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| Coffee Cup Available from crowdfunder.cu.uk/heartsfelled |
As you may have gathered, if you've read previous blog entries here, the film we are making is based upon an epic, saga style poem called "The Fyrdhwaet Saga". In real practical, down to earth terms, it would not be so interesting for so many people if we had just got somebody to sit and read out the poem on film with, maybe, a few flat illustrations. So, being the writer of the project Patrisha Buck had to find a platform from which the tale told in the poem could be delivered. But - poetry and performance poetry lay at the heart of this project's inception so Patrisha looked for a way to avoid just filming the story as a standard, linear, dramatic narrative . . . and that was when she met Heartsfelled!
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| Star Carr deer mask |
Heartsfelled is the most intriguing fellow. He is ageless and timeless and his soul raison d'etre is to gather, preserve, store and tell stories from across all of time and space. As I've discussed in prior blog entries, stories are fundamental to humankind. Our news, our education, our communications across all levels of encounter are all based on storytelling. Recently our Director, Pete Buzzsaw Holland, was discussing the 11,000-year-old deer masks found at Star Carr in Yorkshire. These are artefacts which represent the long-ago spiritualisation of nature and the telling of stories to encourage ritual and good behaviour among people who were struggling to survive an intense and significant climate change (Sound familiar?) And d'you know what? Yep, Heartsfelled was there 11,000 years ago collecting those stories and storing them away for posterity. Soon it will be time for those particular stories to be brought back into our life's repertoire, but not quite yet.
Faith, religion, moral standards, cultural identity - these are all shared and passed down from generation to generation through stories. But what of Heartsfelled himself, what kind of a character is he? Well, he is a very gentle, very wise person. He has a cheeky sense of humour and masses of charisma.
When Patrisha first met him he gave her a fold with his stories about the goings on of a particular garden gnome community (pretty racy stuff as it turned out!) and told her three beautiful love stories, two his own and one from an ancestor of his from the days of the Viking raids ... and through sharing these stories Heartsfelled effortlessly let Patrisha know him to be unselfish, altruistic, self-sacrificing, self-denying. considerate, compassionate, kind, decent and noble. He is a person of boundless generosity with a raucous love for laughter! He's also a lover of fine things, silk hats, fine clothes and, oh how he loves food and wine!
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| Heartsfelled and his love Julia. |
Patrisha also heard Heartsfelled read Dickens for the 350 years old Gentlemen's Society in Spalding, and she knew then that he was the one to represent her poem for the film . . . plus it turns out that he has studies Anglo-Saxon language and pronounces it perfectly ... what a bonus!
The Museum of stories
The Museum of Stories is where Heartsfelled resides and it's very interesting. It's hard to find because you have to believe in it and you have to "step through the long forgotten door" which is harder than it
sounds! But, once there, you'll find glorious stream-of-consciousness displays that draw your eye and your imagination from one story to another. The artefacts represent diverse tales taking you from as shipwrecks to African jungle camps, from childhood comforts to creepy forests, through artefacts that tell of Roman, Greek, Egyptian or ancient Antipodean, Asian, Norse or European tales you can linger on one or pass by and just let your thoughts take you wherever they will. If you look hard when you first enter you might even catch a glimpse of one or two of the Ghosts for Times Past (as seen in our opening sequence for the film) as they are just a few of the people whose stories are there to be told ... or not, depending on what the viewer tunes in to or focuses on. And, of course, you'll find Heartsfelled, if he's not out gathering more stories or walking the little dogs with his lady-love.
** If you would like a copy of food historian Julia Gant's collection of Heartsfelled's favourite recipes (genuinely authentic historic recipes) with illustrations and anecdotes all manner of good things included, or any other movie memorabilia or even a pre-order copy of the film .... you can get these by visiting crowdfunder.co.uk/heartsfelled
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