I attented the Emerson screening of My Book and Heart Shall Never Part last night, as did the rest of English 300. My filmmaking sensibities were impressed by the general polish brought to this low-budget endeavor, particlarly the photography and sound(I especially enjoyed the house made out of books. Great image). My literary sensibilities were intrigued by the presentation of a three-fold state of mind that necessarily attends reading a book; you're seeing the story the book is telling, while being aware in some other corner of your mind that you are reading, and being aware in still another part of your mind that there are other aspects of life which are or can be informed by the reading of this book.

I also found the theme of the utilization(in fact in certain instances, flat-out distortion of )of nature for the sake of indoctrinating children with moral points of view. It opens up an intriguing discussion of what nature is, and how humans can "humanely" relate to it. Of course there is such a thing as artistic license(which is why in fairy tales and through-out the pantheon of children's literature when can find talking bears and wolves and all the rest of it), because it is in service of a metaphorical statement, and nobody really likes a pure Descriptive phasesist(if that is a word, probably not). But is there any sort of question of respect or sense of otherness regarding nature to be considered as well? Perhaps, perhaps not.

One recent, and for me rather refreshing literary take on sentient animals is Pullman's Golden Compass and the treatment of Iorek Byrnison the armored bear. He speaks and is very noble and intelligent, but at the same time is distinctly and unequivocally a bear, distinct in manner and being from humans. It worked for me. And this may be somewhat off-topic from the film we saw last night, but it does connect, as most everything does eventually.