Poetry in Motion

Rating:
Summary: Poetry Brought to Life
Review: "Poetry in Motion" is an early documentary by Ron Mann, who is now more widely known for his documentaries "Grass" and "Comic Book Confidential". As with most of Mann's documentaries, he partly uses this film as an excuse to explore "alternative culture" by meeting with people he admires and capturing it all on film (something most people would love to be able to do for a living). But, as always with Mann, the product is meaningful and insightful, as well as entertaining and educational for anyone with an interest in the arts and culture, and not self-indulgent or fluffy.

In some of the most interesting parts of the film, Charles Bukowski bravely dismisses most poetry, including most poems considered to be classics, as boring and pretentious and lacking in any meaning to the average person, and is equally critical of most people making a living as poets. In fact, his rant strongly reflects the feelings (usually not so well expressed) of most people I knew in highschool. But while Bukowski makes a great point, the rest of the film manages to prove that at least some poets are not guilty of such crimes as it brings their works to life.

Most of the film consists of various poets, some unfortunately now departed, performing one of their poems, plus there are a few scenes wherein several of them explain their philosophies about poetry and its performance.

The performance styles of each poet varies as greatly as the contents of their poems. Some poets are accompanied by background music or actually turn their poems into songs. Others incorporate dance or other visuals. Others merely read out their poems (some, e.g. Jonathan Carroll, with more feeling than others), sometimes proving that a poem is an intrinsically beautiful thing without a big production. Of course very few people will enjoy all of the performances. I found a few (e.g. the Four Horsemen's) to be horribly pretentious, showing all style and no substance. However, even the less palatable performances do a wonderful job of illustrating that poetry can be given unexpected and exciting new form when removed from the page and given life and motion, and that one's experience of a poem can be significantly transformed merely by the way it is performed.

To mention a few of my favourite performances: Tom Waits performs a song, playing solo on an accoustic guitar (illustrating the fine line between poetry and music). William S. Burroughs delivers one of his poem/stories in his usual laid back, gravel-voiced, sardonic style. And, in an especially entertaining performance, Allen Ginsberg energetically sings an anti-government poem with a full rock band accompanying him while the audience dances and twists (Ginsberg sometimes joining in, wiggling and shaking on stage).

"Poetry in Motion" is an interesting documentary which should be especially enlightening to those whose exposure to poetry is limited to classroom dissections of those boring, stale poems Bukowski gripes about. But old converts will find it enlightening as well.

Rating:
Summary: New medium will be an improvement
Review: My knowledge of "Poetry in Motion" comes from its first incarnation as a CD-Rom released in 1994. I just dug this program back out the other day and thought to myself how much better it would be today if it were released on DVD. The video clips from the old CD-Rom were isolated to boxes about 2" X 3", with 1994-era resolution and streaming quality, so they left a little to be desired. I would expect the new format to improve things quite a lot, providing clear, full-screen video, in which case it will be a worthwhile investment for those interested in poetry-in-performance from about 15 years ago.

I would also hope that the DVD would offer more options for how to view each piece. On the CD-Rom the text of each poem is always on-screen next to the video of the performance, and I find myself having trouble watching the tiny video instead of following the text as it's read. It would be nice to be able to choose for oneself whether to direct one's attention to the performance or the printed text by adding or removing the words from the screen. **Update -- I bought the DVD and it doesn't include text copies of the poems at all. It's just the movie, chapterized so you can jump to particular performances of course. So it's far better for viewing the performances, but loses all the cool multi-media features of the CD-ROM. I'm a bit disappointed they didn't do more with the DVD format.

As for the poems and performances themselves, I'd say they're pretty middling overall, with of course a few bright spots. One of my favorites is actually "Four Horsemen," who perform a vocal quartet that is wordless and tuneless, but nevertheless very meticulously organized and musical -- sort of like four mad Bobby McFerrins performing a Charles Mingus score based on a lost Bartok string quartet. Anne Waldman's reading of "Makeup on Empty Space" is spectacular, with her signature energy and wit, and there are good outings by Tom Waits, Michael Ondaatje, Robert Creeley, and a couple of others. But a lot of the work -- both the writing and the reading -- suffers from a host of post-Beat cliches, making for some pretty tedious clips to sit through. As for Charles Bukowski, he declines to read at all. And as for the prescription he offers for contemporary poetry, it's amusing to a point, but ask yourself whether you really care to savor what he offers as the model for a poem.

Rating:
Summary: New medium will be an improvement
Review: My knowledge of "Poetry in Motion" comes from its first incarnation as a CD-Rom released in 1994. I just dug this program back out the other day and thought to myself how much better it would be today if it were released on DVD. The video clips from the old CD-Rom were isolated to boxes about 2" X 3", with 1994-era resolution and streaming quality, so they left a little to be desired. I would expect the new format to improve things quite a lot, providing clear, full-screen video, in which case it will be a worthwhile investment for those interested in poetry-in-performance from about 15 years ago.

I would also hope that the DVD would offer more options for how to view each piece. On the CD-Rom the text of each poem is always on-screen next to the video of the performance, and I find myself having trouble watching the tiny video instead of following the text as it's read. It would be nice to be able to choose for oneself whether to direct one's attention to the performance or the printed text by adding or removing the words from the screen. **Update -- I bought the DVD and it doesn't include text copies of the poems at all. It's just the movie, chapterized so you can jump to particular performances of course. So it's far better for viewing the performances, but loses all the cool multi-media features of the CD-ROM. I'm a bit disappointed they didn't do more with the DVD format.

As for the poems and performances themselves, I'd say they're pretty middling overall, with of course a few bright spots. One of my favorites is actually "Four Horsemen," who perform a vocal quartet that is wordless and tuneless, but nevertheless very meticulously organized and musical -- sort of like four mad Bobby McFerrins performing a Charles Mingus score based on a lost Bartok string quartet. Anne Waldman's reading of "Makeup on Empty Space" is spectacular, with her signature energy and wit, and there are good outings by Tom Waits, Michael Ondaatje, Robert Creeley, and a couple of others. But a lot of the work -- both the writing and the reading -- suffers from a host of post-Beat cliches, making for some pretty tedious clips to sit through. As for Charles Bukowski, he declines to read at all. And as for the prescription he offers for contemporary poetry, it's amusing to a point, but ask yourself whether you really care to savor what he offers as the model for a poem.