Irish filmmaker Cathal Black, known for making movies that fluidly mix fact and fiction, documentary tropes and dramatic technique, has maybe found his ultimate subject in Thomas Lynch. Lynch, who describes himself in Black’s Learning Gravity as “a father, a husband, an undertaker,” is also a renowned poet and essayist whose writings inspired Alan Ball to create his HBO series, Six Feet Under. In the film, Lynch says his poetry grew out of a desire to “leave a record” for his children of what was going on in his head while he appeared to be “staring at your ear, preoccupied.” Poetry, he says, is his way of making his subjective interpretation of his life, work and family into something concrete, an “effort to act out in language those most unspeakable feelings.” It’s a philosophy and practice tailor made for Black’s hybrid style.

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