''Poetry film'' is a subgenre of

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmospher ...

that fuses the use of spoken word poetry, visual images, and sound to create a stronger presentation and interpretation of the meaning being conveyed. This fusion of image and spoken word (both independent and interdependent) creates what William Wees called the "Poetry-film" genre. He suggested that "a number of avant-garde film and video makers have created a synthesis of poetry and film that generates associations, connotations and metaphors neither the verbal nor the visual text would produce on its own". This genre of film was first explored in the 1920s by Impressionists Germaine Dulac, Louis Delluc, Man Ray, Hans Richter, and others. In the mid-1960s and early 1970s this genre was further explored by the

Beat Generation The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Genera ...

poets

Lawrence Ferlinghetti Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021) was an American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. The author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, an ...

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

, and Herman Berlandt, and developed into a festival held annually at the

Fort Mason Fort Mason, in San Francisco, California originated as a coastal defense site during the American Civil War. The nucleus of the property was owned by John C. Frémont and disputes over compensation by the United States continued into 1968. In 188 ...

Center in

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. Poetry film is characterized by its

nonlinear narrative Nonlinear narrative, disjointed narrative, or disrupted narrative is a narrative technique, sometimes used in literature, film, video games, and other narratives, where events are portrayed, for example, out of chronological order or in other way ...

style of editing, and flow of images and spoken words (

stream of consciousness In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode or method that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind" of a narrator. The term was coined by Daniel Oliver in 1840 in ''First L ...

), although linear narration and editing have been used to good effect in the creation of some poetry films (see

Narrative A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional ( memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional ( fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc ...

). Generally, poetry film is created as a noncommercial production, but some attempts have been made to produce commercial films. Some poetry films have been used as instructional aids in classes to illustrate concepts such as allusion, simile, and metaphor. In 1981, a group in Tennessee experimented with fusing spoken word, images, and sound into what was called "poetry videos". The concept was to create poetry videos, similar to videos which were gaining popularity at the time, making poetry more acceptable as a commercial product. One video was produced with the assistance of the Tennessee State communications department but was never commercially released. One of the most famous poetry films ever produced was aired on the ''

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Show'' in 1968. The film was by

and was titled the "Assassination Raga". The film fused images of death, slow sitar, and Ferlinghetti's spoken word poem about the assassination of the Kennedys. More recently George Aguilar has developed a TV series of poetry films called Eyestruck. Performance

Hedwig Gorski Hedwig Irene Gorski (born July 18, 1949) is an American performance poet and an avant-garde artist who labels her aesthetic as "American futurism." The term "performance poetry," a precursor to slam poetry, is attributed to her. It originated ...

was one of the first to successfully produce and direct her video poem using state arts funding. She received an Artist's Fellowship in 2002 for work fusing poetry and media. Beginning in the 21st century the genre of poetry films making also reached other parts of the world including India. Several traditional television professionals experimented with the . In 2007 a non-profit organisation, Sadho, created an exclusive platform for screening of poetry films in India. The Sadho Poetry Film Festival is a biennial international film festival in New Delhi. The first Sadho Poetry Film Festival was organised in the year 2007.

Poetry film-makers

Utpal Datta (Assam), Vishwajyoti Ghosh, Sidharth Pratap Singh, Parijat Kaul, Anjali Monteiro & K.P Jayasankar (

Centre for Media and Cultural Studies The School of Media and Cultural Studies, (SMCS) is a part of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in India, engaged in media teaching, film production Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Film ...

), Nandan Saxena & Kavita Bahl, are some the poetry filmmakers from India. The list of -poetry filmmakers also includes Sidharth Saxena and Shashwat Mudgal from India and Tahira Rana from the UK. Utpal Datta had made his first Poetry Film 'BOHUBRITTA' based on a poem by Swapna Dutta Deka, the cinematography is by Nagen Baishya, Editing by Aseem Sinha (he has edited several important films by Shyam Benegal), and Sound designing by Amrit Pritam. The film was premiered at Guwahati International Documentary Short and Animation Film Festival. This film has been selected to Indian Panorama of International Film Festival of India, 2019, and later screened at several International Film Festivals. Shuvayu Bhattacharjee has made a poetry film titled KOLKATA COCKTAILS based on nine poems of these three poets Ipsita Ganguli, Lopa Banerjee, and Gopa Bhattacharjee. In the film, these three poets acted as childhood friends and rediscover their souls in Kolkata. The film has been critically acclaimed all around. It has been screened at many international film festivals like Silent Film Festival, Nextgen International Film Festival, etc, and also received the BEst Woman Film Award inLiteroma Short Film Contest and Carnival. Mrigankasekhar Ganguly, at his 22, made the first poetry film in Bengali 'megh bolechhe' which was screened at Kolkata press club. In 2011 he directed his second poetry film 'Iti Apu' recited by

Soumitra Chatterjee Soumitra Chatterjee (also spelt as Chattopadhyay; 16 June 193515 November 2020) was an Indian film actor, play-director, playwright, writer, thespian and poet. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential actors in the history of I ...

. In 2014, he directed

Stark Electric Jesus ''Stark Electric Jesus'' is a 2014 short film inspired by the poem ''Prochondo Boidyutik Chhutar'' or ''Stark Electric Jesus'' written by Malay Roy Choudhury. The film has won the official selection as the only Indian film at the Trinidad and To ...

based on the poem written by

Malay Roy Choudhury Malay Roy Choudhury (born 29 October 1939) is an Indian Bengali poet, playwright, short story writer, essayist and novelist who founded the Hungryalist movement in the 1960s. Early life and education Malay Roy Choudhury was born in Patna, ...

. It breaks the narrative structure and creates a language of poetry in film. Iranian director

Abbas Kiarostami Abbas Kiarostami ( fa, عباس کیارستمی ; 22 June 1940 – 4 July 2016) was an Iranian film director, screenwriter, poet, photographer, and film producer. An active filmmaker from 1970, Kiarostami had been involved in the production of ...

, is one of the most famous poetry filmmakers, who has received acclaim for his poetry films.

History and analysis

In 2021 Sarah Tremlett published ''The Poetics of Film Poetry'' ‘an encyclopaedic work on the ever-evolving art of the poetry film’. The book is in three sections, ''Form and Structure'', ''Artists’ Voices'', and ''Selected Narrative Forms''. She begins with a detailed section ''Terminology Across Time : Poetry Films, Film Poems'' ''and Video Poems / Videopoems'' which explores and analyses the form across the history of cinema from the early 1900s. Tremlett then moves on, to the voices and work of individual international practitioners starting with Contemporary Pioneers, and specific sections on Portugal and Spain, and Argentina.

Notes

* Wees, William C., "Poetry-Films and Film Poems" in The Lux website, http://www.lux.org.uk, retrieved on 5 March 2005 also originally published in ‘Film Poems’ programme notes, April 1999

External links

* Criticism of the Poetry film BOHUBRITTA by Vishnat

* Review of the Poetry Film BOHUBRITTA in Assames

* George Aguilar and Video Poetr

* https://twitter.com/airnews_ghy/status/1180850549647794176?s=08 * Hedwig Gorski Film Performance Poem Teenager in Nova Scoti

* one000plateaus: an online resource for those interested in the fusion of poetry, film and

* Sadho Poetry Film Festiva

* https://pib.gov.in/PressReleseDetail.aspx?PRID=1587335 * https://www.getbengal.com/details/director-shuvayu-bhattacharjee-in-an-exclusive-interview-on-kolkata-cocktail * http://www.thewonderwomenworld.com/?p=5194 * https://www.spotboye.com/bengali/bengali-news/shuvayu-bhattacharjee-s-kolkata-cocktail-trailer-starring-lopa-banerjee-ipsita-ganguli-and-gopa-bhattacharjee-released/5e3938578ee95c626732c639 {{Film genres Film genres