This podcast episode delves into the cinematic portrayal of the poet Pablo Neruda in the film "Neruda," directed by Pablo Larraín. The discourse reveals the complexities of Neruda's character, focusing on the juxtaposition between his illustrious public persona and the darker facets of his private life. We examine the film's innovative narrative style, which straddles the line between biopic and myth, as it seeks to encapsulate not just the poet's life, but the essence of his legacy and the burdens of his ideals. Through our analysis, we explore the philosophical questions surrounding artistic integrity in the face of personal failings, and how this interplay reflects broader themes of love, identity, and social responsibility. As we navigate these intricate themes, we invite our audience to reflect on the implications of art in the context of historical and contemporary societal issues.

Reel Poets cycle through the Poet of the People to bring you Neruda.

Tune in Friday for a Bonus Poem by Scottt first performed with Poetic People Power in NYC during a show centered around wealth inequality.

Keep it Reel!

Welcome, dear listeners, to another episode of Real Poets.

This is another one that we recorded.

Way before we were the Real Poets.

I think we called it Poets on Film or Cinema Poetica.

I don't know.

Forgive us for the sound quality, but this is a fantastic episode on the film Neruda.

I hope that you enjoy it.

We.

We're going to be running out of these older episodes soon.

Stay with us and always keep it real.

Persecution and the Poets what becomes of an idealist when confronted by his ego?

A struggle violent enough to shatter glass mountains forged in wine soaked orgies of poetry.

Look around.

Look around.

The danger of a poem glows within the rhythmic burning of every star in the firmament, every sharpened blade of grass tickling the feet of your naked lover as she marches through tomorrow's gardens, yet easily smothered beneath satin sheets and exotic cocktails, ambrosia and cyanide.

The love of the people.

The people who love you because you love them.

You love them while feasting on foie gras as they chew on shoe leather to survive.

They love you as you grow fat from their starvation, nourishing them with pop art, with false connection.

You make love to them with a carnation between your teeth, reciting poems made popular decades before, verses older than your self respect, brittle caramel savored atop rotted gums, our decrepit bodies performing sexuality with erect ideas and flaccid intent, without the Woodpecker song emerging from emerald woods.

This is not my revolution.

Real Poets is an audio only podcast that can also be visually ready like roses or when a director juxtaposes his or her most imposing reposes with characters, settings and themes composed of thrilling soundscapes, highest of stakes and dreams.

Hosted by a duo of real poets about real poets and the real poetry they've written and the films that have been written about them and their work.

Join us each week as we talk to another real poet with something to say and how a real poetry movie.

Influenced them in some way.

Then we each write a new poem inspired by our most recent viewing of the film and share it with all of you foreign.

Welcome to the poem Poets on Poets on Film.

Two minutes later.

Poets on Film.

Yeah, okay.

Poetry Films of Poems and the Films of the Poetry.

The Poems and the Poems of the Poet Films.

Hey and welcome to Cinema Poesia, A inside look at films about poets and poetry.

I'm Scott Raven and to my right.

Is Renzo del Castillo.

We happen to be two poets here talking about films that have to do with a poet or Poetry.

Great film, great film.

I, I love that.

We followed up the Color of Pomegranates with this film.

There's a lot of interconnectivity between the two.

Yeah.

But there's also this concept of poetry and films being relegated to biopics.

And these last two movies that we've reviewed, this one and the last one, they are biopics, but they're not.

They're an attempt to recreate the poet's internal world.

This has more of a linear narrative than the previous film.

But it's not a straight up biopic.

It is not.

It's inspired by fact.

But I think it, it explores, instead of exploring the life of the man, it explores the myth of the poet.

What do you think, Scott?

Myth of the poet.

I like that.

Yeah.

I heard it described as an anti biopic where there is so much fiction within it, where.

Yeah, it's almost as if the poet is creating the mythology for himself.

We saw that a little bit with what Bob Dylan did.

I don't know if you had recently seen a complete unknown where, where similar.

Where the, the kind of the poet you're almost unsure of, you know, some of what is true and, and what isn't.

I, I don't know.

Seems to be a trend in cinema lately too.

This kind of like, like alternative approach to biopics in general.

When we were at Telluride, we caught Better man, if you remember.

I loved it.

Yeah.

The more time passes, I loved it more.

And it's.

I, I see that the critics really enjoy it.

Yeah, but it made $0.00.

$0.00.

But no.

God, I had a ball with that as well and hope, you know, more people will see.

Maybe we'll talk about that in a future episode.

Robbie Williams, poet or pop star, he's.

Definitely a bon vivant, right?

Yes.

So why don't I, why don't I start just talking through some, some notes.

About the film, just setting up maybe the general plot that's contextualize what year we're in and, and yeah, let's.

Let's get into it.

Sure.

So Neruda by Pablo Lorraine is biopic in a sense, or an anti biopic as he described it.

Lorraine approached Naruto with elements and a blend of historical events and fiction, crafting a narrative that transcends traditional biographical storytelling.

This, this is when the political party or the president that Neruda helped elect outlawed communism and he went on the run for a year.

And this film stays within that time frame.

The production features a notable cast with a famous Chilean actor called Luis Nieco as Pablo Neruda.

You have Gael Garcia Bernal as Oscar Peluchino, who's the fictional detective pursuing Neruda.

And that's an.

That's an important distinction for us to go into when we discuss this.

The film cinematography was done by Sergio Armstrong, and he was acclaimed for its poetic visuals and dreamlike sequences in an attempt to mirror Neruda's own poetic imagery.

Neruda received positive reviews for its innovative approach to the biographical genre and its artistic execution.

I believe it has an approval rating.

I don't remember exactly which one.

On Rotten Tomato Tomatoes.

And again, the praise was for the narrative and the visual style.

Nice.

So as we kind of wrap our heads around it, one overarching question I have is, you know, is this more of a political film or a poetic film?

It's both.

But does one kind of swallow the other?

Or does one.

Do they need to coexist?

Can a.

Can a film be strictly political or strictly poetic?

Or does it need the two?

Right from the start, the opening scene, we're thrust into kind of that poetic nature, the playfulness of, you know, the Senate taking place in a bathroom, which I got a kick out of.

Right.

Right off the bat.

And I've never been to the Chilean Congress, so I don't know if they have a men's room that looks like a state.

Like a state ballroom.

Yeah, I wouldn't imagine.

I thought it was.

It was metaphor.

Did it play that, wow, this could possibly be true?

I just.

There's so many different places in the world that look so differently, but to me it just.

It gave the sense of.

So let me take a step back.

You talked about, can a film be political or it could be poetic.

I saw this film as a construction of myth, right?

The myth of Neruda, the myth of the poet, the myth of.

Of the struggle that occurred.

And I think as we.

As I went through the movie, that was the conflict that Neruda's character had as well as the.

The.

The policeman Pauluccino played by Guy Garcia Bernal.

He's straight up, cheap, dime store, pulp fiction policeman.

Like the words that he says, the sentence structure that he uses, it's just.

It seems fake.

It's like, ah, See, like it's.

It's very.

It's very stylized and Highlighted.

And it goes meta too.

Like, is, you're not real.

They tell him at one point in the movie, you're not real.

And is that a reflection of Neruda himself?

Is his Persona not real?

And there's instances in his discussions with other senators.

There's instances in his discussions with members of the Communist Party.

Even in the way that Pilot, you know, describes him.

They're like, he's a Red, but he's never slept on the floor.

Right, right.

What does it take to become this.

This myth and in the construction of myth, politics play a part, poetry plays a part.

But the way that even you.

Going back to the opening scene, the way that it was shot, it's this.

This juxtaposition, this editing of different.

Of different scenes that don't seem to go together to play one larger narrative.

I mean, what did you think about the cinematography and the editing at the beginning scene?

Yeah, well, yeah, kind of a.

There's voiceover sometimes on top of dialogue.

There's.

There's a layering of things.

There's.

There's a lot to take in, like almost representing kind of a thought or an imagination where you have kind of one thought playing into another thought to another thought.

Kind of a confluence of.

Of ideas.

It was.

It was tough because some of the lines were, like, taken from, I believe, poems of his.

Some are dialogue that he's saying.

That's not really something that he might have even actually said.

Yeah.

Cinematography wise.

Yeah.

I mean, I thought, you know, there was.

There was some very well constructed shots, similar.

Like we're talking about color, pomegranates, you know, tableaus.

A notable thing I remember wasn't there, like a.

The background when he's riding in the motorcycle where there was kind of like a still in the background?

I mean.

Oh, like projection stuff.

Yeah.

It's interesting because that happens towards the climax of the movie.

It becomes much more stylized and much more artificial.

And this is when the policeman is pursuing Neruda, when he's on a motorcycle going into the country, that you see this projection screen where it looks like he's in this B movie.

It's a B movie plot.

The persecution of Neruda, which was real.

But the way that it's portrayed here is through a fictional character that didn't exist.

And once.

And when it becomes incredibly apparent in the visual style, in terms of how it's filmed is after he has the meeting with Neruda's wife when she tells him, you're a work of fiction.

He created you.

He Needed to create you in order to aggrandize his pursuit, to make his pursuit legendary.

And he questions himself from there.

And that's when we start seeing the projection screens and much more stylized.

Yeah, that's a fascinating concept to me, what you're getting back to, you know, that he's a fiction.

That he becomes more real when a author or a notable figure writes about you, when somebody creates you, gives life to someone, Something that is a figment of animation becomes more real to people.

And.

Yeah, that just kind of a really cool, you know, where.

Where he.

He had mentioned, you know, with the wife.

I don't know if that was his first.

Second.

Second.

Second wife.

Where.

Yeah, she has been internalized in the writings that he had.

Had.

You know, Matilda is his third wife.

She's the one from 100 Love Sonnets.

He also has poems to this one with the one.

The woman that people think of, the woman from Il Postino, when they think of Neruda's love poetry.

It's his third wife.

This is his second wife, the one in between.

And they.

They hint at it in the movie where he says, like, you know, we're not gonna.

We're not gonna survive this.

We're.

We're gonna end.

They divorce pretty soon.

We have pretty soon after this.

Right, right.

He thanks her for kind of being his kind of political engine a little bit early, getting him into this, like, frame.

But, yeah, her a little bit.

You see him straying a few times.

I mean, he's.

What are you spending some time at brothels or these?

Well, let's take a step.

Right?

So this.

We're talking about Pichino.

One thing I want to mention before we move on to.

Because I want to move on to Neruda as a character at the end, you mentioned that he needed to be defined by Neruda to be spoken into existence.

At the end.

Spoiler alert.

When Pilochino is murdered, it.

The scene gets juxtaposed with Naruto finding him finally meeting after he passed away, saying, I know him.

And once Neruda is in France being introduced by Picasso to the press, you hear Pino saying, say my name.

Say my name.

Say my name.

Neruda mentions him in a fictional part of the story.

And then he's like, yes, now I'm defined.

Now I'm real.

Now I'll go down in history.

Right?

But I want to go back to Neruda because this is not a flattering portrait of Neruda.

You have somebody who is great, but also Has a giant ego.

Somebody who claims to love the people.

And you see, for example, that he does have strong feelings.

Yeah, he's affected by this.

He's affected by the injustice that goes on.

Well, but I'm saying the people speak out for him throughout.

But, but the real, the real him.

Yeah.

Well, he's.

He's concerned with, with himself.

So for example, he has a lot of vanity.

And I want to go to a scene after.

Well, when he's on the run, making the people that he.

That are helping him be on the run, making their life difficult by doing whatever he wants to do, going out in public in different suits, and he finds this young boy who's begging and Neruda stops.

You see him affected and he gives him his coat.

And in the very next scene, you see that coat causing the kid to be arrested by the police.

So what is this love?

Right?

Like, what is, what is the cost of Neruda's love?

Also, you've mentioned the use of poetry in the film.

He goes and multiple times you hear Puerto Cantar, Los Versos Mastristes Estanoche.

It's his greatest hits, which you see affecting his ego as well.

Like people want to hear what he wrote 20 years before.

Right.

And when he does this, he reluctantly does it and he puts on a voice.

He has this affected intonation when he recites these poems to the point where you see him reading a new poem to his wife and his wife says, don't use your voice.

Use the poet's voice.

And you see it affect him as well.

So it's this, this man who has very, these, these, these exotic, I'm blanking on the word, but very sensual tastes involved in orgy.

But even the orgies seem largely like non sexual in a way.

Very performative dancing and performance.

And he says, like I used when you mentioned the wife, like I used to be a prince, Right.

So there's this ego that comes with it.

So what's true, what's real?

Right?

Yeah, yeah.

I'd love to keep laying on the poetry within the film.

What's the line in English tonight I write the saddest lines.

Yeah, a greatest hits.

And as a poet, I don't know if you can relate to that.

Yes, I can.

You know, you go to an open mic, you go to a performance, and let's say, you know, either you're meeting a crowd for the first time, you want to do, you want to do, you know what, you know, has rocked before, you know, people love because it's Been universally acclaimed.

But at the same time, you want to challenge yourself.

You know, also, people, when they see you, they just want to hear what they.

What they heard.

For me, for the longest time, I was known as the Chicken man because I had this poem where I transformed into a chicken.

Exactly.

And that's it.

You know, do the chicken poem.

Do the chicken poem.

Do the chicken poem, you know, And I have fun doing it.

It's enjoyable.

But it doesn't, of course, you know, express the breadth of the artist that I feel that I am or I'm capable of.

So I could relate to maybe him feeling a little bit of both.

You know, you want.

You know, your ego's like, all right, I want them to love me, but at the same time, they want to challenge yourself.

And, you know, that's.

I agree.

I agree that that touched a nerve with me because when I was promoting my book, there were two poems that everybody who read the book wanted to hear or talk about.

It was to do List, which is in English and French, and Canto La Victoria, Santa Victory, which is falling in love with you, is falling in love with Spanish.

They just requested that over and over and over again.

And I enjoy those poems because they are.

They speak to who I was in a very specific moment in my life.

But I'm not that person anymore.

So I.

One of the struggles that I've had recently as a poet is I want to continue putting.

Expanding the reach of my debut poetry collection.

But I want to write new things.

I want to.

I.

You know, like, I'm.

I like the marketing of this book and the discussion of this book is taking away time from the things I have to say now, the experience I have to live now.

And when I see that in Neruda, I do feel empathy towards that vanity.

But it's also like he's.

He doesn't seem real.

It's not about who the man truly was as a senator, as a poet, as a.

As a lover, as a husband.

It's.

It seems that the movie seems to be preoccupied with the idea of the man during these times.

I was reading somewhere, too, that there were very few public appearances where he actually spoke that had been recorded.

Mainly people know him through the writing and, you know, I don't know what your experiences were like.

A visual on the man.

My visual came from El Pasino that was, you know, all through.

That was the first that I saw kind of this jolly, you know, heavier guy, or.

I remember the bikes.

This one is alluded to as the fat man.

You Know, and, like, more derogatorily well.

Or.

Yeah.

Someone into excess and hedonist.

Hedonistic pleasures.

But I don't know what your first connection to Neruda was.

And if this, you felt, made you more connected to Neruda or, you know, challenged, you know, your picture of him in general, for me, yeah, Il pustino, I think it was shown in a Spanish class in.

I don't know if it was middle school or maybe beginning of high school.

What a gift, you know, for the teacher to actually show that to us.

And then I think I started getting into sonnets a little bit around that time.

It was like Shakespeare, but also Neruda, like the idea of a sonnet.

And.

And, you know, kind of knew him as this love figure.

And only now, you know, getting more into.

Yeah.

The political pulse that Neruda.

That Neruda did have.

Sure.

I.

So I'm from South America.

I'm Peruvian.

We are neighbors with Chile, which is where Neruda's from.

And I learned to read at a very early age.

And my grandmother was a university professor.

So she introduced me to Neruda pretty soon, maybe five or six.

And I knew him as the love poet first.

Right.

I love you and I don't love you.

Like, all these different parts of the hundred sonnets which were.

And all the nature imagery that he had.

He has strong, strong use of nature imagery which is reflected in the cinematography of this movie.

Then I got to know him as the surrealist poet.

You know, when he began, the very next thing was 20 love poems and a song to spare.

And those poems are surreal.

Like the images that they have are not necessarily accessible to a lot of people.

Right.

At that.

And then as I, you know, I grew to love his work.

And then I read Ode to a Song.

And to me, it was understanding in my head how this man who wrote I can write the saddest verses this evening versus, you know, Ode to a Sock, it's.

Who is.

These are two different people.

And then I learned about his role in the Spanish Revolution.

His circle of literary friends, including Cesar Vallejo, Garcia Lorca, that he had in Madrid, the fact that he was a diplomat.

He was my first introduction to poets and intellectuals and artists being representatives of their nation across the world, building bridges, which is something that's important to me.

And I.

And I saw that he became.

He went from high concept, abstract ideas to very, very focused, very simple language to promote complex ideas.

Right.

Like the delivery mechanism changed in order to.

To help promote this idea of.

Of Socialism, communism, to the rest of the world.

He was a devout Communist, burned a lot of bridges because of his support of Stalin and Lenin in his intellectual circles, which some he regretted later, some he did not.

But I didn't understand that the reason he became such a staunch communist is that he saw his friends murdered under the Franco regime.

Right.

Garcia Lorca being.

Being.

I think, one of the main impetus, plus meeting his wife, who also introduced him to.

To communism, the wife that is, you know, depicted in this movie.

So for me, my.

My exposure to Neruda showed me a man can be many things.

A poet can be many things.

You can evolve, you can change.

And, you know, I.

He.

Which all the questionable, which all still encompasses a poet.

It could be many things, but through and through.

Still a poet because.

Because I came in contact was.

Even when he's on the run, is he still living poetically?

And what does it mean to live poetically?

Like, he's writing through that, but it is taking up a lot of his energies and, you know, kind of he's making a game of it, which in itself, yeah, is.

Is poetic.

I aspire to live poetically, whatever that means.

You know, I think you as well of, you know, traveling, of having new experiences, interacting with new people.

But what.

Sometimes things take you off of that path or, you know, whether you're boxed in.

And even when he's on the run, he's not boxed in yet.

I mean, he's.

Well, he refuses to be boxed in.

Right.

And this is, you know, going back to what he means to me.

The other thing he taught me is I can love, and I want to say despise, but be disappointed by a person at the same time.

Because as when I research them, I'm like, oh, he abandoned his child because he had a little learning disability.

He was a horrible first husband.

You don't see any.

Any sign of the.

Was the child from the first marriage.

From the first marriage.

So in this movie, they actually bring in the first one because they're like, oh, he did all of these things, these negative things.

So he's gonna speak publicly on a radio show and denounce him.

Oh, that's right.

And then.

And then she's like.

And she loves him.

She's like, you know, he's a good man.

He's a loving man.

He made mistakes, but he's been good to me.

Again, fictionalized.

Right.

But.

But he.

He.

He was married.

He had a child, and because the child had a learning disability, he abandoned the child, and the child died a Very young.

A horrible death, I thought encephalitis or.

Yeah.

Just.

Yeah.

Swelling of her.

And it was just horrible.

And I'm like, how is this person that I love capable of.

Of this thing?

Right.

And it's like, of somebody I didn't even know, which from a young age, you know, I. I wasn't even 10 when I was going through these questions, and I.

It prepared me to know.

It prepared me later in life when I have, you know, when I met people and loved people and they weren't what I thought them to be, and it helped me just accept them for who they are.

I don't have to agree with the things that they do.

I don't have to support some of the things that they do, but I can still love some aspects of these people, which is a very complex, complex idea that I had to deal with that sometimes I still have trouble with.

Well, yeah.

Now more so than artists, of course, that.

Yeah.

That canceled.

And their.

Their work.

I know.

Yeah.

Neruda.

There were a couple boards where he was.

There were questionable practices with not just his wives, but other women that had came up as well.

And.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, reconciling some of that and whether or not knowing this, that his poetry stayed honest throughout this.

Like, was it reflective of that duality or.

All right, this is who he was then.

You know, like, if you go back to that first when I loved her and sometimes she loved me too, and, you know, I loved and sometimes I didn't.

That can be applied through and through.

Yes, to that.

Back and forth.

You know, nature, it's.

It's a.

It's a puzzling.

Yeah.

Well, here's the thing.

Like, when you look at his poetry and when you look at him.

And also with the things that I'm exploring now, I think.

I don't know if he was honest.

I don't know if he was honest because I don't know what he was thinking.

I don't.

I don't know if it matters.

I don't know if I don't know what it means to have an honest piece of art because I'm downloading it through my prism, through my framework and lens of seeing the world.

Right.

So is it honest to me?

So I do like that he has a lot of nature imagery, because I can see that out in the world and look at it from a different perspective, but I don't know.

When he screams for the plight of the people under tyrannical government, he was sleeping in silk sheets.

So how honest Is that right?

But maybe he had both perspectives.

Who knows?

I mean, that's something that's called into attention in the movie where there is a woman from the Communist Party who's like, may I have a kiss from the poet?

They were at a dinner party when he's in exile, and his wife says, yeah, go.

Go ahead, do it.

And then she says, I just want to know one thing.

When the revolution comes, will I be like him?

Fat, content, happy, drinking wine, having sex, doing all that?

Or will I be like me, who's been cleaning the ass of the Virgos for years, and he's affected by that.

You see the affectation in that sense, in that moment.

But it's.

I think the movie is questioning, like, what was it?

Can it be both?

Do they negate each other?

Can you, can you feel empathy for your.

For your fellow human beings but still be part of the problem?

Yeah, I.

Who comes to mind with that is Michael Moore a lot.

Okay.

Like where, where.

Yeah.

Such a champion for, for the unrepresented and these issues.

And yet, you know, his movies end up making, you know.

Yeah.

You know, millions.

And he, he gets lauded, always fighting the good fight.

But there was that kind of disconnect of, yeah.

You know, living a relatively lavish lifestyle.

But also, is that what we put up?

Do we expect our, our heroes or idols to be saints?

Right.

I mean, you got like an Adam Sandler, you know, on the other side who's, you know, there to give joy and all dresses and sweatpants.

And he doesn't show that he's.

That he's wealthy, but that's, you know, his choice.

Someone that dresses in suits and nicely and lives that, that, that lifestyle.

Great.

Great.

They can still be, I think, a man among, among the people.

I.

It's like he can be a voice for them.

But, but is he there day in, day out?

He's not.

Yeah, like you said, you know, shoveling the shit.

He's not, you know, not day in and day out doing that with people.

But, you know, can his words and can, can that give them hope and, and, and comfort in the enduring those times?

Like he, he has you mentioned earlier, he has the respect of, of the, of other artists too.

And, you know, you mentioned that woman.

But there for me, the pivotal scene was that.

That singer that he met.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

I mean, beautiful speech that she had delivered.

I don't know if it was a.

No, it was a he.

It was, it was an effeminate he.

Effeminate he.

Or maybe, you know, was Actually trans.

Because she.

She.

No, he referred to himself.

Like, he talked to me.

Hombre, hombre.

Artista, Artista.

Man to man, artist to artist.

Yeah, and.

And like, put that.

That was someone that was, you know, artist that wasn't achieving fame.

Kind of just.

Yeah, someone, you know, lounge singer or you would appropriate to, you know, like someone that hasn't really achieved, you know, worldwide fame.

Put that to Picasso.

But both being kind of like.

All right, well, let's give a little bit of context.

And he only wants to hear the.

Yeah, so let's give of context, right?

Like, this is a scene where he's being persecuted already and he goes out to a bohemian party.

This.

This artist is singing in the middle of the party.

And then the police come and show up.

Because Neruda is, by the way, throughout the film, Naruta is sending them his poetry books and his poems to tease them on a.

On a chase through these red mailboxes, through these.

Yeah, no, but he's actually sending him, like, his book, right.

And to give him clues as to where he's going to be and all that stuff.

And in that party, he goes and he meets people and he does again.

Puedo cantar los versos mastristes.

And to the point where the.

The.

The.

The singer kisses him, right?

And then the police come in and Neruda is in drag, hiding out, and he evades.

And then they keep.

Based on a poetry book that he had received.

Like, Paluccino figures out that, no, he's at that party, he goes back and he interrogates him.

That's when he has the conversation, which I thought was probably the best written interaction in the movie.

He has that conversation about Neruda with this.

The singer, this artist.

And the artist goes, like, he talked to me, this famous artist.

He talked to me man to man, artist to artist, and asked about my work, asked about my interaction.

And I can tell you, you know, I would consider myself.

I don't consider myself Naruto, but I consider myself a relatively established poet now in the Miami poetry scene.

And when I have people who are starting their poetry journey and they come search me out and want to talk to me, and I start having conversations.

I see.

I hope this doesn't sound egotistical, but I see this spark of, like, I'm being recognized by somebody whose work I respect, the same way that I feel when I talk to a colleague or somebody whose work I respect.

Like, let's.

When you and I became friends, I told you it's so nice to talk to someone who understands this language of like, you know, what a pantom is, so we can talk about it.

Right.

Like, and it's.

It's not something I have widely available to me.

So I.

Again, this moment where I think they're trying to explain how Neruda struck a chord with the people resonated deeply with me.

Yeah, deeply.

Yeah.

Me as well.

No, I love that you.

You mentioned the interactions.

Yeah.

With.

With.

With people, you know, kind of up and comers and, you know, and putting yourself when you were just starting out as well.

And.

And, yeah, like, wow.

I'm talking to, you know, to Saul Williams or, you know, seeing this.

This performer that I really admire and.

Yeah, yeah.

And then when they can either become peers on that other side, you have Picasso that is actually championing him throughout, which is an established artist working in a different medium.

And then I thought the film also had kind of, like, there was some cubist touches too.

That was, I guess, a shout out to, you know, the pervading art form of the time.

So I guess that's.

That's based in truth.

We have Picasso.

I was reading, you know, my guy Jodorowsky, he knew him, he considered him the best poet of all.

I really kind of want to do endless poetry next, just because.

Okay, just because that's, you know, he was, you know, Russian, Chilean, and.

Whereas, you know, this.

This film becomes political, poetic, you know, film noir.

You know, Jodorowsky is that surrealist approach.

And I thought we were going to get a little more of that, given that bathroom scene in the beginning, that maybe there were going to be a couple more surrealist touches.

There are not as much as the other one is, just so they're sprinkled.

Right.

But that's not Neruda's poetry.

It was, and it became something else.

And his poetry is more concrete.

It's this juxtaposition of my opinion, concrete and abstract.

And I think in touching with the visual style of the film.

I think that's where Lorraine puts it in.

Right.

I know that him and the cinematographer work closely to craft the look.

And you see a lot of Dreamline sequences and a lot of landscapes that are edited together in between these narratives.

Like when you're having Neruda have a conversation, you're seeing the conversation shot from many different angles.

So I'll give you an example.

At the beginning, when he goes to talk to the president of.

Or to one of the senators that has the ear of the president before he's starting being chased and Persecuted because communism became illegal.

You see them.

He goes to a party, and then you see them shot from different angles, having one conversation, but throughout the day without gaps in the narrative of the conversation.

And then you have that nature imagery juxtaposed in between.

So you have this visual style that's, I believe, trying to blend and create a physical manifestation of.

Of his emotional state.

Of the emotional state of his poetry.

Like one notable visual concept involved, like I said, the Chilean landscapes with almost otherworldly images, like the cubist images that you mentioned, to evoke a tension between reality and the imagination of his life and his poetry.

Right.

I think it helped evoke a mood rather than focusing just on literal aspects of the poet's life.

I mean, what do you think?

Because that motif went throughout the film even before we got to the projectings, the projected screens and all that stuff.

I remember early, you know, after the bathroom scene, he's.

He's dressed as Lawrence of Arabia at a party, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And I was trying, like, I. I was trying to, like.

What are you trying to say with.

With this.

I just.

I loved it where.

Yeah.

Like putting on the makeup and then, you know, whether he's that.

That type of figure.

Yeah.

And like oftentimes, you know, staring directly at the camera, you know, these different.

Different angles.

I love that because to me, it showed, like, why choose that specific costume, that specific moment?

Why?

Nothing's an accident when you have a film and an auteur like Lorraine.

Right.

So I think they're showing him as a political figure.

There's connotations to.

To Lawrence, but they're also, I think, showing the route as a figure that transcends time and space.

Right.

Like he.

He transcends that on the boat.

That's just the cut out or whatever that he's just.

Yeah, yeah.

There's like universal themes of exile, universal themes of identity or resistance.

And I think this.

That's a symbolic approach right.

To his life.

And I think it reflects how his poetry stands as a testament to the human condition.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Won't one of the quote, I won't go to jail or disappear.

I want a wild goose chase there.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I made a note.

When the inspector first arrives, he enters with a typewriter.

That was the kind of the first clue that he's a fictional.

Which is you just hear.

And then you have the.

And that sound, imagery wise.

Yeah.

You have that kind of.

Just that.

All right.

This is kind of like being written as it is.

Plus, he was big into detective novels as well.

So can we talk about Palucci?

No, I want to talk about that.

That B side, that narrative, that.

Yeah.

Who becomes an additional.

More so the protagonist.

I don't know if you had read that too, that Pellicino is it.

I read somewhere that it was based on a real person, but no, they.

Took the name of the first police officer.

Right, right.

But then he's the bastard's son, so.

It's safe to say he was pursued.

Perhaps somewhere.

I read 300 policemen were actually at one time that were after him.

No, I believe he was pursued.

One of the things they bring up in the movie and one of the things I've heard and read when I was reading into the history of this is he needed to be pursued.

It was very inconvenient that they caught him because they would have a martyr.

Right.

And I.

Again, it goes to that duality, like, why are you chasing someone that you don't want to catch?

But you have to show that force to make a statement against them.

But if you catch them, you.

You have a.

You have a Jesus situation in your hands.

A parallel to, like, you know, Jesus Christ in the Bible.

Like, we.

What happens when they caught him?

They put him down and then what happened?

Right.

What they didn't want to happen with Christianity happened with Christianity.

Right.

Like, it became.

It became a force.

That's the concept of the martyr.

But I think that Pelissono, he's an obsessive character.

Obsessive, but.

But, you know, he ends up humanizing him.

I mean, giving a little bit of his backstory, talking a little bit about his childhood, that he was a bastard child.

I remember.

And.

Yeah, and, you know, having his own.

His own demons played by Bernal with, you know, such restraint, you know, like a little bit, like, for some of his posturing.

Yeah, a lot of posturing.

Right.

So.

So I think the pursuit of Neruda by Peruce now, it mirrors then the poetic search for truth.

Right.

Like he's.

He's obsessive.

Chasing Neruda seems like a metaphor for the pursuit of an unattainable or the unknown.

Because again, we are talking about.

The way that I see Neruda portrayed in the film is as an idea, as.

As the.

As the legend of the poet, as the myth of the poet.

Right.

What hit me earlier was he's an inspector representative of self reflection and introspection.

An inspector and introspection, exactly.

His quest to capture him, it mirrors a kind of literary or an intellectual pursuit.

He's chasing an idea.

He's chasing a philosophy or a vision of the world that is difficult to capture in concrete terms for him.

Right.

That's not how he sees it.

His own narrative is.

Like I said, he's obsessed.

It's one of displacement.

He's like.

He's trying to earn his name, right?

Because he goes, my mother was a prostitute.

And then he goes into, like, I.

You see him talking to the statue of his father, like, I will earn my name, father.

I will.

I will do this.

And it.

It goes.

It takes.

I think that takes this from.

From a plot device and it elevates it to, I don't know, something existential, like intellectual.

The exploration that poetry entails.

Right.

Like in.

And you break it down.

His pursuer is a reader of his poetry trying to grasp something he cannot understand.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah.

Levels of meta.

Meta.

Ness.

Metaphor and meta.

The.

The.

He calls himself a supporting character, too.

Like, do you remember that there was a play, six characters in search of an author?

That was the first kind of, like, where a character is aware of their own.

They are aware of them, not themselves being a character.

I'm not familiar with that play, but I'm familiar with the device.

It's been explored in a bunch of different.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm trying to think of what.

A more modern one, where they are.

And.

Yeah, like, that's.

I mean, that's applied to all film as well.

But if you.

If you relate that to a poem, like, is.

The.

The speaker of a poem is not always the poet.

You can write from a different, you know, perspective.

So I don't know if Neruda had done that much.

Maybe he's writing fiction.

But, you know.

Yeah, you're.

You're using.

Maybe I.

Or you're.

You're following a speaker and.

Yeah, it's somebody else's, you know, story or somebody else's narrative.

I mean, I've written poems, you know, about action movie stars, whatever their perspective of things.

It's a fun thing to explore.

I know.

You know, this.

You generated something that.

That after watching this.

I did.

I'd love to hear it if.

Sure.

And now you.

You sat with it for a day or so and.

A couple of days.

A couple days.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because I.

Again, I was.

I was struck by how similar it was to the Color of Pomegranates, even though it has more lineal narrative.

But before we go into that, let's just talk a little bit about poetry in this film.

Right.

Just because, again, I think it's not somebody sitting there and reading poems.

His poems are part of dialogue or recitals in the film.

It's not just over.

It's not just quotes.

And again, the visual style.

Right.

And then the themes of his poetry of exile, like I mentioned, of identity.

It's.

I'm curious to see what you felt because again, we're exploring how poetry is represented.

In fact, how did you.

What did you take away from the use of poetry in this film?

Yeah, I mean, a lot of different ways with which poetry can present, be presented.

I like to think poetry is, you know, that combination of comedy, stand up, theater, improv.

And this, you know, I think showed, you know, the world that art poetry on a page, poetry being spoken, poetry one on one with somebody.

A poem can have, you know, a political pulse to it.

It can be about love.

It doesn't have to be about any one thing.

It presented, you know, kind of that breath and one that was really striking to me and something that I'm allotting to and we're starting to get into is the idea of the group poem.

You hear the double voiceover spoiler alert at the end where he and the inspector, they are saying the lines at the same time.

And that really was like.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Like, you know, it's kind of a layering.

And where is.

Who's saying them and who wrote them?

You know, start the idea of like, if I wrote a line, can you say something that I wrote?

You know, if you believe in it?

Sure.

You know, maybe we have to come to.

But can you say something, you know, that you don't necessarily believe in?

Idea of a group poem.

I like that.

That, that was.

It bridges a gap.

Right at the end, they were united through his poetry.

Yes, exactly.

These two diametrically opposed foes, one real, one fake, who's a figment in the story.

Is he real or was he always fake?

Right.

Until Neruda speaks him into existence for the world.

So no, again, I saw poetry as a unifying.

As a unifying device.

So after watching this movie, I wrote a poem called Persecution.

And the poet like to hear, here goes.

What becomes of an idealist when he is confronted by his ego.

A struggle violent enough to shatter glass mountains forged in the molten orgies of wine and poetry.

Look around, look around.

The danger of a poem is palpable in the rhythmic glowing of every star of the firmament.

Every sharpened blade of grass that tickles the feet of your naked lover as she marches across tomorrow's gardens, yet easily smothered in the excess of satin sheets and exotic cocktails, ambrosia and cyanide.

The love of the people.

The people that love you because you love them.

You love them as you feast on foie gras while they chew on shoe leather to survive.

They love you as you grow fat of their starvation, because you nourish them with pop art, with false connection.

You make love to them with a carnation between your teeth, reciting poems made popular decades before, verses older than your self respect, Brittle caramel words to be savored atop rotted gums.

A decrepit body playing its sexuality with erect ideas and flaccid intent without the song of the woodpecker emerging from emerald woods.

This is not my revolution.

Yes, that is excellent.

Sexy, political, provocative, emotional, May or may not be influenced.

But what I'm experiencing in my world now.

Yeah, no, I mean, that's.

That's hitting it from.

From all sides.

What was that line, really?

Quick poetry of the.

That they love you for loving a poet,.

Yet easily smothered in the excess of satin sheets and exotic cocktails, ambrosia and cyanide.

The love of the people.

The people that love you because you love them.

You love them as you feast on foie gras while they chew on shoe leather to survive.

They love you as you grow fat off their starvation because you nourish them with pop art, with false connection.

You make love to them with a carnation between your teeth.

But I love you because you love them.

Right.

Right.

Sometimes.

And sometimes not.

Yeah.

You love them while you're Caught the reference.

Whether you.

You love them while.

While your poems purport that you love them, but yet in private, do you love them?

That's.

Yeah.

Or can you.

Can you still love them while you don't have their best interest at heart?

Right.

Like.

Well, you.

Or can you love them while your focus is yourself, but you still love them.

Like love is complex and is that true love?

And even.

Even if you're not treating them on a one to one basis as kindly as you could, does the output of your work fill them with love?

Generations later, when you write something down that you go back to.

I can sing the saddest verses tonight, people are still clamoring for it.

20 Years later.

He wrote something that lasted, that outlasted him.

And it means.

It means something to me.

Was that his act of love?

Yeah.

Yeah.

He couldn't love his child, but he loved the world.

And what does that make him?

Oh, yeah.

That I always ponder where, you know, you end up feeling a greater degree of empathy for some, you know.

You know, a larger loss overseas, you know, when there's that lack of familiarity.

He's.

He's considered someone just to go into it.

He's considered someone who loved women, but when they were going to rename the Chilean airport after him, there was a feminist movement that said, hey, have you read his biography?

There's a passage about him raping somebody in Asia written by him.

I think I was just starting to read about that as well.

Right, right.

Can you.

Can.

Can we reconcile that love can.

Growing up, I loved Ignition.

I loved.

I Believe I Can Fly.

Right.

I loved R. Kelly.

I can't listen to his stuff now.

Knowing this stuff.

I'm terrified of watching, like, Michael Jackson documentaries.

Right.

Because, like, I definitely.

He's.

You know, I.

It's interesting.

I. I can.

I play Jackson 5 a lot more because it was a time where I felt maybe before, you know, where he was in a childhood that was kind of taken away from him.

I can Listen to Jackson 5, but not the later works, which is interesting.

Like, all right, yeah.

Can you listen.

Can you watch the earlier or listen to the earlier works of somebody and does that work that is created during the time ever betray what they are doing behind the scenes?

I don't know.

One of my favorite rap albums is My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

Do you think I want to play Kanye music right now at all?

Like, I.

And it was one of my favorite albums, like, in terms of.

In terms of production, in terms of some of the things that were said, but I can't.

Based on current actions, I can't reconcile it.

Even stuff like College Dropout, I still like, you're not gonna see me at the club, like, jamming to this anymore because of my issues with the actions of the artist.

And I've had to question.

After learning the things that I've learned about Neruda, does the work of art still resonate with me?

He is one of my favorite poets, but learning about his life hasn't made it easy, if that makes sense.

And I think that.

I think that the fact that people still resonate with what he's like, it's like, you can choose.

Yeah.

And because I guess.

Is he the lover?

Is he the.

Like, we love him.

We love him as the lover, as the poet, or.

He is.

He is revered as a senator who fought for certain things.

He is considered.

When Allende, Salvador Allende, who was the first democratically elected socialist president in the Western Hemisphere, took office, he credited Neruda with helping that happen because.

Because his poetry moving from surrealism to something very concrete, something very simple, allowed.

Allowed people to.

To understand concepts that were too complex.

I've seen Donald Trump employ the dialectical realism in the way that he.

He moved forward with his political message the way Neruda did.

If you hear Donald Trump interviews from the 80s to 90s, he does not speak the way he does now.

He does not.

He just.

He doesn't.

It's an intonation that was developed and while I don't agree with his messages, I see with the simplicity that they're delivered to make sure that anybody with any reading level can understand what he's trying to say.

Yes, yes.

That is something rooted,.

That accessibility.

So.

I don't know.

I. I enjoyed the movie thoroughly.

I thought the soundtrack was great.

I thought cinematography was beautiful.

I love the way that it was shot.

I like the.

The juxtaposition of a B movie plot with an actual historical event.

The meta.

Ness of the Palucha.

No line.

The exploration of Neruda.

But I don't think we saw Myopic.

I found.

I think we saw an exploration of the myth of the poet.

Yeah.

Which.

Which.

Which is great.

I mean, you know.

Yeah.

I mean, now, you know.

Well, some of the history, of course.

Yeah.

Is.

Is blurred that you don't really.

You really know behind the scenes.

A lot of the, A lot of the stuff.

I mean, can we combine the word poetic and poetic instead of a biopic?

It was a poetic.

Poetic.

I'll take poetic.

We have poetic.

I. I think.

Yeah, as long as you don't get the ick.

Yeah, I think that's.

I think that's.

That's what we were getting.

No, I, I recommend it.

And it's a. Yeah.

A poetry film about.

About a poet.

And you know, there was definitely, as you say, things that.

That have come up, you know, about him.

But, you know, you can still, I think, get.

Yeah.

Get a lot out of this when there's that, you know, that blend of kind of fiction and I mean, I think of Woody Allen.

Of course, if, you know, some of these earlier ones, there's things that.

That, all right.

They.

They hint at all right.

This is, you know, what is, you know, behind the.

The scenes of.

Of this individual a little bit.

But, you know, they're.

They're then layered with metaphor and some other things.

Yeah.

I mean, how about.

How about Picasso?

Did he.

Picasso was another one.

I don't know his.

Yeah.

His personal life.

You know, I mean, it's just also.

Also not a good partner.

Also not a good partner.

Right, right.

But you know what?

I think maybe the value of art comes from whether it makes you think or not.

Does it make you question things?

And does it lead you to want to know more?

Does it lead you down a path of introspection, of self knowledge?

And I, I think that Neruda does and I think this film does as well.

So in that sense, I think it's successful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I want to read, read some more.

Naruto still read his odes.

If you haven't really gotten into his,.

Like kind of a collective stories of him too.

In my house, the.

I forgot the name of it, but the Machu Picchu long form poem he did is very, very good.

You should check that out.

Years ago I gave a book to somebody and I wrote a book and they gave it back.

Damn.

Ew.

This was.

Yeah.

Before I met my wife.

And it was like it was under a work circumstance.

I just gave another book and we found it to be inappropriate.

I mean, what book was it?

Just the collective stories of Naruto.

Damn.

HR violations and everything, which is.

So interesting, you know, the passing of books.

And then I gave the math teacher a book of math jokes.

She had accepted and then I had given.

This was the.

She was an art teacher, but then became a math teacher.

Just very quickly.

I'll tell you a story.

When I was one of the.

When I took on a job and I first became a people leader, I received the evaluations of some of the team, of all the team members.

And one of them, the evaluator, said they were suffering from the, from the victim mentality and all that stuff.

So I'm like, okay, cool.

So I, you know, me, first time, first time as a people leader, a bit younger.

I'm like, you know what book?

Maybe the Four Agreements be impeccable with your word.

I think the Four Agreements would be a good book for them too to, to address this issue that I've seen.

And first meeting went Greg, sure, I'll read it here, I'll give you the PDF.

You don't even need to buy the book, here's the PDF, etc.

And then I got, I went to get my haircut and I got a call from HR as I was walking in to get my hair cut saying, hey, listen, look, we know you, I know you wouldn't do this, but we received a complete.

Did you give this resource a book?

And I'm like, yeah, yeah, look, this was the evaluation I received.

And I.

That, well, this book is heavily skewed towards the King James version of the Bible, and they feel like you're religiously trying to, like, indoctrinate them or persecute them.

I'm like, okay, we're never doing books at work again.

I'll recommend podcasts, but I'll never do that.

I don't know.

I think the Neruda thing would hurt me more.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And.

And, you know, I mean, I. I hadn't.

Hadn't read it.

I wonder if I could find that exchange back in the day.

But.

All right, we'll.

We'll edit it in.

But.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think we.

I think we both agree this is a movie that people should check out.

See the movie, write your own poem based on.

Great poem, by the way.

Thank you.

I love that.

Definitely looking forward to reading it at an open mic and seeing if I should read it.

Look around, look around.

I don't.

I see that's.

I never.

Okay, we're gonna end this now.

But I've never thought about the concept of the poet voice and how it affects.

But this movie made me think of all of these things.

That's right.

Completely.

That, you know, this is me reading the poem.

I read his poems in my mind growing up.

Like, I never.

When I read his poem, it's puerto cantarlos versos mastristes estanoche sent here que le perdido, blah, blah, blah.

I've never in my mind read it as.

Like, I.

It just.

It never resonated with me because I wasn't from that time or place.

Maybe somebody in his contemporaries found it to be amazing the way.

Sneak peek.

I recently watched how.

Which we'll talk about later, about Alan Ginsberg and the way that he read his poetry also has a poet voice.

So it's just free slam.

Free slam.

Wait, wait.

But.

But do you feel you have a poet voice in the delivery?

Your delivery?

Like, you have to tell me, because I.

Well, that's what I'm saying.

Do you.

I try to bring sometimes the emotion that I'm feeling before it or get me into the state, you know, with a story as to the emotion that I have.

Most importantly, I want mine to sound like a conversation in rhyme.

So be conversational, but interconnected through wordplay and rhyme.

Sure.

So still.

So it's kind of like fighting against the.

Or, you know, like fighting against each other.

You know, like if you're.

You, you're.

You're pretty even tone with yours.

So then that allows an audience to then feel it with where you're going to go.

You'll.

You'll have, you know, some slight raises and lowers, but it then gets.

All right.

The listener is able to feel that, what they want to feel with it.

It's interesting.

So I'll give you my perspective on hearing you perform.

To me, there's a musical, specifically a hip hop influence your delivery.

Right.

But it's.

It's, again, very.

It's accessible.

You don't do it too fast.

I can make out the words.

But there is a musical.

Give me a line from one of your poems.

Right now.

I'm a blend of my friends in sync with their idiosyncrasies, barely mimicking their ticks and tocks.

Like Timberlake shaking and talking while moonwalking.

Okay, but see, when you.

When I've seen you, I've heard you.

When I hear you perform something like, you go, I'm a blend of my friends.

Like, there's, like.

When you hear me read a poem, like the.

The one I just.

The one I just read, you know, like, when you.

Like, what becomes of an idealist when he is confronted by his ego?

Like, I.

It's a little bit different, but there's still music in it.

Like, I.

It's.

Maybe it's like hearing your voice inside your head versus how your friends hear it when you're talking.

Like, the first time you hear your voice in a recorded pocket, you're like, oh, my God, I sound like that.

That's how I sound.

Oh, no.

Or maybe you're like, yeah, that's how I sound.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

So you don't.

Maybe we don't do it, but it's part.

Yeah, we're just.

We're just allowing it to be.

While you're writing.

Are you.

Are you saying it out loud sometimes?

Yeah.

Not all the time.

More now than I used to.

More.

Because you.

But you know what it is?

It's being part of these open mics and knowing that I'm performing, like, now.

It's one thing to, again, write something.

A struggle violent enough to shatter glass mountains forging the molten orgies of wine and poetry versus a struggle violent enough to shatter glass mountains forged in the molten orgies of wine and poetry.

It's different the way that I. I'm not the same poet that wrote some of my earlier stuff.

Yeah.

I'll write in, like, all right.

Ways with which the audience can kind of catch up sometimes if I'm going.

And then, you know, maybe like an aside or something.

But, you know, you have some of those that they can kind of catch up.

So, like.

Yeah.

I mean, I may add things that aren't written on the page to that.

Now I'll.

I'll add them, but I'll also write them in too, because I know.

Yeah.

When you're, you know, switching from things but like jumping from image to image to image to image.

Yeah.

It's hard, you know, like if.

If you're taking two things that are seemingly connected, can your voice, like, accurate, like, honestly relay that?

I guess if you're saying something and then.

And then you switch complete topics, it.

It's sometimes hard for the listener to stay on the same emotional through line within that.

I think the best example I can think of is.

And we've talked about this before during my.

And you've attended.

During my book release a couple of years ago, I purposely didn't read till the end, and I only read maybe one or two poems.

12 Poems were read by 12 different poets from the Miami poetry community and not read, performed.

And the way they performed those poems were very different to the way that I performed those poems.

So it's.

The inflections show different emotions.

Like Paul Lunair read a poem of mine called Lingerie, and his reading highlighted the anger that I knew was there within the poem, but it was much more explicit.

Mine was a much drier, maybe reading from somebody who felt resentment and was being a bit more passive aggressive and he was raging.

Right, right.

And it's.

It's the same words, but two different poems, one shot.

So the.

I think maybe we need to do another podcast, like as an addendum to talk about the, The.

The performance of a poem.

Can it change the meaning?

Yeah, yeah.

Active voice.

And you know, Shakespeare too, I guess, too.

With how many incantations?

Incantations.

What am I thinking of?

How many incarnations?

Incarnations.

Incarnations There.

There have been of the plays and.

Yeah, with completely, you know, some.

Some different readings.

All right, well, we're at, you know, kind of the.

The hour three mark.

This has been lovely.

Poets on Poetry Films Cinema Poesia signing off.

Goodbye.

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