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| WS Merwin and the actor who will read his poem, which last line is title of film. |
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| The poem, Rainfall, read by actor, Hector Elizondo |
The reception was held in the Seabury auditorium, on the terrace, where the film was shown to a full house. Access to Merwin was very limited by his wife and by the director of his conservancy, Karen Bouris. The sponsors of the reception which allowed all profits to benefit the Conservancy was the FIM group. Financial and Investment Management Group, Ltd located in Kahului on Hana Highway. I met Korena Burgio, a young woman who grew up on Maui, and has joined their team.
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Introduction to the film provided by John Burnham Schwartz who said Merwin became his stepfather when he was 15. He subsequently met Jane Kramer's daughter in Paris, and married her. He appears in interview in the film. The author of five novels, The Commoner, and Resevation Road, his journalism we are told has also appeared in the New Yorker, the NYT, Book Review, and Vogue.
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Stefan Schaefer says it was a gift to work with Merwin. He has won awards for his films in film festivals and plans to enter this one, once it is finished. It draws heavily on archival material, and focusses on Merwin's life after marrying Paula, with several appearances and commentaries by her and her sons. Harold Bloom plays a major role, as well. It is moving, as the life of Merwin, about which he has recorded much, himself in his memoirs of living in France and his early years in Princeton, along with the period in New York, which is where I met him. His last wife, Paula, worked in publishing.
The fine part of the film focusses on Merwin in his conservancy of nearly 20 acres of over 4,000 palms, that he has planted, representing nearly 850 species of endemic, inigenous and endangered species. It stand politically as a counterpoise to the environmental degradation, the human disconnection with Natural Processes and one's place in Nature, and rapid climate change. |
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