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I have a question for you. Don’t think I’m being cheeky or flirting, but what’s your love language? Some of us live for meaningful touch, or spending time. Others can’t keep quiet about our feelings; or stop showing up with gifts. Or maybe the art of being there matters most. In life, according to my friend Grace, those are the five expressions of love. In the lands of cinema and series, however, there are only three: the confession, the grand gesture, and bursting into song. Like primary colors or core emotions, they can be expressed in various combinations, creating a spectrum of tones and hues. One of the most vibrant expressions comes from blending the vulnerability of a confession with the intent of a song—a declaration of love through poetry.
There are times when words converge in such exquisite patterns, they rewire our nervous systems, making us feel intangible things that we recognize as universal. I am remembering Winston Duke’s remorse in the desert; I am witnessing Gong Yoo’s awakening in the park; I am listening to Nia Long’s yearning on stage. And I am sharing their poetic confessions with you.
REALIZATION
“The Physics of Love” in the TV series “Goblin” from the collection “Physics of Love 사랑의 물리학” by Kim In-yook
A lonely Dokkaebi (Korean goblin) who has lived too long, finally meets the bride who will end his life. She (Kim Go-eun) is his salvation, and he (Gong Yoo) must protect her, but the arc of his loveline bends toward her hand. Suddenly death no longer seems like an option. When lead actor Gong Yoo recites Kim In-yook’s “The Physics of Love” in “Goblin” he’s speaking about the gravitational pull of first love, but we’re the ones who feel it’s affects.
“The Physics of Love” Excerpt
“With a thump
With a thump-thump
My heart bounced from the heavens to the earth
In a dizzying motion, like a pendulum
It was the moment I first fell in love”
REMEMBRANCE
“Lyric: I Am Looking at Music” in “Love Jones” from the collection Girl at the Window by Pinkie Gordon Lane
In a film about poetry and falling irrevocably in love, “I Am Looking at Music” by Pinkie Gordon Lane is the first and only time Nina (Nia Long) recites a poem in “Love Jones.” Alone on a stage, she empties herself out for Darius (Larenz Tate), the ex-lover she doesn’t think will hear her words or know her change of heart. But he does and it changes everything, giving their reunion an urgency that is legendary.
“Lyric: I Am Remembering Love” Excerpt
“I am remembering water that glows in the dawn
the motion tumbled in earth
life hidden in mounds
I am dancing a bright beam of life
I am, remembering love.”
RECONCILIATION
“Song of Myself” in “Nine Days” from the collection “Leaves of Grass” by Walt Whitman
“Nine Days” was betrayed by its timing. In another year, without a global crisis, it might have become a classic. I quietly sobbed the first time I watched Will (Winston Duke) recite a section of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” to a breathless Emma (Zazie Beetz). Afterall, as the guardian between the ethereous and birth, he chooses to block her from having a human life. His decision isn’t selfish, he wants to shield her from the pain of the life he knew. But at the precipice of returning to oblivion, Emma shows Will the good she could have given the world, if he hadn’t kept it from her. In the last moments, he chases after her and apologizes the only way his stoic and tattered soul will allow.
“Song of Myself” (“Nine Days” version)
by Walt Whitman
Have you ever reckoned the Earth much?
Spend this day and night with me And you shall possess the origin of all poems
I, I celebrate myself and sing myself
And what I assume you shall assume
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you
I loafe and invite my soul
I lean and I loafe at my ease
Observing a spear of summer grass
Ah, my tongue, owww
Every atom of my blood born here
From parents born here
And their parents the same
As their parents the same
I, now 37 years old and in perfect health,
Begin hoping to cease not till death
The smoke of my breath echoes, ripples
Buzzed whispers, love root, silk thread, crotch and vine
My inspiration and respiration
The passing of air and blood through my lungs
The sound of the belched words of my voice [roaring]
Loos’d to the eddies of the wind
A few light kisses, a few embraces
The reaching around of arms,
the play of the light
And shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag
The delight alone or the rush of the streets
Or along the fields and hillsides
The feeling of health
The full noon trill
The song of me
Rising from bed and greeting the sun
Hey, sun – sun, sun, sun, sun, sun, sun, sun, sun, sun
The last scud of sun holds back for me
It flings my likeness after the rest
And as true as any on the shadowed wilds
It coaxes me to the vapor
and the dusk
I depart as air
I effuse my flesh in eddies and drift it in lacy jags
And to die
is different than anyone supposed
And luckier
I bequeath myself to the dirt
To grow from the grass I love
If you want me again
Look for me under your boot soles
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless
Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged
Missing me one place, search another
I stop someplace
Waiting for you.
Those are my confessions. Nell Minow, our Women Writers Week editor, chose “I Carry Your Heart” by E.E. Cummings from “In Her Shoes” as an unforgettable expression of sisterly love and reaffirmation. What about you? Tell us which poetic declarations of love have a seismic effect on you.
from Roger Ebert https://ift.tt/fd6vPoy
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