To say that Patience (After Sebald) is a documentary about W.G. Sebald and his book, The Rings of Saturn, is only partly true. It goes much further than that. It is a sort of visual transcendental journey that only starts with the book and flows outward in tangential waves connecting this literary work to it’s author to history to art to landscape to life and death. While I have never read Sebald, (you can bet I will now!) and you don’t need to in order to enjoy this film, from what I gather this documentary is similarly modelled to the book which it depicts. As they say in the film, The Rings of Saturn is as much about a man on a walking tour through Suffolk, as The Odyssey is about a man on a boat trip to Troy. It is more to do with the internal meanderings of the narrator’s consciousness as he is walking through the English countryside. The film is similarly framed - it constantly evolves as the story of W.G. Sebald and The Rings of Saturn, weaving a beautiful tapestry of information, art, and literature. The viewer is transported through this journey via grainy black and white footage of the locations from the book, narrated passages read by Jonathan Pryce, personal accounts of W.G. Sebald’s life from artists, writers, and others, and even personal connections to the melancholic landscapes of Suffolk by natives are included - all of which are reflections of the pilgrimage taken by the book’s narrator (also W.G. Sebald), of which the reader also partakes in while reading The Rings of Saturn.
It’s difficult to describe this film and how powerful it really is - in the film they referenced how The Rings of Saturn is a book that, for many, changes how they view the world. After seeing the film, I can see how that’s possible. However, to truly understand what that means, I myself will have to actually read it. As with this film, for you to truly understand it’s profundity, you too will have to see it.
If interested, The Guardian wrote an article on this film and The Rings of Saturn, which includes a video interview with the director, Grant Gee: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/jan/25/wg-sebald-suffolk-walk
Also, this “litmap” for The Rings of Saturn charts the narrator’s walk through Suffolk, including connections to other places referenced, was used in the documentary, which may be of some interest to anyone attempting to read the book: http://barbarahui.net/litmap/
To say that Patience (After Sebald) is a documentary about W.G. Sebald and his book, The Rings of Saturn, is only partly true. It goes much further than that. It is a sort of visual transcendental journey that only starts with the book and flows outward in tangential waves connecting this literary work to it’s author to history to art to landscape to life and death. While I have never read Sebald, (you can bet I will now!) and you don’t need to in order to enjoy this film, from what I gather this documentary is similarly modelled to the book which it depicts. As they say in the film, The Rings of Saturn is as much about a man on a walking tour through Suffolk, as The Odyssey is about a man on a boat trip to Troy. It is more to do with the internal meanderings of the narrator’s consciousness as he is walking through the English countryside. The film is similarly framed - it constantly evolves as the story of W.G. Sebald and The Rings of Saturn, weaving a beautiful tapestry of information, art, and literature. The viewer is transported through this journey via grainy black and white footage of the locations from the book, narrated passages read by Jonathan Pryce, personal accounts of W.G. Sebald’s life from artists, writers, and others, and even personal connections to the melancholic landscapes of Suffolk by natives are included - all of which are reflections of the pilgrimage taken by the book’s narrator (also W.G. Sebald), of which the reader also partakes in while reading The Rings of Saturn.
It’s difficult to describe this film and how powerful it really is - in the film they referenced how The Rings of Saturn is a book that, for many, changes how they view the world. After seeing the film, I can see how that’s possible. However, to truly understand what that means, I myself will have to actually read it. As with this film, for you to truly understand it’s profundity, you too will have to see it.
If interested, The Guardian wrote an article on this film and The Rings of Saturn, which includes a video interview with the director, Grant Gee: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/jan/25/wg-sebald-suffolk-walk
Also, this “litmap” for The Rings of Saturn charts the narrator’s walk through Suffolk, including connections to other places referenced, was used in the documentary, which may be of some interest to anyone attempting to read the book: http://barbarahui.net/litmap/
