Visualisation of Tony Harrison’s poem “V.”. V. is about the multiple meanings of the letter – victory, versus, verses, etc. Starting from an incident in a Leeds’ graveyard where the poet’s parents’ headstone has been defaced with graffiti, V. rises to a view of the divisions, antagonisms and aspirations within British society, and the poets own self.
Director: Richard Eyre.
Writer: Tony Harrison (screenplay).
Stars: Tony Harrison.
An unmissable film for lovers of English poetry. This was screened in Channel 4’s Banned season in 1991 and was made newspaper headlines at the time. I watched it at the time (as a teenager) and again many years later. Harrison would go on from this very personal poem to develop verse films as an art form.