Poems in Movies/TV shows - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

jaded · 12-01-2004, 07:52 PM

plenty of them. which one gave you the strongest impression? which one made the movie more memorable? which one was so good that you had to look it up after the movie?

for me, one of them would be \"funeral blues\" by w. h. auden, used in the movie \"four weddings and a funeral\". a very touching and emotional piece indeed:

Funeral Blues
W. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever; I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

TexanAvenger · 12-01-2004, 08:56 PM

Fire and Ice
-Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

I hadn't actually heard this one spoken aloud until, of all things, they recited the first stanza in a commercial on the Sci-fi channel for Firestarter:Rekindled. But I was hooked on it from that point on. There was just something about hearing it aloud that triggered a big emotional response that I still don't understand.

Fremen · 12-02-2004, 11:19 AM

I had heard of 'In Flanders Fields' a long time back, but when I heard it again last night on t.v. and saw this thread today, I went looking for it and its origin on Google.
(I'm not sure if I saw it in Mr. Holland's Opus or on a tv show)

Quote:

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army
IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915. Here is the story of the making of that poem:
Although he had been a doctor for years and had served in the South African War, it was impossible to get used to the suffering, the screams, and the blood here, and Major John McCrae had seen and heard enough in his dressing station to last him a lifetime.

As a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, Major McCrae, who had joined the McGill faculty in 1900 after graduating from the University of Toronto, had spent seventeen days treating injured men -- Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans -- in the Ypres salient.

It had been an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. McCrae later wrote of it:

"I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."

One death particularly affected McCrae. A young friend and former student, Lieut. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on 2 May 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain.

The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the Canal de l'Yser, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. The major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical texts besides dabbling in poetry.

In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook.

A young soldier watched him write it. Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two year old sergeant-major, was delivering mail that day when he spotted McCrae. The major looked up as Allinson approached, then went on writing while the sergeant-major stood there quietly. "His face was very tired but calm as we wrote," Allinson recalled. "He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer's grave."

When McCrae finished five minutes later, he took his mail from Allinson and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the young NCO. Allinson was moved by what he read:

"The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene."

In fact, it was very nearly not published. Dissatisfied with it, McCrae tossed the poem away, but a fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915.

maleficent · 12-02-2004, 12:30 PM

The movie was really bad, Dangerous Minds, with Michelle Pfeiffer, but one of the scenes had her as the teacher comparing a song of Bob Dylan to that of Dylan Thomas. (I am drawing a blank on the Dylan song right now) It was interesting. I have always loved this poem

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Derwood · 12-02-2004, 03:51 PM

Kirsten Dunst has some interesting quotes from poems in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". Can't remember off the top of my head though.

And of course Walt Whitman in "Dead Poet's Society"

Coppertop · 12-02-2004, 04:01 PM

This poem sucks.

But somehow I doubt this was what you're asking about.

K-Wise · 12-02-2004, 05:58 PM

In the movie Slam I first heard the likes of Saul Williams and Taylor Mali

Quote:

Like Lilly Like Wilson
By Taylor Mali
www.taylormali.com

I'm writing the poem that will change the world,
and it's Lilly Wilson at my office door.
Lilly Wilson, the recovering like addict,
the worst I've ever seen.
So, like, bad the whole eighth grade
started calling her Like Lilly Like Wilson Like.
ŒUntil I declared my classroom a Like-Free Zone,
and she could not speak for days.

But when she finally did, it was to say,
Mr. Mali, this is . . . so hard.
Now I have to think before I . . . say anything.

Imagine that, Lilly.

It's for your own good.
Even if you don't like . . .
it.

I'm writing the poem that will change the world,
and it's Lilly Wilson at my office door.
Lilly is writing a research paper for me
about how homosexuals shouldn't be allowed
to adopt children.
I'm writing the poem that will change the world,
and it's Like Lilly Like Wilson at my office door.

She's having trouble finding sources,
which is to say, ones that back her up.
They all argue in favor of what I thought I was against.

And it took four years of college,
three years of graduate school,
and every incidental teaching experience I have ever had
to let out only,

Well, that's a real interesting problem, Lilly.
But what do you propose to do about it?
That's what I want to know.

And the eighth-grade mind is a beautiful thing;
Like a new-born baby's face, you can often see it
change before your very eyes.

I can't believe I'm saying this, Mr. Mali,
but I think I'd like to switch sides.

And I want to tell her to do more than just believe it,
but to enjoy it!
That changing your mind is one of the best ways
of finding out whether or not you still have one.
Or even that minds are like parachutes,
that it doesn't matter what you pack
them with so long as they open
at the right time.
O God, Lilly, I want to say
you make me feel like a teacher,
and who could ask to feel more than that?
I want to say all this but manage only,
Lilly, I am like so impressed with you!

So I finally taught somebody something,
namely, how to change her mind.
And learned in the process that if I ever change the world
it's going to be one eighth grader at a time.

I can't find Saul Williams poem in the movie. But I like Taylor Mali a lot and thankfully found his.

Asta!!

jaded · 12-02-2004, 08:49 PM

I also like this little piece a lot, from an episode of \"Sex and the City\". Credit goes to the writers of the show. It is a very touching piece for a wedding, short and sweet:

His hello was the end of her endings
Her laugh was their first step down the aisle
His hand would be hers to hold forever
His forever was as simple as her smile
He said she was what was missing
She said instantly she knew
She was a question to be answered
And his answer was \"I do\"

DHS · 12-05-2004, 07:15 PM

Quote:

The movie was really bad, Dangerous Minds, with Michelle Pfeiffer, but one of the scenes had her as the teacher comparing a song of Bob Dylan to that of Dylan Thomas. (I am drawing a blank on the Dylan song right now) It was interesting. I have always loved this poem
DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

This poem was also in the movie Back to School with Rodney Dangerfield...

12-01-2004, 07:52 PM	#1 (permalink)
jaded Crazy	Poems in Movies/TV shows plenty of them. which one gave you the strongest impression? which one made the movie more memorable? which one was so good that you had to look it up after the movie? for me, one of them would be \"funeral blues\" by w. h. auden, used in the movie \"four weddings and a funeral\". a very touching and emotional piece indeed: Funeral Blues W. H. Auden Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead, Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever; I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood, For nothing now can ever come to any good.

12-02-2004, 12:30 PM	#4 (permalink)
maleficent Junkie Moderator Emeritus Location: Chicago	The movie was really bad, Dangerous Minds, with Michelle Pfeiffer, but one of the scenes had her as the teacher comparing a song of Bob Dylan to that of Dylan Thomas. (I am drawing a blank on the Dylan song right now) It was interesting. I have always loved this poem DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT Dylan Thomas Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. __________________ Free your heart from hatred. Free your mind from worries. Live simply. Give more. Expect less.

12-02-2004, 03:51 PM	#5 (permalink)
Derwood Who You Crappin? Location: Everywhere and Nowhere	Kirsten Dunst has some interesting quotes from poems in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". Can't remember off the top of my head though. And of course Walt Whitman in "Dead Poet's Society" __________________ "You can't shoot a country until it becomes a democracy." - Willravel

12-01-2004, 08:56 PM	#2 (permalink)
TexanAvenger Born-Again New Guy Location: Unfound.	Fire and Ice -Robert Frost Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice. I hadn't actually heard this one spoken aloud until, of all things, they recited the first stanza in a commercial on the Sci-fi channel for Firestarter:Rekindled. But I was hooked on it from that point on. There was just something about hearing it aloud that triggered a big emotional response that I still don't understand.

12-02-2004, 04:01 PM	#6 (permalink)
Coppertop Getting Medieval on your ass Location: 13th century Europe	This poem sucks. But somehow I doubt this was what you're asking about.

12-02-2004, 08:49 PM	#8 (permalink)
jaded Crazy	I also like this little piece a lot, from an episode of \"Sex and the City\". Credit goes to the writers of the show. It is a very touching piece for a wedding, short and sweet: His hello was the end of her endings Her laugh was their first step down the aisle His hand would be hers to hold forever His forever was as simple as her smile He said she was what was missing She said instantly she knew She was a question to be answered And his answer was \"I do\"