Educational Media Reviews Online

In 2003 filmmaker Tobe Carey discovered that he and the American poet Stanley Kunitz had grown up in the same house on Woodford Street in Worcester, Massachusetts; Carey’s childhood bedroom had been Kunitz’s room thirty years before. Stanley’s House captures Kunitz’s strong emotional connection to the Worcester house and the memories of his boyhood and his mother which later inspired many of his poems.

Carey’s film looks at the history of Worcester and its Jewish community, the Woodford Street neighborhood and the Kunitz and Plotkin families (Carey’s family). Carle Johnson, a poet and Kunitz scholar, and Worcester Historical Museum curator Norma Feingold provide background and commentary. The current owners of the house on Woodford Street tell how they met Kunitz, detail some of their remodeling efforts and talk about their plans to establish an apartment for visiting writers in the house.

The film focuses on the poetry Kunitz wrote about growing up in the Woodford Street house; the joys of his childhood, his relationship with his mother, and his father’s suicide. Kunitz reads eight of his Worcester poems in footage recorded at various gatherings, and “Three Floors” in a private reading Carey filmed in May 2006, four days before Kunitz died.

Stanley’s House is presented in wide-screen format. Chapter selections allow one to choose topics or select individual poems. Kunitz’s readings are profusely illustrated with film and panned images of archival and contemporary photographs including vivid images of Worcester, the house, and Kunitz family photographs.

Although Carey is a bit literal in his visual interpretation of the poetry—trying to show each location or person as cited in each poem—as a whole Carey’s film is rich, thoughtful and romantic, capturing beautifully Kunitz’s inspiration, the emotional tug of his long-ago childhood, and Carey’s own heartfelt connection to the older man. Stanley’s House is highly recommended for students of American poetry, and to film students as an example of a well-made biographical film.