For me, a good poem is like putting on glasses for the first time. Suddenly something that seemed vague and blurry clicks into focus. Details become clear and make sense and you say, “Aha! So that’s what they’re talking about.”
A good movie review from Anthony Lane does that for me. I love movies and often come out of the theater loving (or not loving) a movie, but am only vaguely able to articulate the reasons why. Last night in bed, I read Lane’s review of Darren Aronofsky’s movie Mother!. I’ve seen a preview or two and it’s not on my list of movies to see, but I couldn’t really tell you why. Lane writes:
“My patience was tested beyond repair, I am afraid, by the nimbus of nonsense – so dense that even [Javier] Bardem cannot dispel it – that encircles the figure of the poet. We are asked to believe that readers would flock to the bard’s home for a glimpse of him, and that his latest work would instantly sell out; Lord Byron is said to have sold ten thousand copies of “The Corsair” in a single day, but that was in 1814 and many modern poets have trouble pressing free copies of their work into the hands of their immediate family. Dafter by far is Aronofsky’s vision of how a poem gets written. First, you finally summon up the blood and make successful love to your spouse . . . Second, you sleep. Third, you awake, the sluice gates that restrain your creative juices having opened wide, and rush buck naked to your desk, where you grab sheets of paper and shout, “Pen! A Pen!,” like Richard III requesting an emergency horse. Fourth, you scribble away, and don’t stop until your done. A cinch.”
Aha! It’s not a poem, but the problem with Mother! has snapped right into focus.
Yesterday, I was fumbling around trying to make heads or tails of William Carlos Williams poem, The Red Wheel Barrow. My friend Kathy commented, “Fwiw, I always read the red wheel barrow as a metonymy for a farmer, not a literal claim about wheelbarrows.”
Aha! Of course, well that makes a lot more sense. William Carlos Williams is saying, “So much depends on farmers.” OK. Well, that’s true. It seems a little sentimental, but we do have to eat. Why farmers though? Why not lionize the guys who maintain power lines? If you lose access to electricity, things get very lord-of-the-flies very quickly.
So much depends upon
a schlub with a utility belt
glazed with sleet
beside the downed power lines.
Too literal, I guess.
Anyway, my friend P Gregory Springer, who knows and cares about movies, rose to the defense of Paterson:
“I loved Patterson and the demonstration that even an underachieving actor or bus driver or dabbler artist living in an unfabulous city can see life in terms of wonder and magnificence and poetry.”
Greg raises a good point. Maybe we shouldn’t worry about whether we’re any good at the things that we enjoy doing and just enjoy the fact that we get to do them. Adam Driver’s character has no desire to publish his poetry or be famous. He just enjoys creating it. If you enjoyed doing it, that’s enough.
Greg’s right.
Aha!
Although to be honest, while I totally love that Adam and Golshifteh love what they do, if I’m going to watch them do it, I’d like them to be better at it.
miltotto.com 
Are you judging the movie Patterson by the quality of his poetry? You should watch “A Quiet Passion” about Emily Dickinson instead. It’s also a good movie. Maybe you can compare the restrictions and dullness of the lives of poets. As for “Mother!” I think Anthony Lane’s reviews (like Pauline Kael’s) are a form of fancy writing (like poetry) that are worth reading for their own sake, not for a means of deciding if you want to see a movie or not. Critics who are solely consumer guide writers are of no interest to me. Lane wisely doesn’t give star ratings. His description of the creative process of writing poems is very funny, but finding something unrealistic about “Mother!” is not a good reason to skip it. Nothing is realistic about that movie, increasingly so as it goes along. I mean, really, it begins with Cain and Abel and ends with the Apocalypse. Darren Aronofsky’s last movie wasn’t the surreal “Noah!” for nothing. (Was there an exclamation mark after “Noah!”, too?) While you are at it, check out Bruno Dumont’s newest movie “Slack Bay” on Netflix. WWBD? What would Buñuel do? I dare you to write a review of that one that doesn’t judge it on a scale. What are you comparing it to? All that said, so far I’m enjoying what you have written on this blog. It’s kinda like poetry.
LikeLike
I like my movies to be realistic. You know. Like Star Wars.
LikeLike