Cleophas and His Own (2005)

In September of 1943, the typescript of a private, unpublished narrative was discovered in Corea, Maine, among the belongings of the American modernist painter and poet Marsden Hartley...just a few days after his death. This powerful and poignant elegy called Cleophas and His Own and written by Hartley to assuage his grief at the loss of a young man he loved, is now a feature-length film directed by Michael Maglaras and produced by Terri Templeton of 217 Films. The film presents Hartley (played by Maglaras) seated in his makeshift studio in Corea in 1943 where, tired and ill, he recounts a tragic story to an unseen visitor of the sad fate that befell the Francis Mason family: a family of farmers and fishermen with whom he lived on a remote island in Nova Scotia seven years before. Using Hartley's text in its entirety and preserving the poem's thirteen-chapter structure, the film uses flashbacks and employs 24 of Hartley's paintings and drawings to tell of the events leading up to and following the Atlantic hurricane of September 19, 1936, when Hartley lost the young man who had become the love of his life. Following the death of this young man, the last seven years of Hartley's life were devoted to reliving these experiences through poetry and painting, leaving behind a body of work, second to none in the American experience, devoted to this young man's memory and his love the Mason family. 2005. Not rated.