Haunted Beach film- key

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To mirror Robinson’s elusive text I have chosen to represent part of the poem visually on film. I chose film as a medium because its highly visual nature allows for the most effective portrayal of Robinson’s descriptive turn of phrase. Similarly, film leads the viewer to “believe” what they “see” and feel, and judge the characters according to the way they are presented. Robinson’s even metre combined with her at times opposing imagery lends the poem a structured feeling that I hope has been captured on the film, itself a highly controlled medium, in particular in light of digital editing. And the poem’s more elusive qualities, like surreal imagery and the relating of the plot in reverse order, are implied through film by manipulating what the viewer sees, in what order, and to what level of clarity.

The same strengths of film are also its weaknesses. Matching a visual images with feelings evoked by prose is quite difficult, especially in film because the subject, nature, is not under the director's control. Attempting to write a “screenplay” for the poem further underscored for me the highly poetic and "unreal" qualities of her visual descriptors. How does one represent “sea-weeds gathering near the door” or “the winter moon upon the sand/a silvery carpet made” or “cavern wide its shadowy jaws display'd” and, even more challenging, is the “shiver'd mast (which) was seen to ride/where the green billows stray'd” and the other ghost scenes. Hopefully this film has captured some elements of Robinson’s mysterious transmission and her essays at directing her audience’s reception and judgment of the characters within.