the darkness drops again

"...And what rough beast,
its hour come 'round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem
to be born?"

>>> Spooky poem!
Spooky poem!
Spooky Poem Alert!!!!

------------- In the film Nixon, there's a scene where the President goes to see CIA Director Richard Helms.  Their conversation is sort of a sparring match:  at the end of it the President says, "There are worse things than death....there's such a thing as evil."

Helms says, "You must be familiar with my favorite poem -- Yeats...Black Irish...Very moving --

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming!  Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight:  a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
that twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come 'round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

--------- And actually I think maybe he does not do the entire poem, but he says the first and last parts -- most of it.  It is an amazing scene; and the thing is, it wasn't even in the movie as it ran in theaters -- "due to reasons of length, or the threat of legal action from Richard Helms depending on which source you believe," according to professor and political scholar Dr. Matthew Ashton.

Two ways a person can view this scene: 
1)  get the DVD of the movie which is labeled "Director's Cut", and it's IN the film, in that version;
or
2)  go on Google and type in

Great scenes from political movies (No 5) Nixon's meeting with Richard Helms

and a post on Dr. Ashton's blog will come up.
One can read what he says about the film, and about the scene, and then down at the bottom of the blog post, you can click on it and play it.

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"The Second Coming" was written by Irish poet William Butler Yeats, in 1919 in the aftermath of the first World War.

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-------------It occurs to me -- I don't usually think of needing disclaimers or caveats for stuff I put in my blog, but it crossed my mind, that when I write about the film Nixon I make it sound thought-provoking and edifying and it's a great piece of art, but -- it's art, not literal history -- it isn't a documentary...and I wouldn't want anyone to read about the film in this blog, and then sit their five- and six- and seven-year-old children down to watch the film and "learn about history"...!

("No no no don't try this at home!")

It is not for children.  Too intense for them, and a lot of bad language.

Wouldn't want anyone to say, later, "Blue Collar Lit. misled me and now my children are scarred for life!"
("I was frightened by Alexander Haig, as a small child!"...)

-30-