BRIGHT STAR
Jane Campion, perhaps the most literary filmmaker of this age, has taken John Keats as the subject of her latest film, Bright Star, after the his poem that begins “Bright Star , would I were steadfast as thou art -...” Keats, today, is recognized as one of the greatest poets to have ever written in the English Language even though he died at the age of 25. Campion, who was inspired by Andrew Motion’s biography of Keats, tells the story of the love affair between the poet and his 18 year old next door neighbor, Fanny Brawne, to whom he was engaged at the time of his death.
Inspired by the late French Director, Bresson, Campion has fashioned a quietly direct and passionate “ballad” as she calls it to the love between Keats (Ben Wishaw) and Fanny(Abbie Cornish). The action begins when the Brawne family headed by Mrs. Brawne (Kerry Fox) move in to the other side of of the two family house in Hampstead, north London, owned by Keats’s friend and fellow writer, Mr. Brown (Paul Schneider.) Fanny (Abby Cornish) is a somewhat independent spirited and creative girl, one who sews her own uniquely designed dresses and who, although generally well mannered and obedient, speaks up to express her thoughts and desires. Keats takes her to be a bit of a tease, Mr. Brown sees her as nothing more than an interference and distraction but their attraction blooms into a passionate bond, a love that inspired such poetic masterpieces as Ode to a Grecian Urn, Ode on Melancholy, and Ode to a Nightingale.
The film is decidedly told from Fanny’s point of view a not unexpectedly bold choice from Ms. Campion. The choice is bold because up until recently Fanny was roundly dismissed as a superficial flirt, someone undeserving of the great man’s affections. But this perspective puts a lot of the weight of the film on Ms. Cornish which she more than ably carried: bringing both subtlety and sexiness to the mixed-up feelings of an young woman in 1818, swept into the current of a extraordinarily sensitive, passionate and expressive man. Wishaw is by no means a secondary figure and he to plays the vexed and passionate consumptive Keats with brilliance.
But the rhythm of the film is all due to Campion’s imagining of Keats: of her genius at taking literature and turning it into film apart from literal adaptation. To that end she lets the story unfold, the camera is static, closely examining it’s surroundings, the heath, the changes of seasons, the dark interiors of the house. The stillness of the piece is a perfect call: it’s not telling us what to think or feel, making us jumpy or distracting us by taking our attention too quickly from one thing to the next. It’s a contemplative film -- it is indeed poetic.
Those who can’t sit, bored by an kind of exposition or long takes, may not have the patience for such a film. I guess those who can’t sit still to finish a real novel, or who can’t bear poetry may have trouble as well. It’s a film that requires emotional immersion, it requires a letting go, a willingness to give in on an emotional and perhaps intellectual level beyond the visceral excitement that carries us through most cinematic experience.
Ever since I first saw Henri Bresson’s, Diary of a Country Priest, so long ago in Paris, I understood what silence within a film could do, how a perfect visual image could move so profoundly. Jane Campion is one of the few true artistic interpreters working in film, one who takes risks, one who moves, one who understands, honors and explores the possibilities to be found in the merger of word and image.
Bright Star opens September 18, 2009.
Written and directed by Jane Campion; produced by Jan Chapman and Caroline Hewitt; Director of Photography, Greig Fraser; edited by Alexandre de Franceschi; music by Mark Bradshaw. Released by Apparition. Running time: 119 minutes.
With: Abbie Cornish (Fanny Brawne); Ben Whishaw (John Keats); Paul Schneider (Mr. Brown); and Kerry Fox (Mrs. Brawne).
