Bright Star

Sep 13

Sep 13

Sep 13

Courtesy of Apparition
UK, Australia, France • 2009 • in English • 114 min • PG

London 1818: a secret love affair begins between 23 year old English poet, John Keats, and the girl next door, Fanny Brawne, an outspoken student of fashion.

This unlikely pair started at odds; he thinking her a stylish minx, she unimpressed by literature in general.

It was the illness of Keats’s younger brother that drew them together. Keats was touched by Fanny’s efforts to help and agreed to teach her poetry.

By the time Fanny’s alarmed mother and Keats’s best friend Brown realised their attachment, the relationship had an unstoppable momentum. Intensely and helplessly absorbed in each other, the young lovers were swept into powerful new sensations, “I have the feeling as if I were dissolving”, Keats wrote to her. Together they rode a wave of romantic obsession that deepened as their troubles mounted. Only Keats’s illness proved insurmountable.

Notes from Writer/Director Jane Campion:

"The most important quality of this story was to get across the intimacy of the characters to the viewer. Rehearsal was very important for this as it helped the actors to establish a subtle Being. Both Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish have a particular delicious charisma which, through the rehearsal period, they gave their characters claim to. The more real they are, the more the mystery of their unique personalities is allowed to fascinate us, capturing our imagination and our hearts.

I see the world of Keats and Fanny as light filled, literally leaking light ... It is Bright Star’s ambition to sensitize the audience, to light the lamp."

Club reactions by city:

moderated by Matthew Bernstein
with guest Walt Reed, Emory University William R. Kenan Professor

Delivers on its promise. Brilliant, steadfast, beautiful and inspiring, it soars and lights up our hearts. Keats's muse is clever, headstrong and deeply devoted. Stellar performances and stunning cinematography.

An exquisitely powerful film about the joy and pain of love. Superbly staged and photographed. Scenes of the two lovers touching their common wall and the lyrical scene of Fanny lying on her bed with the wind ruffling the curtains and her clothes will stay with me a long time.

The words and cinematography are beautiful – but the movie is an absolute bore. If it was any slower, it would cease to be a movie and end up a painting of 19th century landscape.

moderated by Patrice Petro and Gilberto Blasini

This movie was a visual poem. How hopeful that in this climate of ever dumb-downed culture, a beautiful movie about poetry is made.

I don't think I've ever seen a movie that so evoked in me the roller-coaster feelings that come with love--from the electricity of the first intimate touch to the gut-wrenching, heart-breaking agony of love's disappointments. I am spent! Beautifully filmed.

The costumes were exquisite. I have to go home and reread Keats.

moderated by Diane Carson
with guest Nan Sweet, UMSL Professor of Women's and Gender Studies

Beautiful film – each scene is like a painting. Actors were very real – outstanding!

Completely moving. Touched every corner of my heart.

Slow, dull, except for the beautiful cinematography.