Sylvia could well be Gwyneth's best acting performance. this is a biography richly imbued with many of the complex human psyche, insecurities, as well as highlighting the social roles expected of a woman in the late 50s (still expected in modern day!) and lends insights into the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness that drives one to the brink. what is interesting if not peculiar, perhaps, is that much of her poetry which chronicles her life experiences is not read or versed, but acted out in the various scenes. and the dialogues are often brusque although witty at times; slightly uncanny for a film involving two poets' lives. turbulent it was and indeed very melancholic. this darkness is eminent and vividly encapsulated in Plath's later poems. the film directed by Christine Jeffs depicts the parallels of her life and poetry; both inextricably intertwined.
i have never really felt inclined to explore Plath's poems but did so today, partly curious of what they are like, and partly inspired by her life experiences. many recount her frustrations with the various unhappy experiences in her life , e.g. Daddy, Burning the Letters, and the intense feelings of despair e.g. Stillborn, The Moon and the Yew Tree and flirtations with death. but some were about happier times e.g. Two Lovers and a Beachcomber by the Real Sea.....and indeed others which we could readily identify with at times:
Insomniac
The night is only a sort of carbon paper,
Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars
Letting in the light, peephole after peephole ---
A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things.
Under the eyes of the stars and the moon's rictus
He suffers his desert pillow, sleeplessness
Stretching its fine, irritating sand in all directions.
Over and over the old, granular movie
Exposes embarrassments--the mizzling days
Of childhood and adolescence, sticky with dreams,
Parental faces on tall stalks, alternately stern and tearful,
A garden of buggy rose that made him cry.
His forehead is bumpy as a sack of rocks.
Memories jostle each other for face-room like obsolete film stars.
He is immune to pills: red, purple, blue ---
How they lit the tedium of the protracted evening!
Those sugary planets whose influence won for him
A life baptized in no-life for a while,
And the sweet, drugged waking of a forgetful baby.
Now the pills are worn-out and silly, like classical gods.
Their poppy-sleepy colors do him no good.
His head is a little interior of grey mirrors.
Each gesture flees immediately down an alley
Of diminishing perspectives, and its significance
Drains like water out the hole at the far end.
He lives without privacy in a lidless room,
The bald slots of his eyes stiffened wide-open
On the incessant heat-lightning flicker of situations.
Nightlong, in the granite yard, invisible cats
Have been howling like women, or damaged instruments.
Already he can feel daylight, his white disease,
Creeping up with her hatful of trivial repetitions.
The city is a map of cheerful twitters now,
And everywhere people, eyes mica-silver and blank,
Are riding to work in rows, as if recently brainwashed.
------- by Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) -------
powerful poem. I should go check out her poetry too. I was always a little terrified by the tragedy of her death, how she ended her life. wanted to watch the movie too but never got round to it. reading your entry convinces me I should.
Posted by: Van Heng on Sunday, 8 February, 2004 at 04:20 hrsi am glad i went to catch the film....it is very sad though...
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