spiderwort
Junior Member
@spiderwort
Posts: 2,100
Likes: 9,421
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Post by spiderwort on Feb 21, 2019 0:25:57 GMT
I’m not sure how well this will work, but I thought it might be interesting to try. So. . .
Select a film title that has a literary source. Identify its literary source - novels, short stories, poems, philosophical works, the Bible and other sacred texts, etc., qualify. If possible, quote the source (not a deal-breaker if you can't).
My first response is an easy one for me: Splendor in the Grass, from the poem “Ode on Intimations of Immortality” (1807) by the English poet, William Wordsworth.
“What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now forever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;”
I look forward to seeing any and all literary titles you can find. Thanks.
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Post by jervistetch on Feb 21, 2019 1:19:13 GMT
British poet Ernest Dowson (1867-1900) has been credited as the source of two popular film titles. GONE WITH THE WIND I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind, Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng, Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind; But I was desolate and sick of an old passion, Yea, all the time, because the dance was long: I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion. – Ernest Dowson, from Non Sum Qualis eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae, third stanza (1894).
DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES
They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.
– Ernest Dowson, from "Vitae Summa Brevis" (1896).
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Post by kijii on Feb 21, 2019 1:34:49 GMT
[THE] SOUND AND [THE] FURY
This is the name of William Faulkner's novel, which was made into movies directed by Martin Ritt, James Franco, and maybe others.
The phrase is a title is a paraphrase from The Tragedy of Macbeth--Scene V by William Shakespeare:
MACBETH
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Not sure if this applies, but I will try. Benjy Compson in Faulkner's novel was what might be called "an idiot."
He is unable to speak, yet his perceptions start the first section of the novel.
They are told as he perceives them, not as he tells them.
They are:
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
(Of course, this is irony because they do mean something to him, enough to start the tale of the decline of the Compson family in Mississippi.)
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Post by jervistetch on Feb 21, 2019 1:52:32 GMT
kijiiThank you for that. I couldn't help notice that, in that same verse, there is "the way to dusty death", the title of an Alistair MacLean novel. There is also the title of one of my favorite Star Trek episodes, "All Our Yesterdays". It would be interesting to see how many movie, TV and book titles came from Shakespeare. Must be in the thousands.
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Post by kijii on Feb 21, 2019 2:06:43 GMT
Song of Solomon 2:15 King James Version (KJV)
Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.
This one verse was enough for titles to two movies:
The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman
and
Our Vines Have Tender Grapes, the novel written by George Victor Martin with the screen play by Dalton Trumbo.
I'm not sure what the Bible verse (from one of the most poetic books of the Bible) means.
But, the little foxes may mean those rude things that spoil our vines (the growing thing) that make the tender grapes..the most innocent and fruitful part of the plant..the final reason for us to use that plant..children.
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Post by wmcclain on Feb 21, 2019 2:14:22 GMT
Sailing to Byzantium, WB Yeats.
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
– Those dying generations – at their song,
The salmon‐falls, the mackerel‐crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
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Post by wmcclain on Feb 21, 2019 2:26:18 GMT
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Post by bravomailer on Feb 21, 2019 2:26:24 GMT
Paths of Glory (lead but to the grave)
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard – Thomas Gray
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Post by bravomailer on Feb 21, 2019 2:31:30 GMT
I do nothing upon myself, and yet am mine own executioner.
Meditation XII - John Donne
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Post by BATouttaheck on Feb 21, 2019 2:39:50 GMT
 To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough by Robert Burns The Applicable stanza: But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane, In proving foresight may be vain; The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men
Gang aft agley, An'lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, For promis'd joy! Whole poem : www.robertburns.org/works/75.shtml |
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Post by mikef6 on Feb 21, 2019 2:41:47 GMT
How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d
---from "Eloisa to Abelard" by Alexander Pope (1717)
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Post by wmcclain on Feb 21, 2019 2:43:00 GMT
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Post by BATouttaheck on Feb 21, 2019 2:47:04 GMT
 And why take you thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. Matthew 6:28 |
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Post by wmcclain on Feb 21, 2019 2:52:55 GMT
Shakespeare, The Tempest: Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Rich and Strange (1931)  |
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Post by mikef6 on Feb 21, 2019 3:00:14 GMT
Shakespeare rules!
Leave Her To Heaven (Hamlet) 1945 thriller
Murder Most Foul (Hamlet) 1964 Miss Marple Film
North by Northwest (“I am but mad north northwest” – Hamlet) Hitchcock film
Cry Havoc (Julius Caesar) 1947 film with all female cast of nurses in WWII
Here, There, and Everywhere (Henry VI, Part 2) Beatles song title
From “Cradle Song” by Thomas Decker (1572-1632). Adapted and set to music by the Beatles
Golden slumbers kiss your eyes,
Smiles awake you when you rise ;
Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby,
Rock them, rock them, lullaby.
Care is heavy, therefore sleep you,
You are care, and care must keep you ;
Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby,
Rock them, rock them, lullaby.
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Post by kijii on Feb 21, 2019 3:01:41 GMT
John Donne (1572-1631), wrote the line 'for whom the bell tolls' in Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII:
'For whom the bells tolls' is a quotation from a work by John Donne, in which he explores the interconnectedness of humanity.
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Post by BATouttaheck on Feb 21, 2019 3:07:47 GMT
 The Battle Hymn of the Republic … Julia Ward Howe Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword: His truth is marching on |
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Post by wmcclain on Feb 21, 2019 3:18:21 GMT
William Blake: "Some are born to sweet delight / Some are born to endless night" Endless Night (1972) |
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Post by marianne48 on Feb 21, 2019 4:44:25 GMT
Now, Voyager:
The untold want, by life and land ne'er granted,
Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find.
--Walt Whitman's version of Dr. Seuss's Oh, the Places You'll Go!, "The Untold Want," from his Leaves of Grass.
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Post by BATouttaheck on Feb 21, 2019 4:54:54 GMT
Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward takes its title from the opening line: "Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! / Bird thou never wert", from To a Skylark" by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1820.)  |
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