Worm forgives the plow

Peter and the Farm

Crit

A documentary about Walt Whitman, if Whitman were an alcoholic, depressive, possibly suicidal sexagenarian Vermont farmer estranged from two ex-wives and four children. OK, Peter Dunning's Whitmanian qualities are highly selective, but not nonexistent. Filmmaker Tony Stone and his minuscule crew, particularly cameraman Nathan Corbin, have made a tone poem featuring the small American farm as a place of, in order of importance, beauty, agony, death, and life.

Thanks to Fandango for my even knowing about this: even now, it's not on the Criterion's own website, and the only other person in the screening room was someone who learned about it from me. Films like this have enough trouble getting the audience they deserve without their venues sabotaging them.