Television takes on Emily Dickinson

LOS ANGELES -- For those with perhaps a grade school exposure to Emily Dickinson or a wariness about poetry, "Loaded Gun: Life, and Death, and Dickinson" is comfortably akin to Cliffs Notes.

Which is not to say that the PBS documentary about the reclusive poet isn't illuminating or worth watching. It's also, improbably enough, entertaining in a Michael Moore-ish, guerrilla kind of way.

Producers Jim Wolpaw and Steve Gentile play with the documentary form, including making light of the standard talking-head approach, and blithely toss in some psychobabble that has everything to do with contemporary attitudes and who-knows-what with Dickinson.

"The idea we had was that we weren't making a film for people who are poetry or Dickinson fans," Wolpaw said in an interview. "We're trying to draw people in who might not otherwise pay any attention to poetry.

Fun with her poetry is one thing; getting inside the enigmatic poet's head or heart is another.

"She was a powerful soul," actress Julie Harris, acclaimed for her portrayal of Dickinson in the one-woman play "The Belle of Amherst," says in the film.

The documentary's provocative title (it airs 9:30 p.m. Tuesday as part of the "Independent Lens" series; check local listings) is drawn from one especially intriguing work.

"My life had stood -- a Loaded Gun/In Corners -- till a Day/The Owner passed -- identified/And carried Me away/And now We roam in Sovereign Woods/And now We hunt the Doe/And every time I speak for Him/The Mountains straight reply."

The poem ends chillingly: "Though I than He -- may longer live/He longer must -- than I/For I have but the power to kill/Without -- the power to die."

Death, God, nature, love -- Dickinson was as fearless in tackling the big subjects as she appeared to be fearful of the world outside her Amherst, Mass., home. A recluse, yes, but no frail, timid artist, the film informs us.

So how did this woman, who was apparently too sensitive to go out in the world, write about it with such power and precision and presence?" writer-director Wolpaw asks in the film.

Wolpaw concedes the film couldn't solve the Dickinson riddle. But he hopes that viewers, exposed to a taste of her genius will be inclined to seek out more -- even though that might displease Dickinson, who once wrote:

"How dreary to be somebody!/How public like a frog/To tell your name the livelong day/To an admiring bog!"