Posted in:
The Friday Fillip
Tyger is a great short film by a Brazillian, Guillherme Marcondes. You can watch it online at various bandwidths, or download it for viewing offline.
Tyger an interpretation of Blake’s marvelous poem of the same name:
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?
[Read the rest of the poem here.]
There are no words behind the film, just sound and music. Set in Saõ Paulo, the film mixes photography, animation and some absolutely marvelous puppetry.
Sorry to seem pedantic, Simon, but you can’t really appreciate “The Tyger” without reading the companion poem in Blake’s songs of innocence, “The Lamb”
Little lamb, who made thee?
Does thou know who made thee,
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little lamb, who made thee?
Does thou know who made thee?
Little lamb, I’ll tell thee;
Little lamb, I’ll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild,
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little lamb, God bless thee!
Little lamb, God bless thee!l
No pedantry at all, Neil. I agree. And besides, the more poetry the better.
While we’re on Blake and animals, there’s this of his, too, which brings in law, sort of:
“One law for lion and ox is oppression.”
Inspired by Blake’s “Tyger”? Well, … the shor is remarkable but other than the fact of the spelling of “Tyger” I don’t see the connection to the poem.
It could just as well have been a certain famous Japanese (and recently American) G-lizard walking through the streets of the city.
I don’t know about lions and oxen thing but tigers may be another issue. Based on a recent Ont decision (Cowles v Balac & the African Lion Safari, 2006 CanLII 34916 leave to appeal to SCC refused) you can be as dumb as an ox and still get lots of money when you get hurt messing around with big cats. (Actually, they were tigers, which brings us back to the theme of this thread.)