We watched Smoke Signals this afternoon - must have been the first time in more than 10 years - and I was reminded what a truly great, and enjoyable movie it is. I love the fuzziness of truth and lies in the film - Thomas tells stories and the response is almost invariably, "is that true?".
I've had a slow-boiling theory of the transience of truth (well before Colbert's 'truthiness' campaign, thank you very much), which a film like this (or my favorite on this theme, Stranger that Fiction). I've always read poetry as a form of this borderland between fiction and reality. I'm never as concerned with what is or isn't absolutely true as I am with what 'rings true', which, to my mind, is poetry's primary function.
Sherman Alexie has a great poem about Walt Whitman, which is a great response to Whitman's earlier "Song of Myself", which has another response verse by Allen Ginsberg, "A Supermarket in California", which is a great echo of the original.
Others have written this connection up more completely and thoughtfully, so I'll just point here and remember a great film and storyteller in brief.
Enjoy!
I've had a slow-boiling theory of the transience of truth (well before Colbert's 'truthiness' campaign, thank you very much), which a film like this (or my favorite on this theme, Stranger that Fiction). I've always read poetry as a form of this borderland between fiction and reality. I'm never as concerned with what is or isn't absolutely true as I am with what 'rings true', which, to my mind, is poetry's primary function.
Sherman Alexie has a great poem about Walt Whitman, which is a great response to Whitman's earlier "Song of Myself", which has another response verse by Allen Ginsberg, "A Supermarket in California", which is a great echo of the original.
Others have written this connection up more completely and thoughtfully, so I'll just point here and remember a great film and storyteller in brief.
Enjoy!
