poetry in motion
two short films based on poems.
In 2018, I read the poem The Lammas Hireling (Duhig. 2003) and I was immediately drawn into the bizarre, surreal and eerie world it created. I wanted to put my own spin on the story of a farmer who discovers his hireling is a sorcerer, and shoots them in fear, only to be tormented by the possibility of the hireling enacting their revenge. The farmer spends their time in the confession booth. I decided to play with the notion of a confession booth and use it as a framing device for the story. Also, I wanted a more concrete ending than the poem has, and so decided that the twist would be the hireling does come back to seek revenge, and has been on the other side of the confession booth the whole time.
The lammas hireling
my last duchess
Making The Lammas Hireling made me keen to continue with the idea of writing films based on poetry. I read My Last Duchess (1842) by Robert Browning, and knew it was my next project. Similar to The Lammas Hireling, it had an unnerving macabre to it. A Duke tells his soon-to-be father-in-law about his previous wife, and hints that her death was his doing. He discusses the portrait of her hanging on the wall. This was made on a shoe-string budget and our own film equipment, but I used it as a way to explore how to portray my script on screen. I set the film on the Duke's wedding day, and he poisons the father-in-law with the wine they were toasting the marriage with. The father-in-law must watch on with horror as his daughter marries a murderer. This was create a wider context of the painting and tension in the discussion between the Duke and the father-in-law.
I am now constantly on the lookout for more poems to adapt. They are a rich source and due to the subjective nature of poetry, narratives can be taken in multiple ways.
I am currently developing an idea for an anthology TV series, each episode inspired by a different poem, ranging from Victorian to contemporary.
the future
