"Sweeney Among The Nightingales" was a Jeff Marino film project
for a program at Columbia University. While I was into T.S. Elliot
Preludes, Jeff was well into his Quartets, eventually settling on the esoteric
pleasures of Conrad Aiken.
One of Eliot's poems about Apeneck Sweeney in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock became the basis for this film. I have no idea why or for whom Mr. Elliot wrote it (for himself?), yet it covered much of the disorientation one might feel at a party like the one we assembled for the occasion of its filming.
One of the women attracted our attention by very happily changing in front of us. I will always remember her as being a daughter who proudly describes her father's occupation as "creating a vacuum, and then filling it."
Susan McCarn had already starred in Jeff's prior film, "Near Involvement," which explored the floating stageline I describe in "Storm Cloud."
John Minoli, portrays The Title Role. Here's a link to the film.
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