“The Weight Of History” is a Cinematic Poem Short Film Featuring “History” by Poet Robert Lowell Directed by Ben Jacks.

Filmed, Edited and Directed by:  Ben Jacks

Music by:  Max Richter (“Dona Nobles Pacem 2”)

Narrated by:  Franklin O. Smith
Actress:  Francesca Cerullo

“This experimental short was filmed in Florence, Italy. While traveling on honeymoon with my wife I was humbled by the abundance of historical artwork, architecture, and the religious presence within this city. There is a dark beauty there that is leveling to witness.

What I hope to represent, is the humility experienced in the presence of such environments and our place within history. Our smallness in time, contrasting to the beauty of what we can create, that stands witness so many years after.”

“HISTORY” by Robert Lowell

History has to live with what was here,
clutching and close to fumbling all we had–
it is so dull and gruesome how we die,
unlike writing, life never finishes.
Abel was finished; death is not remote,
a flash-in-the-pan electrifies the skeptic,
his cows crowding like skulls against high-voltage wire,
his baby crying all night like a new machine.
As in our Bibles, white-faced, predatory,
the beautiful, mist-drunken hunter’s moon ascends–
a child could give it a face: two holes, two holes,
my eyes, my mouth, between them a skull’s no-nose–
O there’s a terrifying innocence in my face
drenched with the silver salvage of the morn frost.

Website: http://www.ben-jacks.com/