Words for Battle and The Angelic Conversation are quiet works of contemplation whose expressionistic visual montages are backgrounded by the reading of poetry. In Words for Battle,the reader of works by Milton, Blake, Kipling and others is a young Laurence Olivier, and Judi Dench reads Shakespeare’s deeply personal sonnets in The Angelic Conversation. Jennings’ aim was the stoking of British patriotism while Jarman sought a sort of personal poeticism, but both explore the marriage of poetry and film with a masterful soft touch.