- This moving film describes the struggle of artists everywhere. This itinerant poet desperately seeks to reconcile the role of art in a world that seems bent on self-destruction. Nature provides him with a ray of hope.
- A haunting, thought-provoking tale of an eccentric, vagabond poet who traverses Manhattan's streets in search of one good reason to continue making art in violent, troubled times. He awakens each morning in his home, a large cardboard box, at the base of the steps of the New York Public Library, ready to start the day reciting his poetry to early morning passersby. His quest begins pushing his red wire shopping cart around the city. He regales students, winos, executives and secretaries with his musings about William Saroyan, ecology and even a violin rendition of "Melancholy Baby." His poems seem strangely whimsical, but before long, we find them entering a deeper reality. We are reminded that our universe is in danger of self-destructing. And, 'poets can't make oxygen! " Obsessed by his passion for Russian poetry and the suicide of his idol, Mayakovsky, he reaches out with wit and passion to the hearts of the people he meets on his journeys in his desperate search for life's meaning until a chance encounter with one of the greatest forces of nature itself helps him to tap the irrepressible spirit of man which changes everything. Originally written as a solo play by marine biologist, Alexander Weiss in one night, as he was the lion keeper at the San Francisco Zoo, it was adapted for the screen by Weiss, and directed by Francesca Rizzo. "Engleström" is laced with an original, sophisticated, jazz score co-composed and arranged by Executive Producer/Actor, Al Sutton and Fernando Hernandez.—Al Sutton, Executive Producer
- When The Poet Englestrom begins, we find the title character (Al Sutton) arising from his bed, a cardboard carton on the steps of the New York Public Library. It is pre-dawn, with only Englestrom, the Library lions and some pigeons as witnesses. He rubs his eyes, and looks at the almost empty Fifth Avenue. Finally a passerby. His day will begin. I am the poet Englestrom, yes indeed, I am the poet Englestrom. I have many poems; I have many complaints! I believe Americas greatest writer is William Saroyan; who else would think that, huh? How can he fail to get the passerbys attention?
He challenges people, trying to bring them into his thought processes. He needs to reach them, to have them hear his words, his ideas, as he struggles to develop and refine them. He moves from one subject to another, seemingly unrelated. The people react in diverse ways to his message. His words engage, having enough sensitivity and provocation to get their attention. They are aware he is onto something, perhaps meaningful, perhaps profound, and are tempted to follow his words. But how far are they willing to go before he takes them beyond their willingness, or their capacity to understand? He enlists souls along the way, some braver than others.
He begins his journey through New York City, pushing his red wire shopping cart full of poems and assorted miscellany; the handwritten sign on the cart reads Poems for Sale 25 cents. Covering a number of picturesque urban tableaux including the Lower East Side, and the carousel in Central Park, he engages young students, winos, executives and secretaries. The film is lushly and imaginatively photographed, creating memorable images, as the backdrop to Englestroms quest. His initial ramblings extol the bountiful glory of words, sounds, and languages. He luxuriates in English words, Russian words, the wail of the Banshee. Many of his poems are extemporaneous; some are written. He is not afraid to discard them, as he seems to be able to create at will. He even manages to sell an occasional poem. He debates literary criticism, speaking freely about the Russian writers Tolstoy and Mayakovsky as though he knew them. He loves music, having once played the violin. He even fiddles a moving version of a popular tune along the way.
His poems seem strangely whimsical, but before long, we find them entering into a deeper reality. We are reminded that our universe is in danger of self-destructing. Artichokes, asparagus spears and chiles all are rare; the careful clicks of sea snails are screams from the warm ooze; feathers of the pelicans drip down upon the news. He is horrified by this realization, and notes that he fiddles on his fiddle while the planet plunges up in flames of poison and violence. That poem ends with Ticks of Yang, tocks of Yin, poets cant make oxygen! This becomes the most agonizing thought of it all to him.
At what point does the artist defy reason, defy his audience? Englestrom courts negativity, nihilism: How much worse is a versists verse if a versist verses verse? For a while, he has an acolyte, a young student who dares to go further, but he too falls off. He later finds homeless people who are able to follow him, without requiring meaning, but they too are left behind. He is finally left alone once more to negotiate his artistic and existential dilemma.
He is haunted by the memory of the poet Vladamir Mayakovsky, who took his own life before he was 35 years old, after being faced with the conflict of his art and the Soviet political structure. Whats a poet to do?! He identifies with Mayakovsky, imagining the despair that drove him to suicide. He is unable to find an answer to the frustration facing an artist who is confronted with a universe that is indifferent to the real problems of mankind. He bays at the moon, he rages at the sky, demanding an answer. And then, suddenly, as though through some mystical transformation, he discovers the moon, the moon renewing itself daily and bringing forth newness and hope. He makes the discovery that poets can make oxygen. Words are oxygen! This is his redemptive discovery. He can no longer be unhappy; sadness suddenly sickens him.
The audience must be hesitant to dismiss him as insane. After all, he is speaking for all of us, and we strain to understand. We need to be grateful that he is making the noble effort, even perhaps at the risk of his own sanity. We pay secret homage to the artist, thanks to whose madness we need not be mad. (Thomas Mann)
The musical score runs parallel to the film, using the thematic material to underscore the mood of the poet. Beginning benignly as the poet starts his journey, the music later develops in the direction of dissonance, reflecting the darkening of the poets text. Even the theme of the popular tune he fiddled becomes orchestrated in unexpected ways as he experiences his metamorphosis, finally arriving at a hopeful resolution. The musical direction was performed by Fernando Rodriguez.
While the original piece was a staged one-act play, all the action taking place in the atelier of the poet, the medium of film allowed the piece to breathe and allowed the poet the opportunity to negotiate the city. With only little change in the script, the same piece was moved from a simple stage to an urban panorama, where the poet could expand his range, and interact directly with people, rather than with a seated audience in a darkened theatre. The director, Francesca Rizzo, and the two cinematographers Nara Garber and Ryan Mayers, chose beautifully innovative visuals to create the remarkable journey of this unique street person, Englestrom. While the author, marine biologist, Alexander Weiss, a San Francisco zoo-keeper wrote this piece in one fitful night, it is fitting that the director managed to complete the shooting schedule in one fitful day.
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