Stop All the Clocks: W.H. Auden in an Age of Anxiety
Stop All the Clocks: W.H. Auden in an Age of Anxiety

Movie spotlight

Stop All the Clocks: W.H. Auden in an Age of Anxiety

2017
Movie
57 min
English

Thirty years after his BBC film The Auden Landscape, director Adam Low returns to the poet and his work. Following surges of popularity - from featuring in Four Weddings And A Funeral to being the poet New Yorkers turned to after 9/11 - Low reveals how Auden’s poetry helps us to better understand the 21st century and the tumultuous political climate in which we now live.

Insights

Director: Unknown (Documentary)Genres: Documentary, Biography, History

Plot Summary

This documentary delves into the life and work of the influential poet W.H. Auden, exploring his profound engagement with the political and social upheavals of the 20th century. It examines how his poetry reflected and responded to periods of significant global anxiety, from the rise of fascism to the Cold War. The film features archival material and insights from contemporary scholars to illuminate Auden's enduring legacy.

Critical Reception

As a documentary focusing on a literary figure, critical reception is often found in specialized reviews rather than mainstream outlets. Generally, such documentaries are appreciated for their scholarly approach and ability to bring a poet's work to a wider audience, often highlighting the relevance of their themes to contemporary issues.

What Reviewers Say

  • Provides a thorough examination of Auden's life and poetic output.

  • Effectively contextualizes Auden's work within the turbulent historical periods he lived through.

  • Appreciated for its scholarly depth and accessible presentation of complex themes.

Google audience: Information on Google user reviews for this specific documentary is not readily available, as it is a specialized biographical film.

Awards & Accolades

None notable.

Fun Fact

W.H. Auden's famous poem 'Stop All the Clocks' was not originally titled as such; it was later retitled from its first line, 'Funeral Blues', for its publication in the collection 'The Collected Poems of W.H. Auden'.

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