Unseen Cinema

Featured in the dvd pack of " Unseen Cinema - Early American Avant-Garde 1894 - 1841 " I found a triptych film that lasted 5 minutes and seemed to be older than Gance's 'Napoleon' that had been previously mentioned in one of my posts. 


"In Youth , Beside The Lonely Sea" (1925) Is a short Avant-Garde film that alternates between the panoramic view to three seperate screens. It's made for the poem of the same title by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, with music by Edvard Grieg. 

[Ref: "In Youth, Beside the Lonely Sea", Unknown Director, Thomas Bailey Aldrich's poem, 1925]

In the center panel, a young man muses on the seashore where mermaids beckon, then he walks through the woods, accompanies by Titania's fairy brood. He's then shown as a grown man, walking a city street where temptation and dissolution teem. Those images from his youth keep him away from sin. Then, alone in a bed sit, we see him old, with a bottle, despair, and fading memories. The fairies try a last visit. The words of Aldrich's poem appear above and below the triptych 

[Ref: "In Youth, Beside The Lonely Sea", J.Hailey, 1925] 

 The idea that the triptych is based on a poem really interests me. A poet that has influenced me and still does is William Shakespeare, and I think if i were to follow this idea of a poem or even a monologue, It'd be Shakespeare that would influence the contents. 
So if there is anything that this little piece, I was lucky to find, has given me, it's a path/idea that I could follow for my FMP.