Flower, gleam and glow, let your power shine, make the clock reverse, bring back once was mine – what once was mine. Disney’s 50th animated motion picture, “Tangled,” is a fascinating adaptation of the Brothers Grimm fairy-tale, “Rapunzel.” It features a little poem (above) as a song sung by Mother Gothel to a magical flower, [...]
Archive for the ‘Poetic Films’ Category
Girl-Samson: Reflections on Disney’s Rapunzel
Posted in Poetic Films, tagged Brothers Grimm, Christ, Disney, Rapunzel, Samson, sun-flower, Tangled on April 30, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
The Mythologies of “Tron: Legacy”
Posted in Poetic Films, tagged bibical mythology, Castor, classical mythology, Clu, Kevin Flynn, Pollux, Quorra, Sam, Tron Legacy, Zen Buddhism, Zeus on January 31, 2011 | 2 Comments »
So I went to see “Tron: Legacy” the other night. It’s an interesting story about a boy, Sam, who loses his father, Kevin Flynn — because, unbeknownst to the world, his father digitally teleports into a computer game he created. The boy grows up as the owner of a fabulously successful tech company — Encom [...]
Gandalf Hands Over the Map
Posted in Observations, Poetic Films, tagged 1977, Bilbo, Gandalf, J.R.R. Tolkien, Rank & Bass, The Hobbit, Thorin Oakenshield on May 6, 2010 | 1 Comment »
In 1977, Rankin & Bass produced a cartoon version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, which instantly delighted many children all over the world. In the film, after the dwarves, the wizard Gandalf, and the hobbit Bilbo discover a stolen treasure amassed by trolls, Gandalf hands over a map of the Mountain to the dwarf-leader, Thorin [...]
Winter’s Smiling Face
Posted in Observations, Poetic Films, tagged Groundhog Day, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Work without Hope on March 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
“… winter slumbering in the open air, wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!” Samuel Taylor Coleridge from “Work without Hope” … quoted in the movie “Groundhog Day”
The Accidental Husband
Posted in Poetic Films, tagged Accidental Husband, Emma Lloyd, Patrick Thomas Sullivan, Swasame, Uma Thurman, YouTube on March 6, 2010 | 1 Comment »
“The Accidental Husband” is a romantic comedy about a radio talk show host, Dr. Emma Lloyd (played by Uma Thurman), who insists that women find “real love” with a suitable man: a Responsible, Equal, Adult, Loving (REAL) man. However, it becomes clear in the course of the movie that her advice is motivated by fear [...]
Robert Lowell on the Scarlet Tanager
Posted in Observations, Poetic Films, tagged Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Finding Forrester, Robert Lowell, scarlet tanager, Sean Connery on January 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The other day, I watched the film, “Finding Forrester.” The reclusive novelist featured in the film and played by Sean Connery happens to be a bird-watcher. At one point, he quotes the poet Robert Lowell, saying: “Thy duty, winged flame of Spring, is but to love and fly and sing.” The lovely couplet occurs in [...]
“Vermeer” by Tomas Tranströmer
Posted in Poetic Films, The Daily Poems, tagged C.S. Lewis, In a Quiet Light: Poems on Vermeer's Women, Jesus, Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, Robert Bly, The Winged Energy of Desire, Tomas Tranströmer, Vermeer on October 29, 2009 | 5 Comments »
It’s not a sheltered world. The noise begins over there, on the other side of the wall where the alehouse is with its laughter and quarrels, its rows of teeth, its tears, its chiming of clocks, and the psychotic brother-in-law, the murderer, in whose presence everyone feels fear. The huge explosion and the emergency crew [...]
Bright Star
Posted in A Poet's Education, Adventures, Poetic Films, The Reading Journals, tagged Bright Star, Fanny Brawne, Jane Campion, John Keats, love on October 24, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Last night, I went to see the film “Bright Star” directed by Jane Campion. It is the love story of the 19th century, Romantic poet John Keats and the muse who inspired him, Fanny Brawne. The film gave me a whole new vision of Keats, a different perception of his poetry, one which is based [...]
