Movies for Poetic Inspiration

[annaswirls]

There are movies that make me want to be a better artist/poet. They inspire me, stir me in places that are hidden down below daily routine, make me ache so deeply that I swear it might be happening to me, to me.

I have a few ideas, but I will start with one of my all time favorite inspirational movies:


Impromptu: Novelist George Sand (Judy Davis) falls in love with composer Frédéric Chopin (Hugh Grant)....


Why I love this movie: It is filled with wonderous music and art, explores stereotypical gender roles as they are bent by Sands and Chopin, illustrates the desires to be the muse, love the muse, destroy, leave, consume the muse...

The dialogue is intelligent and poetic, the characters are rich, just look at the list:

Judy Davis .... George Sand/Aurora
Hugh Grant .... Frederic Chopin
Mandy Patinkin .... Alfred De Musset
Bernadette Peters .... Marie D'Agoult
Julian Sands .... Franz Liszt
Ralph Brown .... Eugene Delacroix
Georges Corraface .... Felicien Mallefille
Anton Rodgers .... Duke D'Antan
Emma Thompson .... Duchess D'Antan


Perhaps I will host a poetry contest, inspired by Impromptu... we shall see what comes. But I highly recommend this movie to all poets, artists and human beings in general.



Has a movie inspired you as an artist/writer/poet? Thank you for posting it here. The weather outside is frightful, the nights are long, and it is the season of snuggling up with a good movie.

~

 

[Man Ray]

Any film with Audrey Hepburn...

...has me rushing for pen and paper in a vain atempt to capture her beauty in words but alas I fail miserably as how can words recreate such beauty?

But don't get me started on the `Alien` films!

 

[DeepAsleep]

If you haven't seen 2004's 'Closer' with Jude Law, natalie portman, Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, then you're missing out on a darker side of life that you should at least be able to see, if only to avoid it.

~D.A.

 

[Tzara]

Has a movie inspired you as an artist/writer/poet? Thank you for posting it here.

My poem "yurei" was at least partly inspired (or, since, it was based on a dream I had, at least partly interpreted into words) by my seeing Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon. Fabulous movie.

Teshigahara's Woman in the Dunes has some really strange visuals that I may have been thinking of as well.

 

[Angeline]

...has me rushing for pen and paper in a vain atempt to capture her beauty in words but alas I fail miserably as how can words recreate such beauty?

But don't get me started on the `Alien` films!

I think Audrey Hepburn is the most beautiful creature who ever lived.

I don't get inspired much by film. It may be a character flaw or a genetic deficiency, but I can't think of many films that makes me want to write poetry.

Some of my favorite movies are To Kill a Mockingbird, Inherit the Wind, Radio Days, and Moonstruck. The latter two feel like home to me in an odd way, but none of them make me want to write.

We watched Bound for Glory the other night and I felt like that should have spoken to me more poetically, but it didn't.

Maybe Life is Beautiful. There are images from that film that can make me think poetically.

Seeing a play might do it for me if it's good enough for me to sustain the high I get from the experience long enough to get somewhere to write. Something about the "aliveness" of it feels different to me than film.

Usually though it's music--primarily jazz, classical or opera--or certain artists' work (like Marc Chagall) or just looking out my window that fill me with words.

 

[Guest]

The only film to inspire poetry for me so far was a combination of the soundtrack and the image - Christopher Hampton's "Carrington" with Jonothan Pryce and Emma Thompson - inspired casting.

http://www-paradigm.asucla.ucla.edu/DB/Issues/95/11.08/ae.thompson.jpg

 

[bogusbrig]

La Belle Noiseus (The Beautiful Idiot) Director Jacques Rivette

Starring: Michel Piccoli, Jane Birkin, Emmanualle Beart

It's basically about an artist in a creative struggle and the film really gets to grips with creative struggle without glamourising it. So simple but yet so rich and complex.

It's 3 hours 50 minutes long and it doesn't seem long enough.


Eraserhead by David Lynch He creates a surreal nightmare world that in many ways is ultra real. Weird imagery. Brilliant!


Fitzcarraldo, Cobra Verde , Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Nosferatu the Vampyre and Woyzeck. All diirected by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski. It is difficult to describe so many films but they are all expressive but it is easy to understand why Herzog insisted on Kinski starring no matter how nuts the bloke was. I don't think I ever create anything without one of these films popping into my mind.

 

[Guest]

[snip]
Eraserhead by David Lynch He creates a surreal nightmare world that in many ways is ultra real. Weird imagery. Brilliant! [/snip]

That is such a disturbing film.

 

[Sabina_Tolchovsky]

Eraserhead[/B] by David Lynch He creates a surreal nightmare world that in many ways is ultra real. Weird imagery. Brilliant!


.

David Lynch just lectured on transcendental meditation in Seattle, a friend of mine went to it and said that he was one of the most serene people he had ever met. I find it slightly odd that someone that produces such disturbing movies is so at peace with himself. He said
"Just because I create disturbing movies does not mean that I have to be disturbed myself"...my friend had a great time for a the week


Blue directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski ... a wonderful movie, actually the whole series is good but Blue is my favorite. I am also very fond of 3 iron...this movie left me with an amazing sense of peace. I would highly recomend it.

 

[eagleyez]

"Hannah and Her Sisters" comes to mind.

Woody captures the frailty and disconnects that seem universal to me.
Sad the passion, the machinations of love, requited and not so.

 

[Angeline]

"Hannah and Her Sisters" comes to mind.

Woody captures the frailty and disconnects that seem universal to me.
Sad the passion, the machinations of love, requited and not so.

Not El Dorado?

 

[eagleyez]

Not El Dorado?

"Ride Boldly Ride"

Hey, that's a thought, should we dig it out?

 

[Angeline]

"Ride Boldly Ride"

Hey, that's a thought, should we dig it out?

Nah. Let's just go to bed. You can lay there and quote the whole thing to me.

 

[Christina O. Leigh]

Does anyone remember "The Burning Bed" from 1984? This is when Farrah Fawcett played Francine Hughes, who was a battered Michigan housewife, and was prosecuted in 1977 for dousing her abusive husband with gasoline, and setting him on fire as he slept.

Ahh! I saw this again after my divorce and wrote a goodie. It felt so good.

 

[DeepAsleep]

A film that just came out recently, "Immortal" is not only the most bizarre film I've ever seen, but one of the more visually stunning and original flicks I've ever had the pleasure of watching.

The premise is that Horus, king of the egyptian gods, is sentenced to die in seven days, so he steals a man's body to use to impregnate a blue woman who has no idea who she is, all set in the future in front of a backdrop of political intrigue, impending revolution, etc., etc.

There's an awesome scene where Anubis and Bastet are floating in midair, animal heads and all, trying to figure out the rules of Monopoly. They play what I assume (There are no subtitles for the parts in Egyptian) is 'Go Fish' at a later point in the movie, also. Classically funny shots.

It's an awesome movie.

 

[DeepAsleep]

I think Audrey Hepburn is the most beautiful creature who ever lived.

I've hated Audrey Hepburn since I saw Breakfast at Tiffany's. That movie made me angry.

 

[bluerains]

I know I seem to ruffle feathers of the fru fru...but,,,I frigin don't give a shit...one of the most inspiring movies for me...is http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082432/....
and Jarre...the music as the last scene....oxegene...the lies of war...what can I say...
I am....against...the war dogs..who take the sheep who believe in a dream...wake up...wake up....that is this movies inspiring words...watch it...see it as the truth...about the powers that be....merry fucking christmas..while your men die in Iraq for the new king...

 

[Man Ray]

I've hated Audrey Hepburn since I saw Breakfast at Tiffany's. That movie made me angry.

What in the world made you angry? Please explain as I am at a loss to see the `anger causing` element in this film.

 

[annaswirls]

A film that just came out recently, "Immortal" is not only the most bizarre film I've ever seen, but one of the more visually stunning and original flicks I've ever had the pleasure of watching.

The premise is that Horus, king of the egyptian gods, is sentenced to die in seven days, so he steals a man's body to use to impregnate a blue woman who has no idea who she is, all set in the future in front of a backdrop of political intrigue, impending revolution, etc., etc.

There's an awesome scene where Anubis and Bastet are floating in midair, animal heads and all, trying to figure out the rules of Monopoly. They play what I assume (There are no subtitles for the parts in Egyptian) is 'Go Fish' at a later point in the movie, also. Classically funny shots.

It's an awesome movie.

It is now on my list... gotta love Netflix

 

[annaswirls]

One more I must recommend:

Breaking the Waves


A Film Review by James Berardinelli

According to writer/director Lars von Trier, Breaking the Waves is "a simple love story", but "simple" hardly begins to describe this deeply disturbing, multi-layered drama. In fact, nowhere is the picture's complexity more evident than in its study of contrasts -- it is highly spiritual yet anti-religious, triumphant yet tragic, and personal yet universal. Love forms the film's core, but rather than approaching the subject from a cliched perspective, Breaking the Waves examines no less than six facets of the emotion: transformative love, sacrificial love, redemptive love, destructive love, romantic love, and sexual love. And, despite a slightly disappointing conclusion, this movie still rates among the best of the year.

 

[annaswirls]

The only film to inspire poetry for me so far was a combination of the soundtrack and the image - Christopher Hampton's "Carrington" with Jonothan Pryce and Emma Thompson - inspired casting.

omg what an amazing film!
Do you have a poem to share that was inspired by the movie? I know I wrote one after "The Hours" out there somewhere.

 

[Man Ray]

Carrington

omg what an amazing film!
Do you have a poem to share that was inspired by the movie? I know I wrote one after "The Hours" out there somewhere.

I second the above request. Tristesse wrote a wonderful and very moving poem entitled `Carrington` which in my humble opinion captured perfectly the complicated life of a fascinating woman.

Both films, `Carrington` and `The Hours` feature in my list of favourites as the life and times of Carrington, Virginia Woolf et al fascinates me with its heady mix of literature, art and torrid sex!

To finish I request that the lovely annaswirls finds her `The Hours` poem and posts that too?

 

[annaswirls]

I second the above request. Tristesse wrote a wonderful and very moving poem entitled `Carrington` which in my humble opinion captured perfectly the complicated life of a fascinating woman.

Both films, `Carrington` and `The Hours` feature in my list of favourites as the life and times of Carrington, Virginia Woolf et al fascinates me with its heady mix of literature, art and torrid sex!

To finish I request that the lovely annaswirls finds her `The Hours` poem and posts that too?

oh my did you call me lovely? I am blushing!
I want heady mix for Christmas.


here is the poem. now that I read it, I remember it was also somewhat inspired by lord of the rings, the journey through the Dead Marshes outside of Mordor

For hours upon

For hours upon river-weed surfaces
we tread over,
knowing below our feet
lie sunken answers to

might have beens
that stare up, hollow-faced
while their blackened fingernails
claw our soles.

Twice we watch
tendrils wrap our legs
as they dangle drunk
with fermented seduction.

We will their dissolve,
test the strength of
our acceptance

this is all there is

One more breath before submersion.
We count bubbles as they rise
then follow into delirious consent.

 

[WickedEve]

Poetry People was inspired by Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Bread was inspired by a series of documentaries.

 

[Angeline]

Poetry People was inspired by Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Bread was inspired by a series of documentaries.

Your post reminded me. I did write a poem inspired by a film. Paris Blues was inspired by, oddly enough, Paris Blues.