Hundreds of scholars and biographers have tried to explain the life and work of Emily Dickinson, but the famously reclusive poet remains an enigma.\u00a0In Loaded Gun: Life, and Death, and Dickinson<\/b><\/i>, stumped filmmaker Jim Wolpaw uses a decidedly unorthodox approach to create a documentary about the writer whose beautiful, haunting, and cryptic poetry has never quite squared with her reputation as a sensitive spinster. Wolpaw\u2019s efforts to illuminate this esoteric subject \u2014 more than 150 years after her death \u2014 yield some hilariously frustrating results.<\/p>\n
Wolpaw begins his film by employing the standard documentary methods, interviewing historians, literature professors, U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins, and even an opinionated trio of psychotherapists. \u201cHow did this woman, who was apparently too sensitive to go out in the world, write about the world with such power, precision and presence?\u201d Wolpaw wonders.<\/p>\n
Enlisting the help of this unlikely team of academics, actresses and artists,\u00a0Loaded Gun<\/i>\u00a0dissects the meaning of its puzzling title poem, speculates about Dickinson\u2019s possible love affairs, and recasts the poet in an array of contradictory personas: Emily as sexualized seductress, anxiety-ridden basket case, sarcastic comedian, reluctant interview subject, childlike genius, tormented spinster \u2014 even a talented second baseman. Who was Emily Dickinson, really? Perhaps it is this unanswerable question that makes her such a captivatingly modern mystery, inspiring legions of fans that include poetry-spouting English majors, rock bands and tattoo addicts. As\u00a0Loaded Gun<\/i>\u00a0shows, Dickinson\u2019s greatest legacies may simply be the strength of her words and her persistent refusal to be easily defined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Recruiting a stand-up comic, a rock band, feuding academics, and Hollywood actresses to his cause, an irreverent filmmaker searches for the secret something that gave Emily Dickinson her poetic power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"topic":[1216,1227],"class_list":["post-130","films","type-films","status-publish","hentry","topic-arts-and-culture","topic-women-and-girls"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n