EXT. WOODS – DAY
The sun shines through the leaves of the trees onto the shore.
Narrator (V.O.):
Something startles me where I thought I was safest
Subtle waves lap onto the muddy banks between the ocean and the woods.
Narrator (V.O.):
I withdraw from the still woods I loved,
I will not go now on the pastures to walk,
I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover
the sea.
The waves continue to lap as the sun begins to set over the horizon. Worms and other critters crawl and slither across the muddy banks.
Narrator (V.O.):
O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken?
How can you be alive you growths of spring?
How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain?
Flowers blossom. An apple hangs in a tree. Tall grass blows in the breeze to reveal… BONE. A human skull peaks out of the tufts of grass. Half buried in the dirt. Several strings of grass weave their way through the eye sockets of the skull.
Narrator (V.O.):
Are they not continually putting distemper’d corpses within you?
Is not every continent work’d over and over with sour dead?
CUT TO:
EXT. CROP FIELD -DAY
Stalks of corn stand tall and in even rows. Various types of berries beg to plucked in their prime.
Narrator (V.O.)
Behold this compost! Behold it well!
Perhaps every mite has once form’d part of a sick person — yet behold!
Insects crawl on the stalks of corn. They begin feast on it. Devour it.
Grass sways in the wind. Beans begin to sprout from the ground. Onion spears shoot through the ground.
Narrator (V.O.)
The grass of spring covers the prairies,
The bean bursts noiselessly through the mounds in the garden,
The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward.
The shade of the crops lay perpendicular with their three dimensional counterparts.
Narrator (V.O.)
The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all
those strata of sour dead.
CUT TO:
EXT. SPACE
The Earth spins gently. Tiny lights are scattered across the western hemisphere. The Atlantic ocean has a greenish glow. There is no sound.
Narrator (V.O.)
What chemistry! That the winds are really not infectious,
That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea which is so
amorous after me.
That is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues
CUT TO:
EXT. CROP FIELD – DAY
A rugged farmer walks through the crops. Gently brushing his hand against the leaves of the corn. Across the bushes filled with juicy fruits. We briefly see his face. Wise beyond his years.
Narrator (V.O.)
Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient,
It grows such sweet things out of such…
CUT TO:
EXT. BATTLEFIELD – NIGHT
Bullets wiz by and make their impact into a Union soldier. He drops. Bombs blast in the distance. Dirt and smoke shoot up all around the fallen soldier. It is the rugged farmer. He struggles for breathe. Then… ceases to breathe.
The battle rages on.
Narrator (V.O.)
Corruptions. It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless
successions of diseas’d corpses.
The battle ends. The farmers body begins to decompose and become a part of the dirt. Grass and flowers grow where he died.
Narrator (V.O.)
It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,
It renews with such unwitting looks it prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops
Then… stillness. Everything seems to slow down. A breeze gently grazes over the grass and flowers.
Narrator (V.O.)
It gives with such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them at last.
FADE TO BLACK
END.
For awhile, I have been yearning to find a piece of literary work that I can adapt into a screenplay. While I was reading Walt Whitman’s “This Compost”, I couldn’t help but think of it as a Terrance Malik (director of Thin Red Line, The Tree of Life) film. The way Whitman discusses and describes the concepts of death and life in this poem reminds me of the way Malik does basically the same thing, but in film. Whitman uses such vivid imagery in this poem that I couldn’t resist an attempt to adapt it into a screenplay. While writing this screenplay, however, I found it somewhat difficult to apply the correct action descriptions to Whitman’s words in order to create a cohesive piece,. Perhaps Whitman’s words aren’t meant to be adapted and his poetry should remain exactly that.
SOURCE OF IMAGE: https://www.tetiaroasociety.org/programs/education/what-is-in-compost
Noah, I really enjoyed this film adaption of “This Compost.” I think that playing around with the forms of art offers an even deeper understanding – and appreciation – of it. I obviously am not used to thinking about the film side of things, but this adaptation really expanded my views on “This Compost.” We all have little visions in our heads when reading poetry, and you were able to bring yours to life in written form. I wish you could make the film and show it in class! Could be cool to do for the project or something. Great work!
This is awesome! My favorite part is how you incorporate the war–how you make it central, really. As we discussed, it isn’t until Whitman places those lilacs in the post-war revision of the poem that we read it in earnest as a post-war poem. Before that, its meditation on death and rebirth seems a bit airy and abstract. You do a great job with the various settings here–the movement seems fluid and artfully composed.
I also like how you introduce a central character and sort of weave the poems around that person’s life and death (apart from the narrator). This reminded me of Whitman’s virile farmer from “I Sing the Body Electric”
I didn’t think of Malik as I read the adaptation, but after you mention it, it especially made the cosmic pull-back more sensible, and now I can’t unsee the Malik connection.
One question: you seem to place this adaptation in Whitman’s own time. Did you consider moving it forward in time, to perhaps take on themes that are both timeless (Malik-style) and also of our current moment, or at least encompassing the 20th and / or 21st century?
SO glad I found this post. I have never read a screenplay before but the structure of it is really easy to follow in this, and it probably also helps that I have read and studied this poem as well. Even though much of the reading is the poem itself, the bits and pieces of your idea for filming comes to life in my mind. I see the poem working on the big screen, the narrator pulling the audience in while the images push them into Whitman’s own world. The battle scene is especially haunting, and when the farmer’s body “turns to dirt” it doesn’t make me uncomfortable. Even though normally the idea of a decomposing body makes me upset to the core, in the context of this poem (and your screenplay adaptation), it just feels natural.