Films

"Winter Days" evokes the stillness and quietness of the forest in winter. Life is lived close to the stove. It’s a time for small tasks and chores – making a wedge, sewing a pocket, the darning of socks. But the film also offers glimpses of a world beyond. The arrival of a family, animated by the energy and curiosity of children, brings us back to reflect on a “handmade life” and questions of age, generation, solitude and community.

The film is part of the "Mr Coperthwaite: a life in the Maine Woods" series: it charts Coperthwaite’s life as it unfolds over the course of a year. It explores the changing character of work through the seasons and the distinctive temporality of specific tasks. "Spring in Dickinson’s Reach" establishes, literally and metaphorically, the scope of Bill Coperthwaite’s world. In contrast, "A Summer Task" is tightly focused and follows a single activity in painstaking detail. "Autumn’s Work" charts the passage of time through a change in the seasons as Bill makes preparations for winter. "Winter Days" draws the viewer into the quiet space and routine of the year’s end.

A meditation on time and process, Mr Coperthwaite: a life in the Maine Woods offers an intimate portrait of a remarkable life — one shaped by nature, work, poetry and the rhythm of changing seasons. Coperthwaite emerges as a Thoreauvian figure for our time.He reminds us of the central, but often overlooked place, of nature in American culture.