Gone: a brief comment

Gone, a recent thriller, was a box office flop, and a critical car crash. This is a pity. I feel it was entirely misread as a film. Instead of seeing it as a generic serial killer / girl in peril movie, consider the subtext as the text. And the subtext is complex and refreshing and disturbing - for the heroes of the film are not the bumbling and patronising male cops, boyfriends, or even killer, or false (female) therapist or co-worker - but two sisters - one a recovering alcoholic, the other a former mental patient. Because of their love, and intelligence, they manage to survive one day's ordeal, and dispatch the evil that threatens them. The screenplay is both mythic and rather glumly local (in a Joycean way) - for Portland is a small place, and even the car chases are low-key.

Girl, Completed

The best part of the film is how Amanda Seyfried's feisty, haunted (and yes, sexy) heroine lies to everyone she meets, as she does her best Nancy Drew, "five-foot-four, blonde, blue eyes, armed and dangerous" to outwit the yokels and disbelieving adult world beyond her night terrors. Her hiding out in plain sight with some teen girls is hilarious and sweet. There is no twist in the movie - mad love prevails (she throws away her pills and any rational limits) over law and disorder - but a great sense of catharsis. I have never seen such a positive depiction of a young mentally ill woman - this is like Girl, Interrupted, without the interruption. It is Girl, Completed. In time, I believe this will come to be seen as a classic of its genre.

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IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....

Poetry vs. Literature

Poetry is, of course, a part of literature. But, increasingly, over the 20th century, it has become marginalised - and, famously, has less of an audience than "before". I think that, when one considers the sort of criticism levelled against Seamus Heaney and "mainstream poetry", by poet-critics like Jeffrey Side , one ought to see the wider context for poetry in the "Anglo-Saxon" world. This phrase was used by one of the UK's leading literary cultural figures, in a private conversation recently, when they spoke eloquently about the supremacy of "Anglo-Saxon novels" and their impressive command of narrative. My heart sank as I listened, for what became clear to me, in a flash, is that nothing has changed since Victorian England (for some in the literary establishment). Britain (now allied to America) and the English language with its marvellous fiction machine, still rule the waves. I personally find this an uncomfortable position - but when ...

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and Silence of the Lambs . I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

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