Joris Ivens and Stephen Vincent
Benet
While Joris Ivens followed
a script outline in shooting Power and the Land,
the commentary was not prepared until a rough cut of the
film had been edited in 1940. Ivens, as he noted later in
his memoirs, wanted to avoid a situation where there would
be “a fight between the picture and the commentary
or the music; like a movie star, each wants to steal the
scene.” It was his job as director, Ivens added, “to
see the composition of the total: pictures, words, music,
their interaction, their independence and continuity.”
(Joris Ivens, The Camera and I, p. 201, 203)
Ivens was thus not surprised when Benet
brought in a script with more material then needed. But
Benet, Ivens recalled later, was very generous and understanding
about necessary cuts. Benet, Ivens noted, quickly saw what
needed to be taken out, replaced, or shortened. While Ivens
considered Benet’s script for the commentary “longer
than normal,” he did not, as he wrote later in his
memoirs, “want to make too many suggestions for the
text; believing that it should flow from Benet’s personality.”
(Joris Ivens, The Camera and I, p. 195, 196)
Once Benet had prepared the commentary,
Ivens then had to choose someone to read the script. In
casting the narrator, Ivens auditioned around forty-five
people. Looking for a country sounding voice that sounded
unrehearsed, Ivens finally selected William Adams. This
narration, skillfully integrated with the musical score
composed by Douglas Moore, imparts a distinctive American
rustic flavor to Power and the Land.
As If He Had Died In Uniform
 Stephen
Vincent Benet died of a heart attack on March 13. 1943,
just a little less than three years after completing the
commentary for Power and the Land. He had been
increasingly devoting himself to national service writing
propaganda, including scripts for radio broadcast. Benet
refused compensation for his services, but his efforts had
come at a price. Already tormented by the pain of arthritis,
he had pushed himself beyond endurance. “When he died
on March 13, 1943, his heart literally exhausted from the
punishment he had given it,” Charles Fenton has written
of Benet, “the bromide of the orators and editorial
writers was this time accurate – he had been killed
in uniform as surely as if he had burned up in a B-17 or
fallen at Guadalcanal.” (Charles A. Fenton, ed., Selected
Letters of Stephen Vincent Benet, pp. 361-362)
Dr. Ephraim K. Smith prepared this text on
based on the following sources: Charles A. Fenton, The
Life and Times of an American Man of Letters, 1898-1943
(New Haven, Yale University Press, 1960); Charles A. Fenton,
Selected Letters of Stephen Vincent Benet (New Haven, Yale
University Press, 1960); Parry Stroud, Stephen Vincent
Benet (New York, Twayne Publishers, Inc, 1962); and
David Garrett Izzo and Lincoln Konkle, Stephen Vincent
Benet: Essays on His Life and Work (Jefferson, North
Carolina and London, McFarland & Company, 2003). Dr.
Smith would also like to thank Patricia McAndrew, who published
an essay on “Stephen and Rosemary: A Love Story”
in the Izzo and Konkle volume, for her assistance in locating
historical photographs of Stephen Vincent Benet and Douglas
Moore.
Dr. Smith would like to express his deep
appreciation to Thomas C. Benet, the son of Stephen Vincent
Benet, for reviewing this text and for permitting us to
reproduce some Benet family photographs and movie footage
in Power for the Parkinsons and on this web site.
The movie footage of Rosemarie and Stephen Vincent Benet
was taken in Paris (c. 1927) and is reproduced in Power
for the Parkinsons and on this web site with the permission
of Thomas C. Benet.
To hear portions of the narration written
by Stephen Vincent Benet and narrated by William Adams,
click on the segments below from Power and the Land.
© 2005 Ephraim K. Smith
Excerpts
from narration for Power and the Land (video)
Excerpts
from narration for Power and the Land (video)
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