This is one of my favourite film poems that I have seen so far, as it creates such an intimate atmosphere. It shows the poet talking to the viewer, smoking, and drinking coffee. You feel as if this is Max Willis in his natural state, and you've sat down and had a heart to heart over coffee. It does not feel like a staged performance because he is not looking directly into the camera so which creates this informal intimacy. Cook has speeded up each film clip as if forwarding through his conversation, it makes Max Willis even more intangible as he is rushed and pulled through his stretches, sips and drags, it creates a weird contrast between this seemingly relaxed, languid guy and then this quick paced frantic movement. By manipulating the footage in this way I think he is trying to explore the contradictions between life seemingly passing like a blur but poets languishing on the tiniest moments of life and exploring it in their verse. I really like how Alastair Cook has layered the clips creating these strange halos where the frames overlap, as shown below.
By changing the opacity and blurring these frames together Cook creates this flickering Max Willis, it reminds me of the flicker in my own stop motion animations. I also admire how Cook expertly pulls the pace to reflect the important words in the poetry, when 'hungover from love' is spoken the film pauses twice on two frames, as if the film itself is hungover shuddering and jolting, unable to start. We don't know what Max Willis is saying to the camera, is he discussing is favourite book, divulging secrets or talking about the weather? His relaxed attitude and continued eye contact suggest that whatever he is saying he is being honest. This shows me the importance of sometimes separating the visual clip and the recorded sound, here the separation creates an interesting juxtaposition. To me it feels as if the muted video clip is the everyday friendly chatter but the spoken poem audio track is the honest heartfelt truth that is ruminating within his mind. I like how Cook has visualised this inner and outer self further with the flickering frames, to show the conflict between how we are perceived and who we actually are inside. This is a central theme to the poem, the idea of retreating and simply letting yourself be without needing to please anyone else. It's interesting how Cook has created this atmosphere and emulated this idea quite abstractedly but it still reads easily and visualises the poem really effectively.
Allow yourself this one day
hungover from love. To sit in your sad cocoon
bed-lain on lemon bon bon sheets and sick with ache,
cuddling your bones. Let the day roll into night.
Do not fret about the red numbers in your account,
about deadlines and business worries; pick up three
books and do not read them. Wallow in coffee,
or simply nothing, as you tap-tap through Twitter feeds
and text messages and nonsense mad thoughts.
Let yourself reek with the unwash of sleep-sweats
and salt tears. Eat the mirror on your wall.
Play the unhappy songs that in bed you kissed,
had sex, made love to, that time, when sex became
heart-bare: skintouched, and those eyes.
Tomorrow you can sit in the warmth of a bath
clean your nails, pluck your brow, shave off the fluff;
eat, drink, clean your room of your last meals
and bed-locked naked picnics. Tomorrow you can sail
in fresh linen and clothes, listen to happy songs
with no meaning but pop-tones, through a new day;
today is today, this day, my love.
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