featherfinyipp, posts by tag: films - LiveJournal

I just watched a film from 2001, called "Wit" starring Emma Thompson, based on a play by Margaret Edson. It was completely by accident; I was just flicking around TV channels and settled on this one because I quite like Emma Thompson. Only the BBC would broadcast such a film -

"Do you think that the punctuation of the last line of this sonnet is merely an insignificant detail? The sonnet begins with a valiant struggle with death calling on all the forces of intellect and drama to vanquish the enemy. But it is ultimately about overcoming the seemingly insuperable barriers separating life, death and eternal life. In the edition you chose, this profoundly simple meaning is sacrificed to hysterical punctuation. "And Death" capital D "shall be no more;" semi-colon. "Death," capital D, comma "thou shalt die!", exclamation mark. If you go in for this sort of thing I suggest you take up Shakespeare. Gardner's edition of the Holy Sonnets returns to the Westmoreland manuscript source of 1610. Not for sentimental reasons, I assure you, but because Helen Gardner is a scholar.

It reads: "And death shall be no more," comma "Death thou shalt die." Nothing but a breath, a comma separates life from life everlasting. Very simple, really. With the original punctuation restored, death is no longer something to act out on a stage with exclamation marks. It is a comma. A pause. In this way, the uncompromising way one learns something from the poem, wouldn't you say? Life, death, soul, God, past, present. Not insuperable barriers. Not semicolons. Just a comma."

"You know what's wrong with you, Miss whoever-you-are? You're chicken. You got no guts. You're afraid to say, "O.K., life's a fact." People do fall in love. People do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness. You call yourself a free spirit, a wild thing. You're terrified somebody's going to stick you in a cage. Well, baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded by tulip, Texas, or Somaliland. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself."

From Breakfast at Tiffany's (film)

I do like Breakfast at Tiffany's.

I handed in my biology coursework draft, completed, meaning that hopefully I shouldn't have too much to change.

And in other news, I gave blood today. The poor woman lying on the bed next to me passed out for 20 minutes and then started vomiting when she came round, they had to get paramedics and take her to hospital. I was fascinated with watching my blood going into the container thing they collect it in (perhaps a little too much judging from the nurse's expression at all my questions) I'm a bit too much of a biology student, I suspect. Either way, I'll go back and do it again in January, provided I'm not ill or have any injections.