I would love to pretend that I was smart enough to simply hear a piece of Shakespeare once and 'get it' immediately, however I am not and the last few Sonnet Project films saw me having to watch them several times with a tensed ear for the dialogue and a finger on the pause button to give me a second if I needed it. As a result I decided to read the text of the sonnet first and got the 'complete works' book off the shelf (the one that every British person is required to have but not to read) and checked out sonnet 73 first.
The text seems to be a lament for lost youth but with a positive beat about the refreshing qualities of such things as love and partnership; most of the text seemed to link the aging process to that of the seasons going into autumn. Because of this link to autumn I was interested to see what the film would do since the title card shows that it was filmed in Spring and as such would not have had the chance to have lots of dead trees and cold, grey air to work with – or at least so I thought. Despite being shot in the Wisteria pergola in Central Park (a beautiful colorful and shady area in the summer), the film is in black and white and captures a lot of lifeless trees, with the washed out stark film added to with blurred images and a sense of fading. This approach continues throughout and we focus on a man who sits in the park with a pensive look on his face for the duration (same blurred edges visual effect here) until he cracks a smile as his partner arrives.
In terms of delivery of the words I found the film pretty helpful because you really have no doubt as to the specific meaning and what the use of autumn etc means; so in terms of accessibility it is a good delivery, but perhaps too accessible. The beauty of the words clashes somewhat with the functionality of the words and it makes it feel too obvious and too practical in its delivery. Some of the other films have given the actor reign to inform the viewer with voice tone and facial expressions, while the third tried to have a visual style that suited the creativity of the prose, but here I felt it didn't try to do anything other than literal delivery.
The sonnet itself is still a beautiful piece and in fairness the film makes it accessible and easier to understand, which is a positive goal to have and to achieve; just a shame that it almost achieves it too well and the leaden practicality of the visuals clashes with the colorful language of the writing.
The text seems to be a lament for lost youth but with a positive beat about the refreshing qualities of such things as love and partnership; most of the text seemed to link the aging process to that of the seasons going into autumn. Because of this link to autumn I was interested to see what the film would do since the title card shows that it was filmed in Spring and as such would not have had the chance to have lots of dead trees and cold, grey air to work with – or at least so I thought. Despite being shot in the Wisteria pergola in Central Park (a beautiful colorful and shady area in the summer), the film is in black and white and captures a lot of lifeless trees, with the washed out stark film added to with blurred images and a sense of fading. This approach continues throughout and we focus on a man who sits in the park with a pensive look on his face for the duration (same blurred edges visual effect here) until he cracks a smile as his partner arrives.
In terms of delivery of the words I found the film pretty helpful because you really have no doubt as to the specific meaning and what the use of autumn etc means; so in terms of accessibility it is a good delivery, but perhaps too accessible. The beauty of the words clashes somewhat with the functionality of the words and it makes it feel too obvious and too practical in its delivery. Some of the other films have given the actor reign to inform the viewer with voice tone and facial expressions, while the third tried to have a visual style that suited the creativity of the prose, but here I felt it didn't try to do anything other than literal delivery.
The sonnet itself is still a beautiful piece and in fairness the film makes it accessible and easier to understand, which is a positive goal to have and to achieve; just a shame that it almost achieves it too well and the leaden practicality of the visuals clashes with the colorful language of the writing.