Walt Whitman
Film and television

Whitman's life and verse have been referenced in a substantial number of works of film and video. In the movie Beautiful Dreamers (Hemdale Films, 1992) Whitman was portrayed by Rip Torn. Whitman visits an insane asylum in London, Ontario, where some of his ideas are adopted as part of an occupational therapy program.

In Dead Poets Society (1989) by Peter Weir, teacher John Keating inspires his students with the works of Whitman, Shakespeare and John Keats.

Whitman's poem "Yonnondio" influenced both a book (Yonnondio: From the Thirties, 1974) by Tillie Olsen and a sixteen-minute film, Yonnondio (1994) by Ali Mohamed Selim.

Whitman's poem "I Sing the Body Electric" (1855) was used by Ray Bradbury as the title of a short story and a short story collection. Bradbury's story was adapted for the Twilight Zone episode of May 18, 1962, in which a bereaved family buys a made-to-order robot grandmother to forever love and serve the family. "I Sing the Body Electric" inspired the showcase finale in the movie Fame (1980), a diverse fusion of gospel, rock, and orchestra.
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