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William Blake and the Visionary Company
“And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.”
Blake's Romantic Rhetoric
As the chief exemplar and avatar of the visionary Romantic tradition in England, William Blake (1757-1827) [1] looms large in the imagination of many of Britain’s most adventurous filmmakers. John Boorman’s treatment of Arthurian archetypes in Excalibur builds upon Blake’s rooting of mystical quests and sacred metaphors in England (“And was Jerusalem builded here”).
Boorman’s generation was shaped by the experience of the Second World War (as memorably depicted in Hope and Glory, 1987), and Blake’s rhetoric was given additional resonance at Britain’s most intense moment of national crisis. In his wartime propaganda film Words for Battle (1941), poetic documentarian Humphrey Jennings vividly drew out the rhetorical force of Blake’s language to rally support from English-speaking compatriots (especially Americans) during the Blitz.
Blake and Wartime Propaganda
In Words for Battle, Blake's words are read out by Laurence Olivier. The “green & pleasant Land” of the British countryside was powerfully evoked both in wartime narrative films like Michael Powell’s A Canterbury Tale (1944) and in Jennings’s Listen to Britain (1942).
Blake's Graphic Work
Powell, like Boorman, was equally influenced by Blake’s graphic work. With their elongated forms, ghostly figures, and evocative visualizations of figures and experiences that exceed the boundaries of conventional understanding, these works provided a stylistic vocabulary that would make it possible to suggest transitions between worlds and psychological states.
"Dark Satanic Mills"
Blake’s “dark Satanic Mills” imagery was equally influential on a later generation of American filmmakers deeply informed by British Romanticism. In an astonishing coincidence, this is most vividly expressed in the opening scenes of two iconic American films released in 1978.
