How does Campion change or further Keat’s values and ideologies within his poetry through her film, Bright Star?

The textual conversation between Keats’ poetry and Bright Star (2009) by Jane Campion, depicts love, a deep emotion within our lives, as threatened by our mortality, and how the transience of life enables us to enhance our understandings of life. Keats’ poetry expresses his immense love as well as his worry over his mortality due to tuberculosis, reflecting Romantic values as he wishes to escape to a natural world through his imagination. Through her conversation with the film, however, Campion, who was influenced by Andrew Motion’s biography of Keats, elevates his passionate love as she gives Fanny Brawne, Keats’ lover, a voice, providing context to his poetry as we realise the reasons behind his desire to remain alive and ‘still in time’.

In the sonnet Bright Star, Keats heightens love through the catalyst of nature, yet ultimately despairs over how it is threatened by death. In his poem La Belle, Keats portrays women as a distraction to his pursuit of poetry as “La Belle Dame… thee hath’ in thrall!”, the high modality indicative of her vicious influence, reflecting how he valued his pursuit in poetry over love. However, Bright Star adapts the Endymion myth, tying love and beauty to his desire for immortality as depicted in the first line’s subjunctive “would I were stedfast as thou art”. Before the volta, Keats states that he does not want to be a star as he’d rather picture nature’s beauty, “its moving waters of pure ablution”. The extended metaphor of water emphasising nature’s divine power to purify, reflecting the Romantic concept of how nature and strong emotions repel the stresses of society. After the volta, however, Keats states that he would rather “forever rest upon the swell of [his] lover’s breast” and “forever” feel “it fall and swell”, the repetition creating a soothing tone that amplifies his desire for stillness to continue his pursuit of love. However, the movement of her chest contrasts this desire as, contrary to his wishes, love is ultimately transient due to mortality.

In Keats’ poetry we only hear his voice, his lover a silent character, however, by giving Fanny dimensionality the film incarnates Keats’ love through a feminist lens, a prominent feature in Campion’s previous works, such as The Piano. The film captures their immense love through the bird's-eye shot of Fanny and Keats shaped like a heart on the bed, seemingly slowing down time, mirroring Keats’ desire for permanence in his sonnet. Their love is further highlighted in the close-up of Keats laying his head on Fanny, the low lighting appearing to separate them from reality, paralleling Keats’ desire in his poetry to forever lay his head on his lover. The film takes a feminist stance as it foreground’s Fanny’s role in his creation of poetry, contrasting his perception of women in La Belle. the long shot of Fanny in a lavender field with the non-diegetic voiceover of Keats reading out his poetry, elevating Fanny’s love to the status of nature in Keats’ poetry. Thus, the textual conversation communicates that Fanny amplified Keats’ appreciation for the natural world and that Fanny was the silent muse behind Keats’ representations of love.

Both the sonnet Ode to a nightingale and the film focus on Keats’ attempted escape from the reality of mortality, however, while the sonnet portrays poetry and imagination as an escape, Campion advocates through the art of film that we should live the best of life while we can. Keats establishes his desire to permanently leave reality through the mythological allusion to the metapoetic “Bacchus” and his “wingless poesy”, highlighting his desire to leave behind the impurities of life through the power of poetry and imagination, a reflection of the memento mori of his tuberculosis which threatens his future success and love. This magical wish is extrapolated through the reference to “Queen Moon” and her “Fays”, the allusion to British folklore signifying the impossibility of his desire to immerse himself within his imagination and leave reality behind. This cruel truth is evident in When I have fears, as in the last line - ”Till love and fame to nothingness do sink”- the metaphor of the ocean underlines how love

and fame are ultimately devoured by our mortality, our creativity merely an imagined escape.

Although Campion mirrors the transience of life in her film, she advocates that we should value our time more and, rather than dwell on the future, focus on the present, portraying a duality between the joy of life and grief over mortality. This juxtaposition is evident through the loud diegetic music as Keats dances at the Christmas dinner and the total silence as he recites When I have fears, the film revealing that Tom died from tuberculosis shortly beforehand. The contrast reveals how although we may feel grief and that mortality is ever-present, this does not inhibit our ability to appreciate love and joy within the present time. Campion emphasises this duplicity through the juxtaposition between the flying butterflies within Fanny’s room and the close-up of dead butterflies swept into the dustpan. Fanny desire to escape is symbolised through these butterflies, a parallel to Keats’ nightingale, however, as the audience, we realise their short lifespan, similar to the cyclical nature of life, encouraging us to realise we must make the most of life while we can. Thus through this duality, Campion stresses Keats’ despair over the mortal future, yet advocates that we should enjoy the more organic moments of the present.

The conversation between Keats’ poetry and the film Bright Star advocates love to be a powerful emotion capable of ridding ourselves of a stressful reality, yet is ultimately susceptible to the influence of death. It also enhances creativity as a tool to escape from our worries, yet by comparing to the film Campion underlines a duality of life compared to our imagination.