"Girl the sun always shines when you near" – doesn't quite have the beauty of sonnet 97, but essentially the writer spends this time to draw on the images of summer and plentiful autumn when associated with the beloved, and then to talk about the deadness and coldness of winter's bareness when they are apart. In this way the sonnet has hope to it, as well as color in these words, but at the same time the sadness regarding the separation is clear from the negative wording, and the fact that the sonnet ends with words about the winter, not about the presence of the summer.
The short film here has the actor in the spring time, paddling in the water before heading up to the park where families play in the sun – although he is wearing a big coat at the same time. In between segments of delivery, we get photographs which appear to be winter shots, but it is not really evident that they are the real despair of winter that the sonnet refers to, so they are in black and white, I guess to add to this feeling. Personally I do not think these devices makes the contrast clear – the actor in a coat to indicate he is in both seasons, the photographs; I'm not sure I have a better idea, but I do know this did not work well for me. The delivery Manning Jr. was also a bit flat and lacking in expression – the words are very clear, concise and easy to understand, but not really drawing me in, or really bringing the words jumping to life.
As a result the film didn't really grab me, and this feeling was compounded by the fact that the things that did grab my attention were unnecessary negative things. I am not a fan of the sonnet films being broken into segments which involve the actor getting up and leaving shot – it seems obvious and lacking in ideas, and here it is done a lot. The other things were technical, and a real surprise to me. The wobbly camera on the shore was to be expected, but the editing to and from the pictures is very harsh and it is the edits that you see more than anything else. Really disappointing is the final shot – we zoom in on the actor and it is jittery and uneven, settling on a poor framing of his head and shoulders which loses the top of his head until this is also corrected with a bump of the camera upwards. To be honest at first I assume the jittery zoom must be deliberate style, but the final awkward camera movements confirmed it was not; really surprised this was the best take they had of this.
All told a disappointing film that really didn't work. There are good ideas in here but the delivery is lacking in terms of life, insight, access, and of course technically.
The short film here has the actor in the spring time, paddling in the water before heading up to the park where families play in the sun – although he is wearing a big coat at the same time. In between segments of delivery, we get photographs which appear to be winter shots, but it is not really evident that they are the real despair of winter that the sonnet refers to, so they are in black and white, I guess to add to this feeling. Personally I do not think these devices makes the contrast clear – the actor in a coat to indicate he is in both seasons, the photographs; I'm not sure I have a better idea, but I do know this did not work well for me. The delivery Manning Jr. was also a bit flat and lacking in expression – the words are very clear, concise and easy to understand, but not really drawing me in, or really bringing the words jumping to life.
As a result the film didn't really grab me, and this feeling was compounded by the fact that the things that did grab my attention were unnecessary negative things. I am not a fan of the sonnet films being broken into segments which involve the actor getting up and leaving shot – it seems obvious and lacking in ideas, and here it is done a lot. The other things were technical, and a real surprise to me. The wobbly camera on the shore was to be expected, but the editing to and from the pictures is very harsh and it is the edits that you see more than anything else. Really disappointing is the final shot – we zoom in on the actor and it is jittery and uneven, settling on a poor framing of his head and shoulders which loses the top of his head until this is also corrected with a bump of the camera upwards. To be honest at first I assume the jittery zoom must be deliberate style, but the final awkward camera movements confirmed it was not; really surprised this was the best take they had of this.
All told a disappointing film that really didn't work. There are good ideas in here but the delivery is lacking in terms of life, insight, access, and of course technically.