Dylan Thomas - Poetry in Motion?

Sienna Miller and Matthew Rhys in The Edge of Love

Poet and scriptwriter, modernist and romantic, alcoholic and legend, Dylan Thomas continues to excite and inspire in song, film and features years after his death. The Edge of Love ( released nationwide today ) starring Sienna Miller, Keira Knightley and Matthew Rhys raises the question: has the great Dylan Thomas – and poetry – become a commodity, tapping into our desire for epic romance, brooding characters and vintage clothes ( the movie’s official website even has a ‘get the look’ section on how we too can dress like Keira and Sienna, never mind that they were in Wales in the middle of a war.) Can a mainstream film really convey the depth and reality of Thomas’ life and work, and capture the turmoil that took place between the poet, the wife and the lover, and should it even try?

Born to a middle class family, Thomas spent most of his childhood in Swansea. He was often ill, and as a result  was classified as a C3 during the Second World War, meaning he would be one of the last few to be summoned to the Army. As friends and family around him left to fight he stayed behind, a situation which would make him depressed, leading to his heavy drinking.

During the war he struggled to support his wife Caitlin and their young son with his poetry writing alone, so he began writing scripts for radio and film documentaries, some of which were little more than war propaganda,, such as  This is Colour about the history of British dyes. His disillusion with such work further fuelled his drinking along with a string of casual relationships.

He would however produce one of his most famous works, Under Milk Wood, as a radio play for the BBC. The story, set in the fictional village of Llaregubb (‘Bugger all’ spelt backwards), initially featured Richard Burton as narrator, where he speaks to the audience about the innermost thoughts of a host of local characters. Thomas later stated that the play was written in response to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, which marked the end of the war in the East.

The Edge of Love focuses on this period of Thomas’ life, Miller is his suffering wife Caitlin, and Knightley Vera, an old flame with whom he has an affair. The film centres on the close relationship between the three characters in what is essentially a love story, but becomes a triumph of style over substance.

The realism of the story is further muddled by the fact that  Sir Mick Jagger forced director John Maybury to remove certain portions of the film containing works to which Jagger owns the rights to -  rights he acquired in order to make his very own biopic at some point in the near future.
 It is a sorry state of affairs when the ideas and the words of an artist of Thomas’ stature can be owned and controlled by one individual.  In a society where emotion is a commodity and art is a luxury, it's no wonder that some of the younger generations aspire to be Jordans and Beckhams as opposed to Freuds, Shakespeares, Paglias and Plaths. ( the film of her life, Sylvia, follows a similar formula of

This however works both ways. Now that everything can be bought and sold including our experiences  ( look how facebook endeavours to make money out of human inter-action )  many of us feel that our emotions are inter-changeable:  we invest our own sentimental, romantic notions in another person’s art.
 The poet’s words about his dying father, as in the often quoted Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, can become feelings of sorrow at losing a lover, a job, or even a pet. And Death Shall Have No Dominion, which hints at the triumph of life over death,  actually serves as a suicide note in the 2002 film Solaris. Yes, we can relate to Thomas’ words – it’s this that has maintained the public’s fascination with him – but are we relating on any real level, or just a romanticized one?

The Welsh poet has long been the wordsmith of choice for many rock stars, with references to his poetry cropping up frequently in popular culture. Perhaps his alcoholism and premature demise at the age of 39 has much to do with it, along with frequent references to death in his poems, their limitless interpretation appealing to lyricists such as The Doors  frontman Jim Morrison -who also died prematurely at the age of 27 of drug-related causes- and Bob Dylan, who legend has it changed his surname as a homage to his hero.

In fact, it’s rock stars – Kurt Cobain, Morrison -  rather than other poets who are most comparable to Thomas : they  hold enormous influence over their fans,  and their appeal is in their humanity, the absense of a façade to mask the sorrow behind the words.
In the case of Dylan Thomas, the secret to enduring appeal it seems, is sadness.

Leila Hawkins

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