Local Scene
Alliance Films sent Bywords a pile of free tickets to the sneak preview of “Sylvia.” Bywords-published poets, along with volunteers, were invited to see the film at the World Exchange Plaza in downtown Ottawa. Here are four different voices who most definitely are not singing in harmony about Plath and the film about her life. Sit back, get your popcorn, and munch away to Byword’s own version of Siskel and Ebert.
Sylvia -- a story of seduction, betrayal, breakdown -- whose
protagonists
happened to be poets. The interior life of a poet doesn't translate well to
the screen, especially when there's a prohibition against speaking the
actual poems. Still, the movie recreates an era well and the acting is fine.
Worth seeing but don't expect insight into character.
“The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see” (From Plath’s Lady Lazarus)
Sylvia—a movie that was more eager to show Paltrow’s breasts than articulate Sylvia Plath’s talent as a great writer, academic, and poet. When will Hollywood revise its style guide on women? After a promising beginning, which lasted oh, lets say 5 minutes, the movie disintegrated into a soap plot—rather whiny and depressing. The amount of attention given to Ted Hughes’ success was equal to the amount of attention given to Paltrow’s breasts, and it made me wonder if the creators of this movie changed their mind half way through and wanted to do a movie about Ted instead of Sylvia.
Part of the mystery of why Plath died was the seemingly normal childhood she had, which included her success as a student. More depth was required of this movie—portraying dark and depressing living conditions was not enough. Hollywood simply used its index finger and thumb to shrivel Plath’s life into mere “skin and bone”. Paltrow nevertheless did the best job she could in portraying Plath within the strict confines given her. Finally, it is ironic that both Sylvia Plath and the movie about her killed every potential of knowing a great poet. This movie rates as a ‘guy’ movie and indeed not as a ‘chick’ movie.
Despite the standard flaws of all movies made by the machine of convention and sensationalism, “Sylvia” still managed to capture my attention, and inspire me to read more of Sylvia Plath’s poetry.
Paltrow’s portrayal of a depressed and fragile Sylvia is skillful and poignant, and dare I say…Oscar-deserving?. In one particular scene where Plath has hopes of reconciling with Hughes, the distraught Sylvia is sitting on the couch after the two have just had sex. Hughes has just admitted to his wife that his lover is pregnant, and Hughes won’t leave her. Plath is naked and shivering on the couch. This is not a gratuitous pornographic scene, but rather an effective depiction of vulnerability. If we are to expect a movie to attempt to portray real life, we cannot expect to avoid nudity. Lovers often do sit around nude after love-making, there’s nothing unusual about that, except perhaps in Canada due to our glacial temperatures. The movie presented Plath’s vulnerability tastefully.
See the movie for yourself and judge it from the point of view of a film reconstruction of a life. It is rare that the film industry bothers to make movies about the lives of poets, or that film-going audiences would bother to see a movie about a poet. Even though the film was sensationalized, it still brought Plath back into current thought. After I saw this film, I reread my collection of Plath poems and Hughes “The Birthday Letters.” If the only thing this film does for you is to cause you to read some of Plath’s incredibly haunting poetry, “Sylvia” the movie has definitely served its purpose.
1
A dead-end corner,
cul-de-sac;
two jugs of milk
for the children, please.
A cold winter morning;
upstairs the old man
is knocked out by the fumes.
The Australian girl hammers
at the door, eager
to enter the death-womb.
I will face up to the demon
bearing witness to the endgame,
pouring milk down the drain.
2
The winter tree stands sentinel
in the graveyard, shadowing
the man who walked along Rock Harbour.
Such a dark vampire sucking the blood
dry, licking the marrow clean.
You cross the water of death,
listening to the sirens, pale
sisters of stone. They pull you
down into the underworld.
O Persephone!
3
The little god is a horse
bolting across the blue.
You foam to water in a glitter
of seas, rising up suddenly
to your wildest glory–
Fumigating first with the Jews
at Auschwitz and Belsen in the chamber
of death. Mother Earth’s singed pubic hairs.
A bowlderized Lazarus without balls.
Thank God for large mercies–
a cornucopia of turkey neck and gizzard
anatomized in a laboratory
where babies flounder in vinegar.
4
I will resurrect with you after
the feet-washing and anointing
are over. Gather azaleas from the dim
cemetery and watch you blink
at thalidomide babies bobbing
in the green sea of memory.
Published as “Rock Harbour,”
in Coastland: New and Selected Poems (Mosaic Press, l989)
by Cyril Dabydeen
Announcement: You can hear Cyril Dabydeen on Thursday December 18th, with his " Perspectives on Sylvia Plath." on CKCU FM (93.1 FM) (www.ckcufm.com) at 8:30 pm on the Third World Players Broadcast. Cyril wrote his master’s thesis on Plath.
Links
Sylvia Plath’s Biography: www.americanpoems.com/poets/sylviaplath/
Academy of American Poets: www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=11
Note that you can hear Plath read her poem “The Stones” and an interview with
the director of the film.
The New York Observer’s review of the film:
www.observer.com/pages/story.asp?ID=8048
Bibliography
Sylvia Plath, Collected Poems, Edited with an Introduction by Ted Hughes, London, faber and faber, 1981.
Ted Hughes, Birthday Letters, London, faber and faber, 1991.