A Quiet Passion: A Review
Let me start with the observation that I am not a dilettante when it comes to Emily Dickinson. My senior project in college, a 45-minute memorized presentation, was about Emily Dickinson. I visited her home in 2013. I use her poems in my own work whenever I can. I can quote several of them by heart. I admit to not having read any recent scholarship on her, since that is not my primary field, and I can't say I've read more than a fraction of all 1800 poems (that's a bit daunting).
So when I saw that the 2016 movie A Quiet Passion was available on Amazon Prime, I jumped to watch it. I am not sorry I did, but it is more argument than cinema, an argument for a certain interpretation of Emily Dickinson as a person or historical figure or change agent than a celebration of her poetry. I could have stood for more poetry and less polemic.
There were many things to like about it. The sense of the closeness and claustrophobia of her family life was very real. The sense of tableaux was prominent, which is part of the whole theme, I think. Everything is slow, deliberate, almost glacial in movement yet there is great emotion under the surface that comes out, erupting. The morphing of the photographs into old age was a cool technique. The physical debility she suffered was astonishing; a recent scholar has claimed her to be epileptic. As such, the acting is well done although there are a lot of heavy breathing and pain sequences.
One reviewer said that the director read several biographies and took what he liked for the story. I would think so. He leaves out her friendships and correspondence with Higginson, her earlier love affair, her gardening, and other more positive aspects. What we do get is a woman who seems scared to death of sex and men. A very judgmental person. A person who believed herself superior to others. An angry woman who wants equity with men but is not willing to fight for it outside her family. A spiritually conflicted person (that part is right, although I don't think she was as faithless as she is portrayed. Her poetry can be remarkable insightful about faith.) A woman who is out of touch with her body.
The film also has no plot to speak of. The sequences do not connect all that much; they seem to be in packets, and then we move onto another packet of successive scenes. What it does have is a lot of talking and characters trying to out-witticism each other, especially Vyrling Buffam, who may or may not have been that important a character in her life. I felt like I was watching either an Oscar Wilde fest or a debate. Women do not talk like that; no one talks like that. It is as if the prose of her letters and poems were taken for everyday conversation. Granted, her class and time was more formal in communication, but not like a rerun of The Importance of Being Earnest.
So, while I am glad I watched it, I don't recommend it to anyone who really wants to enjoy her poetry, because there isn't very much of it in the movie and I would have liked so much more. She says "I'm Nobody, Who are You?" to a baby as if impromptu. (The last sequence with "I Could Not Stop For Death " is neat, though.) Her strong, stinging metaphors and figures show she was a very embodied person and not afraid of the physical.
A narrow fellow in the grass; After great pain a formal feeling comes; I heard a fly buzz when I died; Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed.
Consequently, I decided I would read a poem a day to get through the whole collection; that is quite a task, but I don't think we can really say we know her poetry if we stick with the 20 that are most anthologized.
So when I saw that the 2016 movie A Quiet Passion was available on Amazon Prime, I jumped to watch it. I am not sorry I did, but it is more argument than cinema, an argument for a certain interpretation of Emily Dickinson as a person or historical figure or change agent than a celebration of her poetry. I could have stood for more poetry and less polemic.
There were many things to like about it. The sense of the closeness and claustrophobia of her family life was very real. The sense of tableaux was prominent, which is part of the whole theme, I think. Everything is slow, deliberate, almost glacial in movement yet there is great emotion under the surface that comes out, erupting. The morphing of the photographs into old age was a cool technique. The physical debility she suffered was astonishing; a recent scholar has claimed her to be epileptic. As such, the acting is well done although there are a lot of heavy breathing and pain sequences.
One reviewer said that the director read several biographies and took what he liked for the story. I would think so. He leaves out her friendships and correspondence with Higginson, her earlier love affair, her gardening, and other more positive aspects. What we do get is a woman who seems scared to death of sex and men. A very judgmental person. A person who believed herself superior to others. An angry woman who wants equity with men but is not willing to fight for it outside her family. A spiritually conflicted person (that part is right, although I don't think she was as faithless as she is portrayed. Her poetry can be remarkable insightful about faith.) A woman who is out of touch with her body.
The film also has no plot to speak of. The sequences do not connect all that much; they seem to be in packets, and then we move onto another packet of successive scenes. What it does have is a lot of talking and characters trying to out-witticism each other, especially Vyrling Buffam, who may or may not have been that important a character in her life. I felt like I was watching either an Oscar Wilde fest or a debate. Women do not talk like that; no one talks like that. It is as if the prose of her letters and poems were taken for everyday conversation. Granted, her class and time was more formal in communication, but not like a rerun of The Importance of Being Earnest.
So, while I am glad I watched it, I don't recommend it to anyone who really wants to enjoy her poetry, because there isn't very much of it in the movie and I would have liked so much more. She says "I'm Nobody, Who are You?" to a baby as if impromptu. (The last sequence with "I Could Not Stop For Death " is neat, though.) Her strong, stinging metaphors and figures show she was a very embodied person and not afraid of the physical.
A narrow fellow in the grass; After great pain a formal feeling comes; I heard a fly buzz when I died; Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed.
Consequently, I decided I would read a poem a day to get through the whole collection; that is quite a task, but I don't think we can really say we know her poetry if we stick with the 20 that are most anthologized.
Comments