Splendor in the Grass revisited

I say “Splendor in the Grass revisited” revisited as this is the second post on the same topic, the case of Natalie Wood’s mysterious death is being re-opened and the re-run of the movie.

On August 10, 2010 on a post about Natalie Wood’s movie, “Splendor in the Grass”, I wrote,

“I like Natalie Wood. Her mysterious and tragic death about 20 years ago still puzzles many to this day; the yacht from which she fell off and drowned bore the name of “Splendor”.  The post compares the beauty of the English and Chinese poems.

http://doctorjytsai.blogspot.com/2010/08/splendor-in-grass.html

Little did I know it actually will be 30 years on November 29.  The news is out that Natalie Wood’s mysterious death is being re-investigated.  And by coincidence or not, the movie of “Splendor in the Grass” will be aired again at the Turner Classic Movies tonight. 

(You can read the report on the link to WSJ or New York Times on my Facebook page, but not here; almost all the major newspapers have a link to FB by now)

 

Splendor in the Grass (天涯何處無芳草)

Turner Classic Movies had Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty’s Splendor in the Grass tonight. The movie title is taken from the lines of William Wordsworth’s poem.

What though the radiance which was once so bright

Be now for ever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;

We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind. . . . .

The Chinese name of the movie (天涯何處無芳草) matched or even outdid the original. It also came from a poem of Su Tungpo (蘇東坡)—the 11th century poet; one of the greatest poets in Chinese literary history.

花褪殘紅青杏小，

燕子飛時，綠水人家繞；

枝上柳綿吹又少，

天涯何處無芳草？

牆裡鞦韆牆外道，

牆外行人，牆裡佳人笑；

笑漸不聞聲漸悄，

多情卻被無情惱

---蘇東坡 蝶戀花---

(The following is my cousin, 陳英毅 , an ophthalmologist in Taiwan, commented on my Facebook page; quite a compliment; very kind of him.)

陳英毅 飽讀詩書，學貫中西，佩服！

Jer-Yuan Tsai; "飽讀詩書，學貫中西，佩服!"; 見笑, 見笑, 雖讀了不少, 但很多也都是點到而已. I like Natalie Wood. Her mysterious and tragic death about 20 years ago still puzzles many to this day; the yacht from which she fell off and drowned bore the name of “Splendor”.

Miles to go before I sleep

While walking among the breathtaking foliage, I began to think that this winding country road in Greene County [where we live] must have inspired Robert Frost to write,

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

Katy took this picture in our foliage tour in 2007, for about two-week period, we can see this every fall. This is about 10-15 minutes drive from where we live. I am sure this was what Robert Frost saw in 1920 when he wrote,

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day! Y
et knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

At age of 86 Robert Frost read his poems at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy in 1961. Somehow we haven’t had a national laureate present in the Presidential inauguration in recent years. Carl Sandburg spoke at the Joint Session of Congress on Lincoln’s 150th birthday (2/12/1959), but we didn’t have a Lincoln Scholar of Sandburg’s caliber for Lincoln’s 200th birthday last year. Current Harvard President, Drew Gilpin Faust is an eminent Civil War era scholar, but is not considered a Lincoln scholar.

My cousin, 陳老薑, commented in Facebook, “This Frost's poem is one of my favourites. I once took a slide of similar scene in an autumn woods in the Netherlands.”