If I told you that there was a film in which its title was derived from the first word of the last chapter (Penelope) of James Joyce's famous poem "Ulysses," you might either be fascinated or utterly unimpressed. But it is true, according to the screenwriter and director of the film, Sally Potter. And her film Yes is the most anticipated film I want to see this summer.
Yes is a film about a love affair that blossoms when an American woman (Joan Allen) leaves her politician husband (Sam Neill) and embarks on a journey with a Middle-Eastern man (Simon Abkarian) from London and Belfast to Beirut and Havana. On their journey, they confront some of the greatest conflicts of our generation—religious, political and sexual.
If you read my post on Upcoming Films of 2005, you will remember that I explained that this film is unique because it is entirely written in verse, rhyming verse. You may ask why I am so captivated by this. Let me attempt to explain.
1) Sally Potter directed one of my all-time favorite films, Orlando, which she adapted a Virginia Woolf novel. The film became an internationally acclaimed film in 1992. Starring Tilda Swinton, Orlando received two Academy Award nominations, won more than 25 international awards (including the "Felix" awarded by the European Film Academy for the best Young European Film of 1993), and won first prizes at St Petersburg, Thessaloniki and other festivals.
I loved this film for its rich cinematography, incredibly dynamic script, and Swinton’s acting. I was swept off my feet in utter wonder at this film.
2) The cinematographer of Orlando, Alexei Rodionov, returned for the first time to work with Sally to shoot the photography for Yes.
3) The score is composed by Phillip Glass, who composed the Oscar nominated film The Hours, a masterful classic that moved me in such a way I had to purchase it.
4) Sally Potter wrote the film in rhyming couplets. I do not believe that there is any contemporary script that has attempted such a feat. I’m intrigued beyond comprehension. I read in an interview somewhere (and I apologize for not remembering where) why she chose to write the script in verse. Her answer is most profound:
"I read somewhere that in times of war the sales of poetry books go up. It's as though we need to use our most clear and rich tool, which is the tool of language, to express the subtleties and the nuances of our experience. And I think that verse is a kind of structure that allows us to explore language in a more interesting, more heightened way, then we tend to in everyday conversation."
I have been reading about the film on the Sony website for the film. I came across a Question & Answer section that was compiled from the Q & A sessions that Sally Potter held after the showing of Yes at the Telluride, London, and Toronto film festivals. There were two questions posed to Sally in regards to the poetic aspect of her script that I found most intriguing. Being that this is so unique, I thought I would share her comments for your preview:
Q: Did the poetry come to you easily?
SALLY POTTER: It came out in a torrent. It felt entirely natural as a way of expressing this strange blend of ideas; love and religion and war and death, which otherwise might have become rather heavy and didactic in everyday speech. They were big, big ideas to handle. But something about the form of verse, and iambic pentameter in particular, creates a flow to things that naturalises them.
I think of the film almost like a long song and the song form is something everybody knows. Rap is just one of its more recent incarnations. Poetry is simple and old and direct - from Icelandic sagas and Sanskrit to ballads and hip-hop. Both my experience of writing in verse and the actors' experience of performing it, was that it was liberating.
Q: What were your directions to the actors about how to speak the verse?
SP: Ignore the rhyme, ignore the form, just concentrate on the sense and the emotion. We talked a lot in rehearsal about what it meant, how they felt about it, how it related to their lives and so on. We worked as deeply as we could on rooting the language in their own experience and finding an authentic place from which to speak. In other words to naturalize it as much as possible. So it was a kind of paradox, that having written such a precise holding structure to contain the ideas, we then had to let it go, throw it away, or at least loosen it up. The words were adhered to precisely but there was an irreverent approach to the metre so the rhythms at the end of each line became less noticeable. I've had one or two private screenings where people who knew nothing about the film beforehand didn't even notice it was in verse. So, that was kind of interesting. I like it when people do notice and I like it when they don't.
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