Becoming Emily- A Portrait of Emily Dickinson Through Her Poems and Letters

Synopsis

The DVD includes some forty poems and thirty letter extracts written by Emily Dickinson. Emily Dickinson’s stature as a major poet has taken many years to emerge. Through dramatisations this film imagines Dickinson’s thoughts in 1885, the year before her death, as she turns through a family album and re-encounters significant persons and events in her life. Through the medium of some thirty letter extracts, we meet her family, particularly Edward her father, together with friends such as Susan Dickinson, Charles Wadsworth and Sam Bowles, with larger treatment given to the major figure in her final years, Judge Otis Lord.

Significant events, again dealt with chiefly through letters, include the brief and not too happy spell at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, the correspondence with Higginson and his eventual visit, her eye problems including the visit to Boston, and the loss of her beloved Carlo. In the final scenes, we see the illness and fainting attack which signalled her own approaching end. The forty or so poems included lay out the poet’s views on nature and religion, love and death, as well as showing, typically in startling colours, her deepest passions, joys and fears.

A detailed 8-page booklet is included with the DVD.

Language

English

Country

Great Britain

Year of release

2010

Year of production

2010

Notes

Reviewed VF 83

Subjects

English language and literature

Keywords

biographies; Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886); poetry - British

Credits

Director

Marcus Korhonen; Norman Worrall

Cast

Nicola Howard

Distribution Formats

Type

DVD

Format

Region 2 PAL

Price

£12.50

Availability

Sale

Duration/Size

80 minutes

Year

2010

Production Company

Name

Visible Music

Email

EDfilm@visible-music.com

Web

http://www.visible-music.com/ External site opens in new window

Phone

0117 927 7131

Address

34 St David Mews
Bristol
BS1 5QP

Distributor

Name

amazon.co.uk

Web

http://www.amazon.co.uk External site opens in new window