Customer Reviews

Emily Dickinson: A Certain Slant of Light

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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.

Are you a teacher? After viewing a different video, Emily Dickinson: The Famous Authors Series, I recommend this dvd instead. Even though the video quality of this dvd is poor,the narration of Julie Harris is much more palatable than the dorky, slow voice on the Famous Author Series dvd. Harris takes the viewer to Emily's home and to other locations of importance in her life. Viewers will see where Dickinson wrote and will see artifacts often pictured in biographies of the author. I purchased both dvds, but I will only show this Harris dvd to my class of advanced high school English students.