Film as Poetry?
From “Film as Poetry” by Frederick Aicken
“First, let me be quite clear about what I mean by poetry. As James Broughton has said, to ask for poetry in cinema does not mean that one is asking for verse plays embalmed in celluloid. The search is for the moment of truth, the sudden illumination of experience, the thrill of discovery of beauty in squalor, of the exciting in the ordinary. One looks for “a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented in an unusual aspect.” One looks, too, for that flash upon the inward eye which completes the process of transference of emotion from the mind of the artist to the mind of the spectator. On looks, in fact, not for the poetry in the film, but the poetry of the film…
Poetry must inevitable turn inward as it becomes more valuable to the human spirit. Can the flash of poetry, as it is here conceived, illuminate the human soul? Can D.W. Griffith’s dictum, “My job is to make you see,” apply to the conflicts within as well as to the turbulence without? The film must not be content to reveal and capture superficial beauty: if it has any claims to be considered as an art form, it must be able to explore the inwardness of things.”
