Dylan Thomas discusses poetry and film (1953)

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  • čas přidán 26. 06. 2024
  • Extracts from the 'Cinema 16' symposium "Poetry and the Film" held in New York in October 28 1953, attended by Dylan Thomas less than 2 weeks before his untimely death at the age of 39 on 9 November 1953. The Welsh poet can be heard gently mocking the pretensions of the evening's topic, to the great amusement of the audience (other participants included Arthur Miller, Maya Deren, Parker Tyler and Willard Maas). The event would turn out to be Dylan Thomas's penultimate public appearance. In the early hours of 5 November 1953 he fell into a coma and died on 9 November 1953 (from undiagnosed and untreated pneumonia).
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Komentáře • 134

  • @abrazalves
    @abrazalves Před 11 měsíci +6

    This recorded documentaries are precious. Thanks

  • @PeteLewisWoodwork
    @PeteLewisWoodwork Před 5 lety +54

    I have long been a Dylan Thomas fan and have visited his boathouse and writing shed and left my thanks in the book that they keep. Dylan is the biggest influence in my life - my eldest son is named after him. I now teach poetry.

  • @catcrazy336
    @catcrazy336 Před 6 lety +15

    Very grateful we can hear his voice.

  • @robertlloydsite
    @robertlloydsite Před 8 lety +52

    Truly fabulous! - Along with Leonard Cohen, Dylan Thomas has a wonderful reverence for and a deep humanity and lack of pretension that makes his humour ,wit and insights all the more touching. I for one am truly grateful for this.

  • @philpryor7524
    @philpryor7524 Před 7 lety +13

    Wonderful, memorable, so human, this modesty of a volcanic, quiescent genius. Such imagery, well worth rethinking. He was startlingly refreshing and disturbing,, and, disturbed. Gone, yet timeless and worth remembering as we hear and read.

  • @johnharpdalton7766
    @johnharpdalton7766 Před 4 lety +8

    Great that he was unafraid to dissolve the general reverence and pomposity, good to hear the laughter. And then so sad, too, such a talent lost as the final reading reminds us.

  • @jimbobjimjim6500
    @jimbobjimjim6500 Před 6 lety +29

    A true Celt, humorous and storytelling.

    • @rayjr62
      @rayjr62 Před 5 lety +6

      you forgot "rushing headlong into a perverse death wish"

    • @mikejohnson2638
      @mikejohnson2638 Před 2 lety

      racist

    • @rogerstacey129
      @rogerstacey129 Před 2 lety +2

      @@mikejohnson2638 let the chips fall where they may! The Celts are unique and beautiful people

  • @sshuck
    @sshuck Před 2 lety +2

    I found this while in a pretty severe Dylan Thomas spell, having memorized a couple shorter poems--thanks for this!--and then I looked at your profile, and you're the Alkan guy! The Alkan guy who inspired me to learn Op. 39 No. 2, which for God's sake I was practicing just today--I swear I'm not making this up--thanks for that, too!

  • @molloyxx1
    @molloyxx1 Před 5 lety +2

    Ever skating towards the puck of the real...such joy.....and he is more often serious than unserious.

  • @biaedwards4025
    @biaedwards4025 Před rokem +4

    My favourite poet, the genius Dylan Thomas. You can hear him reading his masterpiece Fern Hill here on CZcams.

    • @knittysong
      @knittysong Před 2 měsíci +1

      Our chorus is now rehearsing to sing Fern Hill (composed by John Corigliano), it's gorgeous!

    • @biaedwards4025
      @biaedwards4025 Před 2 měsíci

      What a wonderful idea!

  • @shriggs55
    @shriggs55 Před 2 lety +3

    Excellent! I love poems about trees.

  • @sunnyofficial8728
    @sunnyofficial8728 Před 5 lety +3

    Absolute brilliance. What a judge of art & poetry is!!!

  • @huwgriffiths7271
    @huwgriffiths7271 Před 3 lety +7

    15:49 - 16:00; GENIUS! Thomas was hilarious.

  • @NALAMOO
    @NALAMOO Před 7 lety +49

    I love Dylan cutting through the pretension and intellectual bull shit. RIP DYLAN YOU WERE WONDERFUL.

    • @regmunday8354
      @regmunday8354 Před 6 lety +15

      Dylan actually felt very intimidated by 'intellectuals', university educated types ; and had a sense of inferiority about his own intellectual abilities. The humour is used to disguise his uneasiness. The irony being that his wit is also a form of deep intelligence.

  • @bingochoice
    @bingochoice Před 5 lety +6

    one the great poets..ever

  • @TheAnn2shoes
    @TheAnn2shoes Před 8 lety +116

    The guy introducing Thomas keeps calling him an 'English poet', when of course, he was Welsh.

    • @philpryor7524
      @philpryor7524 Před 7 lety +9

      Regrettably, over ages, many have said "England", when perhaps British or a more particular accuracy was called for.

    • @TheAnn2shoes
      @TheAnn2shoes Před 7 lety +6

      The phrase which must really annoy our neighbours in Scotland, Wales & N. Ireland must be: 'The Queen of England'. So wrong. Probably annoys Her Majesty as well!

    • @debjones5509
      @debjones5509 Před 7 lety +12

      Ann TwoShoes probably because a lot of Welsh poets wrote in Welsh. So in essence hes a Welsh man writing English poetry .

    • @jimbobjimjim6500
      @jimbobjimjim6500 Před 6 lety +4

      They did the same to Irish famous actors and Bands calling them British.

    • @Greencarnation1000
      @Greencarnation1000 Před 6 lety +21

      They mean English as in language, not nationality. When we say “English Verse”, again, it is the language in which the poetry is written that is being referred to, and not the nation.

  • @LennyJohnson5
    @LennyJohnson5 Před 4 lety +6

    Such an influence, even today - Bob Dylan loved him and cited him as a major influence (even changing his name as an homage), while Hendrix carried a book of Bob Dylan’s lyrics around with him, and so the lineage continued. How many people did Hendrix and Dylan influence between them? It’s surprising to hear how modern and contemporary Dylan Thomas sounds here, not to mention how witty and comedic. One of the great poets.... makes me proud to be Welsh. And self-deprecation is such a recognisable Welsh trait.

  • @andrewgibbon-williams7974

    Further, the legend of Dylan as some mumbling drunk is here put to bed. Totally compos mentis, articulate, logical. No one can write poetry like that he did, without being sober. Almost everyone can quote something from Dylan while hardly anyone can quote T.S. Eliot.

    • @bevaconme
      @bevaconme Před rokem +2

      our only choice, or else despair,
      lies in the choice of pyre or pyre,
      to be redeemed from fire by fire.
      shall i go on...?

    • @limeplasterer2766
      @limeplasterer2766 Před 9 měsíci +2

      I love Dylan Thomas, but Eliot's got some memorable lines: April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the death ground,...

    • @TomorrowWeLive
      @TomorrowWeLive Před 4 měsíci

      'Some thing's - one thing to be precise. 'Do not go gentle into that go night' is the only one of his poems people know, because it was his only good one.

  • @stealthpiccasso
    @stealthpiccasso Před 8 lety +4

    Fantastic, I love it..

  • @tomato1040
    @tomato1040 Před rokem +2

    Dylan Thomas Poetry begets images & sounds as film does images into sound words & so "Word of Mouth" is the best kind of advertising. The Flow of Poetry is "The Talk of the Town"with no tinsel!

  • @AdamTurnbull-xd3nf
    @AdamTurnbull-xd3nf Před rokem +1

    great poet what ever his issues. must have been amazing to her him read his poems.

  • @huwzebediahthomas9193
    @huwzebediahthomas9193 Před 2 lety

    Super magic, captures captured.

  • @Deliquescentinsight
    @Deliquescentinsight Před 6 lety +9

    Humor always remedies pomposity, and Dylan was an authentic chap, what did he care for endless analysis?

    • @hanktheblesseddeejay
      @hanktheblesseddeejay Před 4 lety

      No one is ever too clever to be funny, it's quite often the other way round..

  • @dudleybrooks515
    @dudleybrooks515 Před 4 lety +3

    The avant-garde in one medium (Thomas) often don't understand the avant-garde in other media (Deren). Often they're very conservative about the other arts. (P.S. Thomas in one of my favorite poets.)

  • @maryangeladouglas
    @maryangeladouglas Před 3 lety +2

    This sounds like a class for which no one prepared. Or symposium or whatever it is. Kind of insuting to Maya as well who at least out of all the participants made a sincere effort.

  • @JaffaGaffa
    @JaffaGaffa Před 3 měsíci

    He died at 39, and by the then was bloated and sick years before that. Sick from drinking. I fell A half friendship. and love the writings

  • @lengasparini2918
    @lengasparini2918 Před 7 lety +17

    Bravo for Dylan Thomas. The other panelists sound pretentious.

  • @richardheinz
    @richardheinz Před 2 lety +2

    Maya Deren says "Does that mean he didn't understand it?" Or something like that. I laughed.

  • @srmcriclesinthenight9317
    @srmcriclesinthenight9317 Před 7 lety +1

    wow I have never seen this before

  • @RodTDavies
    @RodTDavies Před 4 lety +4

    Under milk wood a work of genius

  • @plumjam
    @plumjam Před 5 lety +4

    Funny lad. Good value in the pub, no doubt.
    I see he died just twelve days after this recording. Terribly sad. He sounds in decent health too.

  • @seymourtompkins
    @seymourtompkins Před 3 lety +2

    13:43 now, there's some genuine wisdom right there. Who was that ?

  • @charlottehuang1207
    @charlottehuang1207 Před 2 lety

    Thanks

  • @zyxmyk
    @zyxmyk Před rokem +2

    recorded six weeks before i was born. he must have died right after this.

  • @thomasmcilwaine5679
    @thomasmcilwaine5679 Před 2 lety +2

    Starts 02:45

  • @hookbeak3516
    @hookbeak3516 Před 3 lety +3

    My mind was wandering . . . listening to this, much like the subject matter. I started thinking of the unknown big black women in Tom & Jerry animations she'd shriek " Thomas! Thomas! " whilst stood on top of a stool, being frightened by Jerry mouse. To which I thought, how did I get here & what are they waffling on about?!

  • @TXST4Life
    @TXST4Life Před měsícem

    You can hear him coughing in the background at the recording start.

  • @MrKelso85
    @MrKelso85 Před 4 měsíci

    A proud Welshman here

  • @NFonoroff
    @NFonoroff Před 6 lety +5

    When people remark upon "pretentiousness" of the comments, I have to wonder: exactly what does "pretentious" mean? What are the panelists (other than Dylan Thomas) "pretending"?

    • @harveygarbage8618
      @harveygarbage8618 Před 4 lety +3

      people dont like when other people talk about stuff they studied

  • @roysaxon2619
    @roysaxon2619 Před 2 měsíci

    I would love to have been there with a smartphone! ❤

  • @mikejohnson2638
    @mikejohnson2638 Před 2 lety +1

    'English poet' he was Welch.

  • @MasKistershi
    @MasKistershi Před 6 lety +3

    So funny how they keep trying to put words in his mouth and get him to say that he sees value in avant garde cinema. - I mean really, trying to put words into the mouth of Dylan Thomas!

  • @lieblichbourdon
    @lieblichbourdon Před 7 lety +5

    Gotta love Dylan Thomas. Arthur Miller sounds like a high brow tool

  • @erwinwoodedge4885
    @erwinwoodedge4885 Před 7 lety +9

    Thomas' anti-intellectual comments are popular with the audience. It is pretty clear nonetheless that the discussion isn't happening because the mindsets of Thomas and Deren are simply too far apart to meet.

    • @jacklondon4292
      @jacklondon4292 Před 3 lety +1

      No, it's probably because one of those two mindsets doesn't exist.

  • @firstsowf
    @firstsowf Před 2 měsíci

    Whew -- that is one drunk Dylan Thomas.

  • @u.sonomabeach6528
    @u.sonomabeach6528 Před 5 lety +2

    He has a prominent stutter but his voice and ideas sing. Has he had the stutter his entire life?

  • @TomorrowWeLive
    @TomorrowWeLive Před 2 lety +3

    What a treat. Don't care for most of his poetry, but he does a wonderful job of gently (and probably unintentionally) deflating these puffed-up bloviating windbags. These types have always been insufferable, have they?

  • @calebgizaw6581
    @calebgizaw6581 Před rokem

    Yay, now I can finish my English project!

  • @tonsmeijers9711
    @tonsmeijers9711 Před rokem +1

    He would have liked stalker.

  • @kylebrogmus8847
    @kylebrogmus8847 Před 10 měsíci +2

    To me after W.B. Yeats the only truly great poet is Dylan Thomas.
    If anyone has any honorable mentions please let me know.

    • @CalvinPoet
      @CalvinPoet Před 8 měsíci +3

      William Blake?

    • @kylebrogmus8847
      @kylebrogmus8847 Před 8 měsíci +1

      @@CalvinPoet Blake is awesome and undoubtably we would of likely had a very different Yeats without Blake. I was meaning “after” as in chronology rather than eminence.

    • @CalvinPoet
      @CalvinPoet Před 8 měsíci +1

      Ah, so you’re asking for the name of a truly great poet after Yeats? Hart Crane.

    • @CalvinPoet
      @CalvinPoet Před 8 měsíci +2

      In terms of chronology, I’d agree with your initial statement, then amend it to include Crane. “After Yeats, the only truly great poets are Dylan Thomas and Hart Crane.” Yes.

    • @kylebrogmus8847
      @kylebrogmus8847 Před 8 měsíci +2

      @@CalvinPoet Never heard of him, looking him up now. 🤔Born after Yeats died before him though, will sill give Crane a go. 🙏🏻

  • @marshallgreen7815
    @marshallgreen7815 Před 4 lety

    I think 49 Guinnesses is piggish. He was right.

  • @danielthomas6739
    @danielthomas6739 Před 6 lety +2

    He was also a “user” who didn’t pay his bar bills. There’s a pub in Newque Wales where he still owes money. He is not revered in Wales because he wrote in English. He was not a Welsh speaker even though he was born in Swansea.

    • @WelshKnight1066
      @WelshKnight1066 Před 5 lety +12

      Of course, Dylan Thomas is revered in Wales...his boathouse has been preserved as a historic site; Welshman Richard Burton loved him and was buried with a book of Thomas' poetry, and most Welsh people don't even speak Welsh.

    • @laurastone2431
      @laurastone2431 Před 5 lety +5

      Thomas’s parents didn’t want him to learn Welsh and gave him elocution lessons to rid him of the sing-song lilt of the Welsh accent. It was not uncommon amongst the middle classes in that era as the Welsh language was associated with old, rural and uneducated people and carried a stigma. Thomas had a great love of Wales, and Wales in return loves him back.

    • @harveygarbage8618
      @harveygarbage8618 Před 4 lety +3

      all the angels had debts

    • @thirdratecontent585
      @thirdratecontent585 Před 4 lety +3

      In South Wales they don’t speak Welsh as much to this day. It’s more a North Wales thing. Although not being Welsh myself I have relatives who live in Merthyr and none of them speak Welsh.

    • @WelshKnight1066
      @WelshKnight1066 Před 4 lety +1

      @@davedfw814...I'm sure there are lots of people who celebrate his poetry without making any money off of him.

  • @tontoepstein6860
    @tontoepstein6860 Před 3 lety +4

    I hate that phrase "untimely death." As opposed to what, a timely death?

  • @NFonoroff
    @NFonoroff Před 6 lety +16

    Has anyone here actually seen the films of Maya Deren, who is on this panel, and who is undoubtedly one of those you are calling "pretentious"? Do you have the remotest conception of her importance to American cinema? You can see some of her work on CZcams. She practically founded the American avant-garde film movement singlehandedly.
    I respect all these panelists enormously as artists in their own right, but it seems to me that we have here a clear case of a group of men---however great their writing---cannot meet a woman artist who has a strong intellectual perspective to bring to the table. Remember, this panel took place in 1953. This kind of behavior---dragging a woman who appears to the men as their intellectual equal, or better---was very common at the time. Sadly, it's not much less common today.

    • @portland9880
      @portland9880 Před 4 lety +4

      Thank you, Maya Deren is at least as big in the history of film as Dylan Thomas is in verse. Two giants

    • @TomorrowWeLive
      @TomorrowWeLive Před 2 lety +1

      Who was dragging her? Miller is clearly the one who comes off worst in this exchange.

  • @ericabassi7728
    @ericabassi7728 Před 5 lety +6

    What a shame the booze rotted his brain

  • @begratefulx8386
    @begratefulx8386 Před rokem

    Horizonta colon 😂

  • @webleydevelopment
    @webleydevelopment Před 9 měsíci +2

    "English poet"

  • @yu-wantang5267
    @yu-wantang5267 Před 4 lety

    Arthurian Mary Virgin mind Mi-Wife in Thomas Hardy's Fantastic-Ode Nightingale? Aristotle's Topic
    non-Cloud-Denfly! from Prisoneromantics?
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    by Professor Yu-wan, Tang
    (Architecture School Yale , Yale U.)

  • @ginahanlon1815
    @ginahanlon1815 Před 3 lety

    This is not a good reading.

  • @andrewgibbon-williams7974

    This clip proves that THE best English is spoken outside London and the south-east of England. Born in the year Dylan died a stone's throw from where he was, we both speak our English identically. Dylan never spoke Welsh; nor do I. There' s not a trace of a South Wales/Cardiff accent here; he would have abhorred that. If you want to hear English spoken correctly and musically you go to Scotland (Aberdeen is good!), or Ireland, or Wales. Why should this be the case? It has a lot to do with the 19th C tradition of education: you WILL speak 'proper' English. Americans find this mystifying. They get very confused.

    • @darrellbethell7083
      @darrellbethell7083 Před rokem +2

      Actually Dylan's parents were both Welsh speakers but his father was an English teacher and although both parents spoke Welsh to each other they spoke English to their children. Also they were sent to elocution lessons so they could learn received pronunciation. In other words his accent had nothing to do with where he came from it was education training and choice that produced it

  • @johnnybsteelriff
    @johnnybsteelriff Před 3 lety +4

    Dylan mashes the pretentious avant-a-clue NY art crowd with a swish of the tongue and a "bottoms up" fart of sarcasm....

  • @matthewdevereux1288
    @matthewdevereux1288 Před 3 lety +1

    Love Dylan. @devereuxmatthew