seen as a war poem, and I liked the moments of dead silence throughout the film.
Fear of Snakes by Lorna Crozier
Canadian filmmaker Andreas Mendritzki (GreenGround Productions) has done a very difficult thing here: made an videopoem for a narrative poem by suggesting the action described in the poem without directly showing it. The result is extremely effective, in my opinion. Evidently I’m not the only one who thinks so — it won first prize at the 2009 Chicago International Children’s Film Festival.
Lorna Crozier is a major Canadian poet. Here’s her website.
Murder (Two voices at dawn on Riverside Drive) by Federico Garcia Lorca
Asesinato, directed by Javier Gómez Serrano for elegant mob films, is an adaptation of a poem from Poeta en Nueva York (Poet in New York), which may be read at Google Books in both Spanish and English (translation by Pablo Medina and Mark Statman).