I've seen this videoclip a billion times and thought I'd post it up here. It's of Allen Ginsberg talking about his methods of thought collecting and writing it all down. Closer to the end of the clip, he recites a poem called "White Shroud" which he dedicated to his deceased mother.
You could say that Ginsberg's recitation is a form of adaptation. It was likely that he read that poem a million times over in front of a million different crowds and with every reading, his intonation and emphasis on certain words may have been altered during the process. He also had the authority to emit words or add them. So why then does it have such a strong effect on me as a listener, viewer, and reader? Doesn't he become a mere actor? A medium to repeat the lines of written work? Unlike the videoclip that I posted in the blog below of Ginsberg's "Howl", his recitation of "White Shroud" made the hair on my neck stand up. If films were stripped down to the core (if we take away the special effects, the sounds, the extras, etc ...) we'd be left with an actor/actress alone with his/her lines. All of the colorful and loud mumbo-jumbo that motion pictures presents to us steals away the intention or meaning of the author. I love this video clip of Ginsberg because we better understand his loyalty to his writings. When we hear him, he emphasizes again and again that what really matters is his writing.
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