Moving words

Some time before Xmas Mark rented a film I'd never heard of – 2009's “Invictus”. This movie, directed by Clint Eastwood, stars Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela (see above) and focuses on the year South Africa hosted (and won) the Rugby Union World Cup (1995). To be honest, not being much of a sports fan, I didn't even know about this particular part of South Africa's history, why it was important and so on. I'd never even heard of the team's captain, François Pienaar (Matt Damon in the film), although Mark insisted that I have been in the room when he's been on TV (it's amazing what you can blank out... especially when it involves balls...).

Anyway, we watched the film and I really enjoyed it (even with all the running about and throwing of things). It's pretty hard not to enjoy watching Morgan Freeman though, isn't it? He seems to be one of those movie stars who you could watch doing just about anything. And it seems like he's even a nice guy too – when we were in Mississippi last year we visited the blues club he owns in Clarksdale (see back here). It was a great place – friendly and welcoming. We added our names to the wall (you were allowed to... indeed encouraged to).

But my subject this post is not really Morgan Freeman... it's poems in films/movies. I've written about other poems-in-movies before (e.g. a Sharon Olds poem being used in 2007's “Into the Wild”, back here) and it's strange because whilst often I don't really feel part of "poetry" in any sense (hence the no-go-to-poetry-festivals-urge discussed in last post) sometimes... when I'm watching a movie and a poem gets used (in a good way) I do feel a weird kind of what must be, at least in part, poet's pride. In “Invictus” much use is made of a poem that Mandela read in prison (and let's not forget he spent 27 years in prison – hard to imagine that perhaps... 27 years!). The poem is also “Invictus” (trans. unconquered) by a not-particularly-well-known-or-fêted-these-days English poet called William Ernest Henley (1849-1903 worth reading about him, the inspiration for Stevenson's Long John Silver, apparently...). How proud I felt (for some almost indescribable reason!) that a little old poem helped Mandela through the hardest of times! And how happy I was (ecstatic!) that it rhymed (have I bored you with how many people have started the response to my new writing project with “well, I don't really like rhyming poetry..?”). Still, suddenly I don't care any more! Mandela loved a rhyming poem! This very good movie featured a rhyming poem! Was I getting too carried away with this..? Losing sight of the movie itself..? And Henley wrote free verse too, you know (even way back then!). And "Invictus" has had some less impressive associations (see here and read down to "influence"...). Anyway, back to Mandela and the movie, here is Freeman reading “Invictus” (other longer clips with more of the film won't embed but there is one here if you want it):

And the text of the poem is below (though for some reason in the version Freeman reads “chance” in line 7 seems to have changed to “fate”... maybe there are different versions...):

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.



In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbow'd.



Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.



It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul. 





by William Ernest Henley

There is a webpage listing lots of movies that feature poems here (though it doesn't have everything by any stretch) but I wondered... do any of you have any favourite poetry-in-movies moments? And please don't ALL mention “Four posh weddings and a gay funeral”... (though I do like the poem they used... and they used it well... ). So..?

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