the poetics of film school

Turning to the Page

I remember that cavernous silence

after my first declaration of love,

then, feeling I must have been misunderstood, saying it again,

and, years later, with someone else,

exclaiming, "That was so good!"

and the foreign language she - who was

speaking English - used in response.

I learned there's nothing more shaming

or as memorable as an intimacy

unreturned. And turned, therefore,

to the expected silence of a page,

where I might simultaneously assert

and hide, be my own disappointment,

which saved me for a while.

But soon the page whispered

I'd mistaken its vastness for a refuge,

its whiteness for a hospital

for the pathetic. Fill me up, it said,

give me sorrow because I must have joy,

all the travails of love because

distances are where the safe reside.

Bring to me, it said, continual proof

you've been alive.

So I mentioned in one of my last posts that I bought two new books of poetry the last time I went to Oxford, one of which was Stephen Dunn's 2004 The Insistence of Beauty. I must not have paid very close attention when I was picking it out as I read the whole thing last night and was somewhat disappointed. The only poem I really liked was this one above, Turning to the Page. The rest of the poems feel too watered down, too unfocused, and though it sounds strange, not enough about words. I think he loves himself more than he loves words and it shows on the page.

I don't really love the poem above, but I think the last two stanzas are brilliant and perfectly encapsulate two of the 'big' ideas of writing. One is the how and why we write, the need to validate a life lived in words and on paper, to understand actions through disciplined phrasing. I love especially 'mistaken its vastness for a refuge' because I think that any writer can understand the feeling - sometimes a blank piece of paper is a curse, a taunt. But most of the time it is a refuge, 'a hospital for the pathetic', the melancholy, the lonely and I think he captures this sentiment very well. The other thing I loved about this poem is its undercover reference to poetic history - the Wordsworthian 'emotion recollected in tranquillity' which comes through clearly in the first half of the poem, but especially in the idea that 'distances are where the safe reside.' Personally, I don't agree with Wordsworth's poetic prescription, but still it's interesting to see contemporary poets striving toward this model and how it works itself out in their poems.

In other completely unrelated news, I had my first digital film-making class last night. I think it will be fun to learn how to make a film and finally get off my lazy arse and work out how to use Final Cut Pro, but I'd forgotten what some aspiring 'creatives' are like. I don't want to pre-judge my fellow students too harshly, but why is it that people are just desperate to do something as a career when they hardly even like the medium they so desperately want to work in. I took this class because I love film and have always wanted to learn how to make films so that I can mess about on my own. I don't necessarily want to work in the film industry or become a filmmaker - I'd just like to learn more about it. Like most of the other art forms I'm interested in, craft is fascinating to me. For me, film should be a marriage between storytelling and photography - all my favourite films balance this well, even if I do tend to favour films which are technically or cinematographically (making up words again...) more interesting than the story they're trying to tell. I suppose Russian Ark is a good example of this - as stories goes, this one is pretty meh, but shooting an entire 90 minute film in one single take is nothing short of miraculous.

And this is where the film-making class gets really interesting, because I don't even think any of these other 10 people who profess to be desperate to work as film-makers have even thought about the visual side of film. Maybe it's because I have a background in photography that I get so hung up on the visual and the cinematography, but I nearly died when, at the end of our first course, the instructor gave us 20 seconds to decide on our favourite film and share it with the class. I can't remember them all, but of the ones I can people said:

Annie Hall

Kill Bill 2

When Harry Met Sally

All About My Mother

High School Musical 3 (Sadly, this isn't a joke)

Steam: The Turkish Bath

I have to make a short film with these people!!!!! The course instructor said his favourite film was Star Wars, which even I can admit isn't a horrible answer - if we're going for cinematic history and breaking new ground - but it's a coward's answer. I toyed with saying Lars Von Trier's The Five Obstructions - probably the only film I've ever watched more than 5 times - or Andrea Arnold's incredible Red Road , which was shot largely in Von Trier's Dogme 95 style - a movement I'm very interested in that focuses on 'purity' in filmmaking: hand-held cameras, shot on location, no additional sound work, natural lighting and so on. In the end though, I went with Bertolucci's 1970 film The Conformist which I saw last year at the BFI on a big screen. It's possibly the most visually stunning film I've ever seen - the story is compelling enough to hold your interest for two hours - but the amount of care that went into the photography and editing of this film is obvious in every single frame. To make a movie with such precision and such artistry, this is what I think the goal of film-making should be.

It's all for fun anyhow, something to distract me from my looming chapter deadline. And I'm looking forward to seeing the final project and messing around on my own in between. So keep your eyes peeled - in 10 weeks I'll have a monstrosity of a short film created by a group of rom-com loving 'storytellers' (as the course instructor now insists on calling us) to post up here for your viewing pleasure.

change the world or go home

Just back from a lovely afternoon spent in Oxford with The Fellow. While London may be a wonderful place to live, it is in many ways a very poor place to do a PhD. There's no real sense of community in any of the London Unis and I sometimes go for weeks without stepping foot into King's. This is no inherently bad thing, but sometimes you just want to talk to someone who understands academic research and the academic community. It doesn't so much matter whether they understand your particular research (for who does, really?), sometimes all you need is a chat with a like minded colleague to revive flagging enthusiasm.

So a marvellous afternoon spent mostly gossiping about personal life and a little about academic life in general. It's funny that the closer I get to finishing my doctorate, the less sure I am of my wanting a career in academia. I've always been one of those people who wants and wants to do too many things, too many interests to settle on just one. I enjoy academic research, but I've always wanted to do something creative. The problem with doing something creative as a career is that I don't really know if I want to do that either. I love working with people, being around people - I need stimulation from external sources. I couldn't possibly sit in my study all day writing novels or poetry or painting or whatever: the solitary life is not for me. I like the idea of literary salons. Maybe I'll make like Gertrude Stein and just collect other creatives. Can that be a career though? Also I've realised that I tend to be most productive in the strangest of spaces and places: trains, airport lounges, waiting rooms - confined spaces where passing time is really all there is to do. I don't know why I find so much inspiration in these places, maybe it's because it's unexpected. Who knows. So a literary salon in the first class BA lounge at Terminal 5...it could work.

So, for me who perhaps above all things, loves reading and dare I say, loves people (in all their horrific, miserable, agonisingly annoying glory) what career options are there? I want never to be bored (kiss of death in anything), always to be stimulated, I want that buzz which comes from collaborating with other people, I want something creative, yet intellectually rigorous (I don't think I could design clothes, for example - unless I went all Hussein Chalayan I think it would feel too frivolous). I suppose that since at the very least I have committed myself to finishing my doctorate, I don't really have to make any "life-altering" decisions for another year or so. After that, it's anyone's guess...

And before I say adieu, I'll leave you with something else. Apologies to my poetry-loathing friends.

For someone who hates routine and boredom, I have created some quite bizarre rituals. One of which is that every time I go to Oxford I head to the Borders, which has a much better selection of poetry than most bookshops in London, and pick up one or two volumes of poetry. I do my usual cultural roulette thing, leafing through the books until something catches my eye, open it up and read through a few poems to see if it suits. I make my judgements instantly and instinctively (not that I'm advocating this method) and am either gripped or not. Today I got The Insistence of Beauty by Stephen Dunn and Third Wish Wasted by Roddy Lumsden. I haven't read work by either of these authors before though I understand they are both established poets, but that's what I like about my random little system - they're both new to me. I haven't read the Dunn yet but read all of the Lumsden on my way home and found it absolutely enchanting.

So. A little Lumsden to leave you with. This is called "The Young"

You bastards! It's all sherbet, and folly
makes you laugh like mules. Chances
dance off your wrists, each day ready,

sprites in your bones and spite not yet
swollen, not yet set. You gather handful
after miracle handful, seeing straight,

reaching the lighthouse in record time,
pockets brim with scimitar things. Now
is not a pinpoint but a sprawling realm.

Bewilderment and thrill are whip-quick
twins, carried on your backs, each vow
new to touch and each mistake a broken

biscuit. I was you. Sea robber boarding
the won galleon. Roaring trees. Machine
without levers, easy in bowel and lung.

One cartwheel over the quicksand curve
of Tuesday to Tuesday and you're gone,
summering, a ship on the farthest wave.