Dear Readers,


I now consider this blog to be my Juvenelia. Have fun perusing the archives, and find me at my new haunt, here.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Bright Star


BRIGHT star! would I were steadfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task 5
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast, 10
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.



So as I tweeted, my HLP and I went to see an evening show of Bright Star last Thursday night; with us in the theater, most of the neighborhood's over-60 population and a few other young folks.

Well, the movie lives up to the hype, readers, particularly if you are a poetry fan. Its pace is reminiscent of Brokeback Mountain, slow and deliberate, with a lingering touch and gorgeous use of landscape (and in this case, interiors) as reflection and comment on the emotions running through the film. The acting was phenomenal. Ben Whishaw was a believable Keats--wiry and intense and brilliant but with a sense of humor and also a detachment from the world he writes about, a ghostlike quality that prefigures his soon-to-be fragile condition. It's important to see him as a real person, one who eats and plays and is occasionally petulant and childish despite his genius, while also seeing him as one of the Greats--and Whishaw and Campion do this perfectly.

This otherwordliness of Keats is counterbalanced by his very earthy lady love, Fanny Brawne, played by Abbie Cornish. And yes, she is as good as everyone says. Fanny is not just a typical "spunky" period-drama heroine but also an eccentric, vulnerable, curious young woman. The ruffled collars she makes for herself are both lovely and ridiculous, and so is she. From their first encounters, it's clear that she and "Mr. Keats" share something the rest of the world does not: a deeply passionate outlook on, well, everything. And her relationship with her family, subtly-drawn, is extremely touching. There are glimpses of her mother which reveal why Fanny grew up to be as boldly unique and uncaring about social convention as she was.

Bright Star treats Keats' poetry with respect and refrains from too many winking nudges to its literate viewers. Unlike Becoming Jane, set in the same period, it doesn't posit Fanny as Keats' only muse or the source of his genius or even the source of any of his good lines, which is a wise choice on Campion's part. It does suggest that "Bright Star" was "her" poem, but Fanny is surprised to hear it when Keats recites it to her. It also gently exposes how young and melodramatic its lovers are without mocking them for being that way.

"Bright Star" explores what it takes to love, and lose, a great and doomed artist--yes, we all know how it ends. Bring your hankies, but don't fail to see it--it's one of the great ones.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:24 PM

    Oh, I can't wait to see this movie! I almost drives me mad that I'll have to wait for the DVD, though. (Just one of the inconveniences of living in a small town...)

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  2. I can't wait to see this. I've read some of Keats' letters and of course, his poetry but I've never been able to paint a picture of him in my mind. And since it sounds like Whishaw plays his part well, I'll allow him (and Campion) to paint some of it for me...

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  3. Hopefully this flick will hit my town this month. I can't wait. I'm a big poetry fan and this looks gorgeous. Good to hear that it fulfills expectations. Very excited.

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  4. Finally saw the film. I loved it. Your observations are spot on. In particular the use of landscape was beautiful. The scene when Fanny is sitting in a field of purple made me audibly gasp. As a poetry fan I also enjoyed the "poetry lesson" scene. I was also surprised at how much restraint Campion exercised. It was great. I went right out and picked up a book of Keats letters to see if they were that good.

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