Lights, Camera, Poem!

What did people have before there were movies? Why, poetry, of course! In my last column, I mentioned the first stanza of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queen:

A gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine,
Ycladd in mightie armes and silver shielde,
Wherein old dints of deepe wounds did remaine,
The cruel markes of many'a bloudy fielde;
Yet armes till that time did he never wield:
His angry steede did chide his foming bitt,
As much disdayning to the curbe to yield:
Full jolly knight he seemd, and faire did sitt,
As one for knightly giusts and fierce encounters fitt.

And I said that the movement of the stanza is almost cinematic. It opens with a long shot of the Redcrosse Knight. The camera then moves in to give us a full body shot of the knight in his armor, with his silver shield, then comes in for an extreme closeup of the old dints of deepe wounds. Then we cut to the angry steede, chiding his foming bitt, ready for action.

It’s not perfectly cinematic. There’s no cinematic equivalent for the information that “armes till that time did he never wield.” But it’s pretty close.

Poets had to be visual in the pre-cinematic days, because nothing else was doing that job. And dramatists had to be verbal. Elizabethan drama is a lot like old-time radio drama:

VILLAIN: Get over against that wall.

HERO: I guess I’ll have to, because you’ve got a gun, and you’re pointing it at me.

A writer for an old-time radio drama might have written a scene like this:

SOLDIER: Captain, there’s something strange happening over toward Birnam. It looks like the woods are moving this way.

CAPTAIN: Is this some kind of a joke? If it is, I’ll have you court martialed.

SOLDIER: No, Captain, it’s really happening. Look over that way. See? Three miles out and closing fast. It’s a moving grove.

(SOUND FX: WIND IN THE TREES AND MARCHING FEET)

CAPTAIN: It’s what those witches said. I’d be safe until Birnam Wood came to…where are we now, soldier?

SOLDIER: Dunsinane, sir.

(SFX GROW LOUDER)

CAPTAIN: That’s what they said…a wood, coming toward Dunsinane. Give the order, soldier – lock and load! We’ll go do down fighting.

(SFX – gunfire)

And if you were writing for the Elizabethan stage, and had no CGI to help your audience visualize the scene, you’d have to do much the same:

Messenger

As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
The wood began to move.

MACBETH

Liar and slave!

Messenger

Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so:
Within this three mile may you see it coming;
I say, a moving grove.

MACBETH

          If thou speak'st false,
Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
Till famine cling thee; if thy speech be sooth,
I care not if thou dost for me as much.
I pull in resolution, and begin
To doubt the equivocation of the fiend
that lies like truth. "Fear not, till Birnam wood
Do come to Dunsinane," and now a wood
Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out!
If this which he avouches does appear,
There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.
I gin to be aweary of the sun,
And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.
Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back.

For me, the most perfectly cinematic poem is Shelley’s “Ozymandias.”

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Or, as a screenplay.

FADE IN.

EXT. LONDON, A MARKETPLACE, EARLY 19TH CENTURY – DAY

PERCY SHELLEY (Leonardo DiCaprio) is walking from stall to stall, looking at antiques.

PULL BACK TO REVEAL:

A TRAVELLER (Brad Pitt), dusty and disheveled from travelling. PERCY recognizes him, hails him. They meet, shake hands, begin talking. TRAVELLER is gesturing; it’s clear he has something important to tell PERCY. Camera MOVES IN, holds on TWO SHOT.

TRAVELLER:
Two vast and…

DISSOLVE

EXT. DESERT – DAY

MEDIUM SHOT – A pedestal, apparently in an otherwise deserted area. Atop the pedestal, what remains of a statue – just the feet and lower part of legs. On the front surface of the pedestal, an inscription, but we can’t make it out. (Note—if this is to be shot in Imax, there should be sand drifted up, blocking the view of the inscription. Wind can blow the sand away later.)

TRAVELLER (Cont., voice-over)

trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert.

As voice-over continues, CAMERA PANS across a short expanse of desert, to reveal a shattered stone head, from the same statue, half buried in the sand.

Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

FADE OUT

FADE IN

INT. A HUGE ROOM IN A PALACE – DAY

A KING – the face represented in the broken statue – stands in military toga, with purple sash indicating royalty, holding a sword. A SCULPTOR, obviously a slave, is at work on the statue. Armed guards stand nearby.

TRAVELLER (Voice over)

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:

CAMERA moves in on these last words for a closeup of the inscription on the pedestal.

KING (Voice over, magnified by echo)
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

DISSOLVE

EXT. DESERT – DAY

The same CLOSEUP shot of the pedestal that ended the previous scene. A wind has whipped up, and is blowing the sand away from the pedestal. The inscription is the same, but now chipped, cracked and weathered. SFX WIND, coming up so that it nearly drowns out the King’s last words.

KING (Voice-over cont.)

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!

CUT TO

EXT. LONDON MARKET PLACE – DAY

PERCY and TRAVELLER, talking.

TRAVELLER

Nothing beside remains.

DISSOLVE

EXT. DESERT – DAY Or perhaps a moonlit night. In an extreme long shot, we see the desert, empty except for the pedestal and shattered head. Perhaps some vultures circle nearby.

TRAVELLER (Voice-over)

round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

I did, once upon a time, actually storyboard “Ozymandias.” It went like this.