lester

connected meanderings
2007-12-29 13:26:58 (UTC)

3 faces of Briony poem

After seeing a movie before leaving for North Carolina,
written on the day before we left.

Three faces of Briony

The novel Atonement authored by Ian McEwan
Morphed into a movie and
The character of Briony Tallis meant three separate
actresses for her ages
Thirteen years, eighteen, and older – the last
After her fictional person had herself authored twenty-one
novels, including this one her last,
Or, in fact, as she disclosed, her first,
Because it involved what it was
For which
She’d had
To atone.

Such a beautiful translucent face the first one.
The movie-makers showed it to pubescent perfection in
close-ups of
Her; we the audience also enjoyed her seeming older
sister’s too,
And young men, and other children.

But the second Briony though beautiful
Had an upper lip that felt to me too short.
Attractive in its own way, yes,
But I felt 'caught up short' so to speak, nevertheless.
The new girl did not seem at all the same –
Not the thirteen-year-old grown older.

Oh they worked on the problem, the movie-makers,
As they showed her characteristic stride
In the family mansion early
Where she moved purposefully down
Long corridors making sharp right-angled turns,
Arms swinging, just
As the eighteen-year old did later in the hospital
Where she nursed,
But I could see the movie-makers’ transparent maneuver and
felt cursed
By that damnable upper lip; it didn’t work.

And of course at the other end
And the other extreme, Vanessa Redgrave,
Playing the oldest version,
Exhibited the longest upper lip of all. And she’s so tall.

But on reflection the eighteen-year old wasn’t short,
Taller than her seeming sister of the second epoch –
Sister – same actress throughout – had towered in part
one, so that had been ok
At least more or less.

Oh I know suspension of disbelief happens readily
With our story-using capacity, or that it should,
But me and that upper lip, damn.

Maybe I’m getting old.
‘Twas a good story, compelling, yes,
But that detail left me cold.




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