Bright Star (2009)
Directed by Jane Campion
In 1818, high-spirited young Fanny Brawne finds herself increasingly intrigued by the handsome but aloof poet John Keats, who lives next door to her family friends the Dilkes. After reading a book of his poetry, she finds herself even more drawn to the taciturn Keats. Although he agrees to teach her about poetry, Keats cannot act on his reciprocated feelings for Fanny, since as a struggling poet he has no money to support a wife.
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What critics compared Bright Star to
In what I believe is director Jane Campion's answer to "Pride and Prejudice," the act breakdown reveals two currents flowing through this intense love story that involves poet John Keats who, though published and penniless, was posthumously destined to take his place alongside Lord Byron and Shelley as the key contributors of the Romantic movement in 19th century English literature.
She's not a quick-tongued wit, like Pride and Prejudice 's Elizabeth Bennet.
And as a result, this well-acted, smart drama is sure to appeal to fans of classy literate period dramas, such as the Merchant-Ivory productions, or the Oscar-nominated adaptations of Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility" and "Pride and Prejudice."
A director can generate non-explicit sexual attraction in a period piece: Watch Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice, and tell me Mr. Darcy and Miss Bennet don't long to rip off one another's pantaloons.
It has some of the same emotional power and enchantment as the 2005 movie version of Pride and Prejudice .
Fukunaga’s “Jane Eyre’’ is both wilder and more muted, and in tone and pacing it most closely resembles 2009’s “Bright Star.’’
The cinematography by Adriano Goldman recalls the look of Jane Campion's Bright Star, another literary love story that incorporated nature not just as a pretty backdrop but as a thematic element; here, the lead couple's volatile relationship seems inextricably tied to the changing landscape around them.
At times, Zhao’s vision feels in conversation with A Ghost Story, Bright Star, and even The Tree of Life.
The film gets better as it goes along; in terms of pure giggle-inducing brio, it recalls Amy Heckerling’s Valley Girl comedy Clueless, an update of a classic (Jane Austen’s Emma) that is now a classic in its own right.
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While Hardy's tale is incredibly modern for its time, Vinterberg has further freshened the material, most notably with Janet Patterson's ("The Piano," "Bright Star") costuming.
Director of photography Greig Fraser (“Bright Star”; “Let Me In”) conjures spellbinding images of rugged castles and English marshlands, and the CGI is so organic to this landscape that we hardly blink when a tree stump reveals itself as a giant troll.
The picture was shot by Greig Fraser (the DP behind great-looking pictures like Bright Star and Let Me In ), and many of its images are arresting.
The images in “Rogue One,” shot digitally by the gifted cinematographer Greig Fraser (“Zero Dark Thirty,” “Bright Star”), have an appreciably darker, moodier cast than the earlier films in the cycle.
The first half of the picture, without much dialogue, makes great use of the sensitive visual skills of Director Garth Davis (this is his first feature but he already wowed us with episodes of Top of the Lake) and the great cinematography Grieg Fraser (who is bizarrely still waiting for Oscar attention despite extraordinary lensing on films like Zero Dark Thirty, and Bright Star).
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Call it a ballet of the consummation sublime, the idea that once achieved, the immediate disappointment and disgust for the act overwhelms the sexual release of the moment before--and watch Black Swan in a lovelorn double-feature with Jane Campion's Bright Star for the full impact of Aronofsky's achievement here.