Chekhov's Mistress
Poetry in Movies
A poignant love letter to youth and longing, the movie Venus stars Peter O’Tool as Maurice, an ageing actor hung up romantically sexually (despite his impotence) on Jessie, a very young and slightly wayward girl. The movie is a real gift, deftly handled so that instead of being repulsed by a seventy-something year old man fawning over a twenty year old girl, we love Maurice’s almost subtle (subtle to Jessie) double entendres, his exuberant passion for life women and love and the force of character that he imparts to Jessie, grounding her a bit before she falls apart herself.
One memorable scene is of Jessie getting dressed as Maurice, watching on with barely a view of her from a mirror, recites Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day…” It’s a beautiful reading and wholly appropriate for the film; for example, the sonnet’s final couplet…
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
It was impressive too that Roger Michell, the film’s director thought well enough of his audience to linger over the entire sonnet (not that long, but in the movies 14 lines is a lot).
Stacy Harwood has compiled the beginnings of a list of poetry in movies at The Michigan Quarterly Review (“Poetry in Movies: A Partial List”) and written about some of the best of them there and reprinted at Poets.Org as “The Well Versed Movie”.
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