Salon.com > Bright Star

“Bright Star,” dim Oscar

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 01:20:00 +0000

Best costume design. Really, Academy? That’s it? As a good online friend would say, Pffft.

The most overlooked movie of the year, by far, is "Bright Star." From the opening shot -- an extreme close-up of a needle pulling through fabric -- you know you are in the hands of a cinematic master. This intimate look at an everyday act makes it a wondrous thing, as if we have never quite seen it before.

Jane Campion, who wrote as well as directed, has created an incandescent and utterly satisfying story of young love -- romantic and tragic and true.

Its title taken from his poem of the same name, "Bright Star" tells the story of the poet John Keats and his neighbor, Fanny Brawne. It follows their relationship from the time of their first meeting, through and after his death.

It is a relationship that develops naturally and believably; each coming into their own as they awaken to each other, and the sensual joys of the world around them.

Their relationship is complicated by his poverty -- he’s not seen as a suitable match for Fanny -- and by the jealousness of his best friend, who resents her intrusion into their bachelor lives.

Oscar reactions: Who was burned or spurned?

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:03:00 +0000

Like a faithful dog walking behind the heels of its owner, following the recently announced Oscar nominations come critiques from fans and critics alike. Here's what's happening around the Web:

Vadim Rizov of the Independent Eye has a list of foreign films that would have been given the nod if nominations were based on a film's box-office success in its home country.

Where's Julianne Moore? Some, like Erik Childress of Cinematical, are wondering why Moore's performance in "A Single Man" for best supporting actress seems to have been replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal's in "Crazy Heart." Also, Childress speculates that the makeup category has something against the aliens in "District 9."

In equal confusion with Childress over the Gyllenhaal-over-Moore decision, Peter Knegt of indieWIRE has a list of 10 Oscar surprises, including "The Blind Side" even being in the running for best picture.

“Bright Star” burns true

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:18:00 +0000

Poetry gets a bad rap almost everywhere: In school, where many of us read it because we have to; in life, where most of us don't read it at all; and in the movies, where it's often quoted by the most pompous character or, worse yet, in a self-serious voice-over. Even people who like poetry well enough often fail to revisit poems they once connected with as young students.

If you're in that last group, Jane Campion's "Bright Star" just may be the film to reconnect you. And if you're not, the film works on its own as an unfussy, passionate and gently erotic love story that never tips into sentimentality. "Bright Star" is a fictionalized version of the love affair between the poet John Keats and a woman who was, quite literally, the girl next door, Fanny Brawne. The two met in London in 1818, when Fanny was 18 and Keats was 23. In practical terms, it was a lousy match: Keats wasn't making enough money to support a wife. But in romantic terms, the union was perfection: When Keats died, in 1821 at the age of 25, Fanny was so bereft that she spent long hours and days walking the heath, and although she did eventually marry, she never removed the ring Keats gave her. She also kept his love letters, some of them tiny, ardent notes, others flowing missives. And in addition to poems he wrote specifically for her (the movie takes its title from one of them), in the time Keats knew Fanny he wrote some of his most beautiful and best-known work, including "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and "Ode to a Nightingale."