Shakespeare's Sonnet XXIX (In a Lonely Place)

Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart) is an ill-tempered screenwriter who often has scary outbursts of anger. His troubled personality isolates him from other people, except from a few friends, among whom we have Charlie Waterman (Robert Warwick), and old unemployed actor who is past his primes, and who “speaks but poetry and borrows but money”.

In this scene, when Charlie is paying Dix his weekly visit to borrow some money, he finds him happy since Dix has found inspiration and stability in his relationship with Laurel (Gloria Grahame). After having worked all night, he is taken to bed by Charlie, who recites him Shakespeare’s sonnet XXIX as a lullaby, which in certain way foreshadows the end of the film.

When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Видео Shakespeare's Sonnet XXIX (In a Lonely Place) канала Santi Abad