As a child, William was taken with his family on a trip to France. He was eight years old when he wrote about their encounter with French cuisine: "Now we ask for bread and butter. Thanks for it in French we utter. Better bread was never broken. Worser French was never spoken"
I bought the VHS as soon as it came out. I have kept my old machine largely so that I can watch it occasionally. A masterpiece and one of best performances by Lionel Roach, Samantha Morton too. There is a great song during the end credits, a pumped version of Xanadu with the Coleridge/Roach wondering the neon lit streets of modern London.
This film I thought almost impossible to find online until now...Hooray, one of my favourite films dramatising the life of two of my favourite poets...
Wow. amazing movie! I remember how in college i was so overwhelmed by the Romantics.. i really liked wordsworth ideas and all but later i found everything different in his poetry but Coleridge his poems was all sublime and still is.
@Hippie Chic not true. I knew several people on serious drugs, and they never said or did anything remotely poetic. It has to be in you somewhere already.
@@gentillygirl545there is a difference Madame between the way they were seen before 1980 and the way are seen now. The greatest advancements in humankind were invented, dreamed, created, discovered and birthed during their use. It wasn't until the 1980s when they became illegal and propogandized as an excuse, a justification for bad behavoir. Only after the government realized those using them discovered experience meant & mattered more than material wealth. When they realized those on them wouldn't kill to have.
The saddest Movie I have ever watched. Great Sadness and Pity is what I have felt for Samuel Coleridge. I could never carry on with Life as he did. Yet, he did it
A fine film. Love the sequence which depicted "Frost at Midnight" also the finale," Kubla Khan" was very powerful, if not historically accurate. Some of the characterisations, particularly that depicting Wordsworth were unduly harsh and painted him in a particularly bad light and demonised his character. On the other hand, Samuel Taylor's character and poetry were beautifully and sympathically presented. He wrote some of the greatest poems of all time. Magical poems that have enriched my life since I first encountered them in school many many years ago. Love the film, despite some historical inaccuracies.
Great stuff. I must confess that I shall for ever think of Sue Limb's magnificent radio spoof "The Wordsmiths at Gorsemere" at the first mention of any of these great poets. At the very end of the Wordsmiths saga, Sue Limb encourages the listener to enjoy the real thing. Excellent advice.
I know 'historical accuracy' is relative, but if you're interested, please go and read some reputable biographies of the main players after watching this. I recommend Stephen Gill for Wordsworth, Richard Holmes for Coleridge and Frances Wilson or Polly Atkin for Dorothy. What bothers me the most is how Mary Wordsworth is portrayed here. For the record, Mary Wordsworth (nee Hutchinson) was a childhood friend of Dorothy and William - they originally met at school in Penrith. William and Dorothy were friends with her for YEARS before Mary married William. They bonded over losing their parents at a young age, and when the Wordsworths moved to Grasmere, they started the journey from the Hutchinson's family home in Sockburn, North Yorkshire. Dorothy and her brother could be intense and egotistical at times, but they formed a tight-knit family with Mary. The two women worked togeher to manage their home, raise the five Wordsworth children, and transcribe William's poetry. Mary in particular gets a raw deal in this film, when she brought a great deal of joy and inspiration to the lives of her Romantic writers
I do love any portrayal of my favorite poets. Even if I’m constantly saying “oh they didn’t do that” or “it wasn’t like that” but overall, this is incredible to see so well done and so passionately. The poetry is in the movie! We can’t sneer at that! At least the poetry is well represented in the movie 🤓🤓
Pandaemonium is a 2000 film, directed by Julien Temple, screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce. It is based on the early lives of English poets Samuel Taylor and William Wordsworth
Odd how watching seems to have altered normal syntax in your comments. You write like a 19th century versifier, "I cared not...it awakened me to poets that I knew not of" ! Oh, rapture, that steals upon my heart... etc etc. Really? You never heard of these people? Hmmm.
Sorry to be pedantic, but the film cannot be 'based on' accuracy as though accuracy is an attribute of the referent. Accuracy describes the representation of events, not the events themselves.
What truth left under the sky, I couldn't imagine so high, I wish I could never fly, To Xanadu I would never try, Opium I would never buy, I would rest in shy!!!
I'm glad that I finally found it also..I could never find it on RU-vid until someone finally posted it. glad that I am finally watching it. Though I feel bad for the main character..poor thing..
About halfway into the movie when Wordsworth pulls out the AR-15 from beneath his frock coat and wastes Byron for being under the influence of Dorothy's lady vapours I had an inkling this may only be slightly based on their real lives. However, once I saw the scene where, whilst constipated, Coleridge uses a finger snapped from the hand of their pet zombie to dig the fecal matter free I knew, nope, that probably happened. I'd read somewhere he was always constipated.
If you spent the same amount of energy on what it is you really want to accomplish rather than try to dazzle us with your cleverness I bet you could pull it off.
@@kylereeves6365 Thank you for the kind comment, Kyle. I had forgotten I had written this. I'm flattered you think I'm clever. To be honest I didn't really put any energy in as I naturally waffle shite without thought on a daily basis.
The film was actually called 'Pandaemonium'; a great film, if you love Coleridge. There was another film by Ken Russel called 'Coleridge and Wordsworth' not yet released by the BBC, but this is not it.
I hope film makers will continue to make movies about famous past authors and poets. It will introduce a younger audience to these past masters. I also understand that film makers may need to take "poetic licenses" in order to embroider and enhance a good "tale". Thank you again.
Cockermouth (Wordsworth) is only 116 miles from East Kilbride (Hannah) so I suppose it's better than flying in Tom Cruise to affect some ham Shakespearean accent. Having said that, seriously... accent authenticity is your only factual critique of this film? 😂
Just try to find any actor who can do even an approximation of the Cumberland accent, which we are informed he spoke with for the most of his adult life.
When it jars as much as here , he does have a valid point . Not sure what your point is ? If accent DOESNT matter then might as well be French , Swedish ...whatever. They really couldn't find anyone better than Hanna to play the part..?!? I suspect the old boys network ensured he was chosen.
I love this film. It took my breath away when I first saw it. it made me laugh too in the way that Tom Stoppard's Travesties did when I saw it. There's a good deal of talk about accuracy here but what Julien Temple is trying to do it seems to me is capture a sense of their lives in a context. He is trying to divorce them from myth and cliche and make them real in a way we can understand. They were so radical and so influential in their own time - how do you make that relevant to today? I thought it was absolutely terrific. What does it matter that he takes liberties with real events in order to present them in a felt way? Coleridge would have been constipated because he took opium. Wordsworth was a great radical who took a government post. We all grow older.
Not to be that guy but a lot of Romantic Era poets that we know of today actually had little success in their lifetimes. More people read gothic novels and novels of sensibility, much more so that poetry
And with fixed stare did I gaze keenly upon the face of unrealised destiny, My greatness cruelly transported through time to the wrong age For which my poetic brilliance might be appreciated or recognised, Too long, O' aged soul have I tarried thus far without revelation, But in time perhaps the volume of my inscriptions might one day be known In posthumous fame.
A most appalling and inaccurate telling of the lives of William & Dorothy Wordsworth. Just taking one inaccuracy - Wordsworth was offered Poet Laureate and turned it down, he was only prevailed upon to accept it the second time offered provided he didn't have to write any poems. He believed poetry stemmed from emotion and inspiration and couldn't be written to order. Dorothy Wordsworth was never addicted to opium. Coleridge was addicted and Wordsworth fell out with Coleridge in later years because of his behaviour. William and Dorothy arrived at Dove Cottage on foot in 1799 shortly before Christmas it was a couple of years later that he married Mary Hutchinson - so to have her at the door to meet them- ridiculous. This is an appalling film and is a shocking betrayal of the Wordsworths. I could go on.....
Though their letters do contain interest in trying weed, and what we know as other substances today commonly used, there’s little evidence of wordsworth and Dorothy and Sara partaking in it. Coleridge did try almost a handful of possible inspirational substances but always preferred laudanum, Opium and drinking. This is nice to imagine but
dahuterschuter I don’t think so. I remember reading somewhere that Byron and Wordsworth only met once. However, Byron made no secret of his scorn for Wordsorth’s poetry. See, for example, the very beginning of Don Juan. Also, this little charming bit: spenserians.cath.vt.edu/CommentRecord.php?action=GET&cmmtid=4360
Clearly the people who have said they liked this film have no knowledge of the lives of either Coleridge, or the Wordsworth and are going only off this appalling film.
It doesn’t put off students apparently.... actually they love it and are drawn to C. and W. even more. However, I agree that Wordsworth’s portrayal is far from accurate. We should ask the director why he chose to give us that ‘angle’
Someone gave me this dvd fifteen years ago and I watched it over and over again one year when I had little else to watch. Now watching it again I have to laugh and remember how ridiculous it all is and including the pompous, fantastical film making.
Inaccuracies are important. The personalities of Wordsworth and Coleridge cannot be recovered. The pretence of doing so-for any attempt to recover accurately any aspect of the past is pretentious-may well cause the naive viewer to believe she now knows these historic figures as though she had lived among them.
Nice.but the banned genius classic that was clouds of glory by ken Russell is much better than this . Its a tragedy thats lost while this is good but not on Melvyn braggs level with the ken Russell films on coleridge ans Wordsworth
A tedious film that could be told in half the time. I love the music and prose of that age but not so much the poetry. This version of Dorothy Wordsworth is ahistorical. She was a highly conventional woman who was typical of her time, alas. Women had no rights or profile whatsoever with the exceptions of Lady Lamb, George Sand, Mary Shelley, George Elliot, the Brontes.
