A Late Style of Fire: Larry Levis, American Poet, as the title of the film suggests, purports to be a biographical documentary about Mr. Levis, a poet whose work and reputation have grown considerably since his untimely death at age 49 in 1996. The film is comprised of interviews with poets who knew Mr. Levis, several family members, and Mr. Levis' former wives--and it is also interspersed here and there with passages from Mr. Levis' poems read not by Levis, himself, but by his former colleague and the film's producer, Gordon Donovan. Poets David St. John, Carolyn Forche, and Stanley Plumly provide powerful insights into the work and imagination of Larry Levis.
Aside from the insights provided by Mr. St. John, Ms Forche, and Mr. Plummy, though, the film is woefully disappointing, and one leaves the theater knowing next to nothing about Mr. Levis' life, creative successes and frustrations, or even his poetry for that matter, which made me question the filmmakers' decisions, depth of research, grasp of Mr. Levis' work, and motives. We learned Levis lived in Fresno on a prosperous ranch, yes, but essential facts and important details about the poet's life are almost totally absent. What of Mr. Levis' career as a creative writing teacher? What were the circumstances surrounding the publication of Mr. Levis' first book--and final posthumous books, Elegy and The Darkening Trapeze, for that matter? We know from David St. John's introduction to The Darkening Trapeze, for instance, Levis shared work throughout his career with him and Philip Levine (both helped edit Levis' posthumous work), yet insights into Levis' creative process, and the relationship of that process to the apparently volatile circumstances of his life, are left unexplored. Instead of facts, some of which might have been unflattering or even salacious, we are provided with many still photos of Levis from childhood through adulthood--but no context for them is given, no narrative arc. Are we to merely gaze into the grainy, photographed eyes of Mr. Levis and see the soul of the poet? But where did that soul come from? Who did he view as his influences? What was he reading, and when?
As mentioned, from time to time we hear Gordon Donovan read parts of Mr. Levis' poems aloud. He reads them well, but oddly no titles are indicated on the screen, so there is no way to identify the poems should one like to look them up later. To make matters more problematic (ultimately the problem is a cloying sentimentality), cliché sunset and landscape shots as well as video clips of tail-flicking horses saturate the screen while the poetry is read--Levis' often harsh, self-effacing, and lacerating verse converted to the equivalent of Hallmark sympathy cards tinged with emo despair.
Indeed, the cinematography is as sappy as most of the documentary's content, the imagery presumably an attempt to depict the bucolic California that shaped Mr. Levis' sensibilities, to demonstrate how the privileged youth came to understand the struggles of the migrant Mexican peach picker. The romanticizing of Mr. Levis is cringe worthy. A more unvarnished and honest portrayal of the man, who was--no secrete--a heavy drinker and died as a result of a cocaine-induced heart attack, might also have included his local haunts, the honkey tonks and bars he escaped to. We are allowed to see only the polite side of Mr. Levis, not the man described as "always a little bit hungover" in the introduction to the first posthumous book, Elegy, and the result is a biased, guarded, unfaithful depiction, not a complete portrait of a real person. Yes, Levis is described as "a bad boy," but what specifically earned him that reputation? He is described as being "mercurial," whatever that means. Facts that might reveal Mr. Levis are held close to the vest to presumably protect the poet and his living relatives. Though such an intention is noble, one wonders what the point of the film is, given Mr. Levis is so well protected the viewer learns next to nothing about him. Is this a film only for the insiders who knew him--or for a general audience? You get my drift.
Surprisingly (and I think inexcusably) Mr. Levis--aside from the uncontextualized still photos that annoyingly "Ken Burns" across the screen--is almost entirely absent. Only portions of one low-quality, poorly edited video clip appear periodically, where an apparently inebriated, jumpy, and confused Levis rambles about his father and attempts to be (but fails to be) witty. Worse, the video clip, which is downright embarrassing, contradicts the interviewees' nostalgic descriptions of the supposedly brilliant, charismatic, and generous man. There are no clips of Levis reading his own poems (Mr. Donovan seems to have appropriated them for himself) or interviews in the form of audio recordings or transcripts, which of course exist. A Google search produces a good deal of primary source material, so I wonder why it wasn't included.
Why, really, was Mr. Levis sidelined in a documentary that was, ostensibly, about him? My sense, as I left the theater, was that Mr. Levis was, quite frankly, used, and that the film was more about the filmmakers than it was about documenting the life and work of an important minor American poet who explored and extended the possibilities of narrative poetry. In many ways, this film reminded me of the recent documentary about the deceased musician Elliot Smith, Heaven Adores You, also a biased, sentimental biography made by insiders and for insiders that is bereft of objective, factual information. Such projects reek of careerism and nepotism, and they demean the artist and the work. Why not reveal the full human being (warts and all), the internal conflicts the art could and could not resolve? So few films are made about poets, so it's a shame this opportunity was wasted.
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