Product Description

Julie Harris (Academy Award® and eleven time Emmy® nominee) takes viewers into Emily Dickinson's everyday world in a small New England town to couple and contrast facts about the poet with her extraordinary original insights. Dickinson's reclusive life in her father's Mansion on Main Street in Amherst Massachusetts meant that she wrote almost all of her remaining work in this house. From cellar to cupola we invoke her certain slant of light (her real and imagined perspectives). Other locations are Amherst College Mount Holyoke Seminary (now College) the town cemetery next door to her childhood home and commanding views on the shores of the Connecticut River. The paradox of the poet at home with limitless imagination is announced early in her stunning poem The Brain is Wider than the Sky.System Requirements:Running Time: Approximately 30 MinutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. UPC: 012233133226 Manufacturer No: 313322

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #50719 in DVD
• Brand: MONTEREY HOME VIDEO
• Released on: 2006-08-22
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 30 minutes

The Book Report
"This superb film will enhance students' study of Dickinson. Highly recommended."

The Book Report
"This superb film will enhance students' study of Dickinson. Highly recommended."

Customer Reviews

Not for Everybody but a must for Dickinson fans!
Julie Harris immortalized Emily Dickinson onstage, film, and television. Here, she is Julie Harris, a fan of the poet's work. She takes us on tour of Emily's hometown of Amherst, Massachusetts where she lived, worked, and wrote. We see her bedroom, the desk where she wrote, one of her famous white dresses which she wore continuously throughout the end of her life. We hear some of her poetry aloud by the wonderful Julie Harris who is clearly in awe of this woman's contributions to poetry and to our imagination. Emily's life may not have been to everybody's taste. She lived as a recluse at the Dickinson homestead and rarely ventured out into town. This video is named after one of her more famous poems. My junior students didn't care for it as much as I do because I think it showed that Emily did not live in such a small space. She moved between her home and her brother's home only next door. regardless, the discovery of her writing could have been destroyed but thank higher powers, the writings have been published to show the world about her extraordinary gift to poetry.

Interesting--But Slow!
Even if you are a true fan of Emily Dickinson, this documentary is somewhat disappointing. The quality is poor, like those grainy films run on projectors in 1970s classrooms (which makes sense, given that this came out in 1978). It does offer some lovely--if blurry--shots of Amherst and the family homestead; Emily's biography is interesting, too. Julie Harris clearly loves the poetry as well, and her readings are dramatic. However, the whole thing moves so slowly (too many lingering nature shots, especially) that it is tempting to turn it off halfway through.