Bright Star

[Sxottlan]

I'll say this, considering this film and TAOJJBTCRF, Paul Schneider is cornering the market on playing history's greatest jackasses. I say that as a compliment.

Gorgeous photography, a bit stiff, but felt naturalistic enough.

[Derek]

I'll say this, considering this film and TAOJJBTCRF, Paul Schneider is cornering the market on playing history's greatest jackasses. I say that as a compliment

Not to mention his undervalued turn as William Henry Harrison in Drunken History (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDukCTcITLY).

[chrisnu]

Lovely. Definitely worth a re-watch. The way the main characters pace around each other, and how the film delves into idiosyncrasies and obsessions, I found quite addicting.

[Pop Trash]

Pretty solid. Often lovely to look at. Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw both did great jobs. It takes awhile to get going and I'm not sure why so much attention was on Paul Schneider's character. Also, it makes me feel old when Kerry Fox is now playing the mom to grown adults. :|

[Beau]

It's beautiful. Something like the opposite of stiff. Very much about texture and rhythms, tactile feelings. Probably one of the best films from last year that weren't Weerasethakul shorts.

[Melville]

It's beautiful. Something like the opposite of stiff. Very much about texture and rhythms, tactile feelings. Probably one of the best films from last year that weren't Weerasethakul shorts.
Yes. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: it's the best evocation of romantic love—the feeling of it, the textures and moods, if not the details of the relationship—ever put to film. Between this and Two Lovers, 2009 offers a pretty great survey of what film can express about romance.

You should put a top 10 in the official thread; this movie is too beautiful to fail.

[baby doll]

Quite good. (I like it more than The Piano, but less than Sweetie.) After I saw it, I ran out and bought a collection of Keats' poetry (with an introduction by Campion), and I plan to eventually read it.

[Stay Puft]

Ben Whishaw climbing a tree is the scene of the year. The sound mixing during that scene is sublime.

[Rowland]

Some of last year's most artful cinematography to visualize some rather banal material, I found this a sumptuously tactile, emotionally unconvincing slog rendered moderately engaging by grace notes Campion peppers throughout, but they aren't enough to dispel the air that she is somehow restrained by reverence to the inevitability of history and the spoken word of Keats' poetry here. I'll take In the Cut any day.

[Bosco B Thug]

Some of last year's most artful cinematography to visualize some rather banal material, I found this a sumptuously tactile, emotionally unconvincing slog rendered moderately engaging by grace notes Campion peppers throughout, but they aren't enough to dispel the air that she is somehow restrained by reverence to the inevitability of history and the spoken word of Keats' poetry here. I'll take In the Cut any day. No, yeah, Bright Star was kind of weak. Fanny is another strong, fascinating Campion heroine, but the film's panegyric obeisance to her self-respecting but decidedly un-labyrinthine mind and being (and the unlikely romance with Keats, very much her opposite) seems to have prevented Campion from performing much analysis at all, visually. Campion could've been a little bolder with everything, instead of performing too much shorthand in evoking her embrace of romance and poetry.

I may be overrating it. I also didn't find it particularly compelling, but all its assets (performances and what Campion does do, and so well) make it a solid piece.

Love is practical. It effects the most practical of our humors, and art both serves it and sacrifices itself to it. Fanny kind of barrels their love forward, while Keats is as sickly and self-doubting as his calling. Fanny's grief at the end is perfectly raw and non-transcendental but as genuine as Keats' sublime poetry.

[Rowland]

but all its assets (performances)Truthfully, I found Whishaw's whimpy performance rather insufferable for the most part. My favorite performance was by Paul Scneider, who I also found the most relatable character, which may say something about my reaction to the material. As the movie progressed, I found myself wanting to watch more of him and less of Keats coughing and Brawne moping about like Twilight's Bella.

Also, in response to your suggestion that Campion could have been bolder in expressing the material, my complaint about her reverence to the recitation of Keats' poetry was in the same vein. She didn't give the poetry enough room to breathe, so that it began to simply wash over me, which I don't believe was the intended effect.

[Bosco B Thug]

Truthfully, I found Whishaw's whimpy performance rather insufferable for the most part. My favorite performance was by Paul Scneider, who I also found the most relatable character, which may say something about my reaction to the material. As the movie progressed, I found myself wanting to watch more of him and less of Keats coughing and Brawne moping about like Twilight's Bella. Also, in response to your suggestion that Campion could have been bolder in expressing the material, my complaint about her reverence to the recitation of Keats' poetry was in the same vein. She didn't give the poetry enough room to breathe, so that it began to simply wash over me, which I don't believe was the intended effect. I think most people would agree Schneider is the scant enlivening aspect in the whole thing.

I felt fine towards Wishaw. Was Keats as wimpy as he's made out to be in this film?

There is a lot of clunking recitation, but I choose to read into it a bit - the film, seen as being leveled with Brawne's psyche, has us hear Keats' poetry, canned as it is within a context, with a bit of half-irony. That is, it reveals poetry is just words, and that it can be seen as taking live emotions and rendering them less vital through overly-purple expression, yet this complete non-poet of a girl is totally caught up in them.

One of the things that got me through the film was waiting to hear the next variation on a Brawne-Keats exchange, where Keats gives some airily spiritual rumination on love while Brawne replies with something more akin to "Oh baby, you make me feel so good."

Roderick Heath over at Ferdy on Film called the film "the Twilight of poet biopics," suited for "English lit class" (he says the latter about The Piano, too, though).

[Rowland]

I felt fine towards Wishaw. Was Keats as wimpy as he's made out to be in this film?

Excerpt from La Belle Dame Sans Merci (http://www.bartleby.com/126/55.html):

She look’d at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.


There is a lot of clunking recitation, but I choose to read into it a bit - the film, seen as being leveled with Brawne's psyche, has us hear Keats' poetry, canned as it is within a context, with a bit of half-irony. That is, it reveals poetry is just words, and that it can be seen as taking live emotions and rendering them less vital through overly-purple expression, yet this complete non-poet of a girl is totally caught up in them.This reminds me of a Mike D'Angelo quote I found myself nodding in agreement to: "I confess that I started tuning out as soon as Fanny opened a copy of Endymion and promptly swooned at its opening line."

Yeah. This is why I found myself also nodding along in agreement to Schneider's roguish dismissal of her literary aspirations that followed, theoretically admirable as they were. Reading this as an intended response is intriguing, even if I don't feel the film takes such a possible calculation to any fruitful end during its bloated two-hour running time. If anything, the film seems to develop her artistic awakening into some sort of woman-lib subtext, which I didn't find convincing given that the film never successfully dramatizes the artistic drive of its characters.

[Bosco B Thug]

Excerpt from La Belle Dame Sans Merci (http://www.bartleby.com/126/55.html):

She look’d at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song. Is he getting some here or is he getting some?

Just kidding. Although I'm a greenhorn when it comes to poetry, I must admit.


This reminds me of a Mike D'Angelo quote I found myself nodding in agreement to: "I confess that I started tuning out as soon as Fanny opened a copy of Endymion and promptly swooned at its opening line."

Yeah. This is why I found myself also nodding along in agreement to Schneider's roguish dismissal of her literary aspirations that followed, theoretically admirable as they were. Same here.


Reading this as an intended response is intriguing, even if I don't feel the film takes such a possible calculation to any fruitful end during its bloated two-hour running time. It doesn't.


If anything, the film seems to develop her artistic awakening into some sort of woman-lib subtext Yuck. I'd hate to acknowledge that being there, but it might as well be given the thinness of alternate readings.

But while thin, I'd count on Campion to intentionally bring admiration to the lacking in gentility and sensitivity in women. And there is that scene with Brawne being made a fool when going one-on-one with Brown, but leaves the encounter bragging to her brother about how she "impresses him" or "surprises him" or something, just because she memorized a part of her boyfriend's poem.