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 priest-like task
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,
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.

Borrowing the title of John Keats' final sonnet, director/writer Jane Campion seeks to deliver a most challenging visual interpretation behind the creative process via the true life story of Keats and his one true love, Fanny Brawne. Movies about creativity (especially when dealing with the written word) have notoriously flopped over the years. After all, how do you make contemplation or writer's block visually appealing? Especially treacherous territory when it comes to poetry that relies on intuition and metaphor since this is ripe for trite and stereotypical visuals and overwrought acting.

Campion balances this as artfully as possible. Her Bright Star should inspire current and future generations to explore Keats and other Romantic poets—Byron, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley. Campion dramatic intertwines moments of musing with the power of Keats' verses with strong understated and restrained acting by her leading actors—Abbie Cornish as Brawne and Ben Wishaw as Keats. Although their love is palpable, it remains as chaste and true to its Victorian roots as it apparently was in real life—so expect no unbridled bodices or thrusting pelvic regions here. The sensuality remains suggestive and poetic—the most pointed being the palms of the lovers caressing the wooden barrier between their separate bedrooms.

Adding to the sensual nature of the film and to Keats' poetry are the English countryside settings and natural gardens that remain unsurpassed in wild beauty—fields of daffodils, bluish purple flowers that match Fanny's dress, and flowering trees from which Keats hears a nightingale sing. We see Keats climb the tree, lie in its branches, and gaze skyward while a provocative excerpt from his ode is heard:

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep

In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music: -- Do I wake or sleep?

 

Woven into the narrative fabric are a number of authentic facets of Keats' life—the history of tuberculosis in his family with both his mother and brother Tom dying of the disease, the negative critical response to his epic Endymion, his friendship with Charles Armitage Brown (Paul Schneider), to a brief view of the Spanish Steps in Rome (near Keats final residence). While these add authenticity and additional color to the script, they don't distract from its narrative flow—a gentle portrait crafted the the same sense and sensibility of a Jane Austen novel—though more melancholy in nature since we are aware that this is a doomed love affair from the start.

Central to the film remains the tension of the love story—true yet as unrequited and painful as Kar Wai Wong's In the Mood for Love or Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Fannie is intuitively drawn to Keats' poetry even when she can't fully understand his lyrics: “I confess I don't find your poems easy.” With that revelation, Fannie becomes like most of us who wander lost in the clouds of collegiate literature courses. Yet she strives to understand them and the man who pens such beautiful thoughts, and Campion's film deftly illustrates the emotional impact and toll this takes on the seeker-lover.

We smile at the butterfly farm in Fannie's room and feel her deep despair when the postman brings no letter one day as well as the day that Keats must leave for Italy under doctor's orders. Campion remains consistently restrained at the end by wisely choosing not to dwell at Keats' death bed; instead we witness the impact of the news on Fannie and can relate to the swells of grief that overcome her. Although she and Keats never consummated their love in this world, it's quite possible that she served him well as his muse and inspired great beauty for the ages, as in the lines below from Keats' most often anthologized poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn":

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave

Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal--yet, do not grieve;

She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

For select audiences, Bright Star will work as intended. Lovers of literature will appreciate the cinematic portrait, and English teachers now have a useful film that will connect more students to poetry. I'm recalling when I was an English major at the University of Illinois (specializing in American literature) and needed to select at least two courses in British literature. I wasn't a Jane Austen fan, detested the George Eliot works found in most courses, and share Woody Allen's philosophy about avoiding any course that requires Beowulf. So I selected courses in Metaphysical Poets and another in Romantic Poets. It was there that I found a connection to Wordsworth and Keats. I am now convinced that Campion's film will achieve the same for a much wider audience.