Customer Reviews

Voices & Visions: Ezra Pound [VHS]

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Visions and Voices is a spectacular video series and this particular biography of Ezra Pound is a wonderfully balanced portrait. It is a shame that someone so central to the development of modern literature has had his contributions in that area overshadowed by his peculiar economic theories and vehement anti-Semitism. These aspects of his career are explored from varied points of view and highlighted with beautiful haunting readings of his poetry. The incantation quality of Pound's verse was delightfully displayed both by a reader and by readings recorded by Pound himself. All the quirks, all the genius and all the destructive obsessions of Ezra Pound are delivered in this informative and artful video biography.

I have study Pound under Hugh Kenner, at UCSB. I was English major, and Pound turned me onto ancient Greek, Florence, and much of cultural history. He was also an enigma. His happiest years were spent in St. Elizabeth's mental hospital, and much of his philosophy would be appreciated by modern skinheads and the Montana malita. As a youth I was taught and assumed that poets were philosophers, Pound of course proved that theory wrong. Some of Pound's work is of course inspired. Some is depraved, paranoid and insane. Pound's impact on modern literature is undeniable to those who have studied him. A genius, he was disappointing and misguided in life.

Most of the drama of his life, his association with Eliot, Hemmingway, Picassos, Gaudier and Joyce, his support of Mussolini and subsequent arrest, trail and commitment to a mental hospital to escape charges of treason are not well documented in this video.

This is one of the few videos/films on Pound. So the images are much of what is available to date.