"USA : Poetry (1966). Richard O. Moore’s poésie-vérité TV poetry documentaries."
Résumé
Richard O. Moore (1920-2015) was an American poet and film maker originally associated with the San Francisco Renaissance and, more particularly, with Kenneth Rexroth. A pioneer in American educational broadcasting—he was one of the co-founders of radio station KPFA—he was part of the original team at public TV station KQED, one of the first non-commercial educational television stations in the United States. According to Jim Scalem, former KQED Producer and Program Manager, "At KQED, Richard Moore went on to become an accomplished television producer, writer, and director. He eventually founded its documentary film unit, which was responsible for creating over 100 films funded and distributed by PBS’s predecessor, National Educational Television."
In 1966, KQED and NET released what came to be known as the USA: Poetry documentary series for National Education Television with fourteen programs, nine of which were directed and produced by Richard O. Moore (1. William Carlos Williams; 2. Allen Ginsberg & Lawrence Ferlinghetti; 3. Robert Duncan & John Wieners; 4. Gary Snyder & Philip Whalen; 5. Brother Antoninus & Michael McClure; 6. Theodore Roethke; 7. Anne Sexton; 8. Richard Wilbur & Robert Lowell; 9. Louis Zukofsky; 10. Kenneth Koch and John Ashbery; 11. Frank O'Hara & Ed Sanders; 12. Denise Levertov & Charles Olson; 13. Robert Creeley; 14. In Search of Hart Crane).
Richard O. Moore's own poetic practice and literary training permeate his films, which bring the spectator into the poet's world, each documentary an invitation to join the poet and her/his poetry. "A true pioneer of the cinema vérité movement," according to poet and critic Garrett Caples, Richard O. Moore made films about poets and poetry which have become landmarks in the art of literary documentary. This contribution will attempt to look at Richard O. Moore's style, the ways in which he stages the poet and poetry in his films, his own "poésie vérité" movement, i.e. both direct, following closely the poet, and leaving enough room for the poems to be heard in the films themselves.