jane campion’s “bright star” recounts the love story of john keats and fanny brawne. keats is played by ben whishaw, a slight young man with an intelligent demeanor and sensitive eyes. abby cornish plays fanny brawne as a bold, youthful, captivating girl who knows more about fashion than poetry.
the film progresses quietly, almost humbly, with none of the sheen or melodrama we expect from hollywood. campion has an eye for sensuous textures and the successful coupling of light, landscape and human emotion and the film is rich with such gifts. scenes of intimacy are modest and unaffected – devoid of an operatic music score that tries to adorn or elevate. we all know what place keats will occupy in the annals of english poetry, yet that knowledge does not inform the tone of the film.
keats’ poetry is meshed beautifully with quotidian scenes and dialogue. “ode to a nightingale” which i learned by heart as a child seemed to tumble out of my memory. a delightful multi-sensory experience. keats sits distractedly on a simple wooden chair. he’s in an english garden plump with blossoms. he listens to the soft, mellow song of the nightingale. the words begin to pour forth from his imagination. we are mesmerized.
keats’ death at the incredibly young age of 25 is expected yet still heartrending, especially when we are confronted by fanny’s violent grief.
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain –
To thy high requiem become a sod.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
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?
(From “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats, May 1819)