Keats And His Nightingale: Blind Date

This Academy Award nominee is a charming, and humorous, look at Keats' immortal poem about death: "Ode to a Nightingale". As director/writer James Wolpaw tries to come to terms with the poem, he begins by showing the approach he didn't want to take: forest scenery, singing birds, droning narrator. Trying to give an 80's interpretation, Wolpaw interviewed several people from a multitude of walks of life: John Sebastian (of Lovin' Spoonful fame), Keats scholar Professor Israel Kapstein, high school hockey players, a morgue attendant, bar patrons, etc. Many people, Wolpaw discovers, feel that poetry is impossible to understand, and won't make the effort to try. Yet, as the film points out, in connection with the hockey players--these boys "weren't born understanding hockey." In the end, Wolpaw returns to the poem itself, and discovers that a close reading of the poem will deliver up its meaning. An inspirational tour de force which extends the hope that the beauty of poetry will not be lost, or seen as anachronistic, by coming generations. Highly recommended for school and public libraries. (Available from: Picture Start, Inc., 204 W. John St., Champaign, IL 61820).