Don't get me wrong. The film is shot beautifully and the score deserved to win an Oscar but...
Am I the only one that felt like the central point of this film (the relationship between Fanny and Keats) was totally undeveloped and stale?
No I didn't think it was stale at all.
I'm not sure the film was supposed to portray 'romance' in the sense that you must mean it but I felt conveyed their intimacy with one another quite well for the time period.
I felt that Ms. Campion wanted to show eroticism and play on the senses between the two. The film is a work of art in my opinion and there's always some people who will not get the same feelings that the director intended but I felt that the film had a dream-like erotic quality to it.
I think she's the saddest girl ever to hold a martini.
If there is any eroticism in this film, it is very, very, very fine and extremely fragile.
I think if Jane wanted to show Fanny and Keats as erotically involved, she really would have gone the whole way. She proved with The Piano that she is not afraid of showing very sexual imagery.
But I think she recognized that the essential nature of Fanny and Keat's relationship was that it was very innocent, very pure and transcendental of sexual desire. Though there is a scene where Keats expresses his wish to make love with Fanny, again, it's very subtle and elegant.
Theres also this real sense of restraint, because of the situation they were in. In those days you didn't simply dive into a full-on relationship with somebody you found attractive. It just wasn't so. I think Fanny and Keats were never able to fully commit to each other in any way because of the social strains there were on both of them.
"A film is-or should be-more like music than like fiction..." Stanley Kubrick
I got the impression she was flaunting herself all over him and he was not so interested in her and he becomes interested only because she is ALL THE TIME around him.
shareTo original post: What movie were you watching? This film is totally about romance. Here's a poet who has no money trying to earn a living to keep the girl he loves. There is gentle kissing, hand holding, sweet correspondence in letters (her kissing the letter is pretty erotic and romantic, at least I think) and sadness when they can't be together.
Or are you talking about sex? Because romance can happen without sex. Fanny is pretty young and living within the confines of her society, so I don't think they'd get it on. It wouldn't make sense to her position.
If you don't like poetry, you won't get the point of their love. Love doesn't have to be hot and heavy sex, it can be sweet and beautiful, a kiss in the woods, a letter put under the door...I can't believe people can't get the romance of that. Their whole lives were thinking about each other, well until Keats death. Fanny put off her life for him, while he tried his best to earn money as a writer and failed. I think it is a very wonderful yet tragic love story.
Wow, it's all about the romance to me. Sweet innocent romance. Think back to your first love and you'll probably get it. When it is more about kissing, hand holding and lightness vs. sex. Plus Keats is sick during the end of it. I guess you'd rather have Fanny and Keats hot and heavy then have Fanny knocked up like Abby the Maid by Brown? :)
Scarletminded, totally agree with you.
Audiences have just become gradually conditioned to expect sex in films nowadays.
Even if the relationship between two characters-most of the time between a man and a woman-has NOTHING to do with sex, people just expect to see it. This is a shame. A real shame.
As filmic censoring became gradually more and more liberal from the 1920's to the present day, we lost our general appreciation for the subtle and sensitive nature of romantic relationships.
Personally, as a youth (I can say that now!) I never had a first love. I'm 21 and I'm just experiencing it. Suprisingly enough, the first emotion as I call it is not lust or libido at all. It's very shy and fragile. It's that shyness and fragility that I see in Bright Star. But I mean, thats just my personal experience .
"A film is-or should be-more like music than like fiction..." Stanley Kubrick
[deleted]
I must disagree with the OP - this was a very, very romatic film. Full of those little moments intended just for the two lovers.
My favourite is them walking hand in hand after Toots, stopping still whenever she looks at them, but stealing a kiss or a look when she is walking forward. If that scene is not pure romance, I don't know what is.
Also, when Keats spontaniously reaches over to touch her hand.
Or when they are on the opposite sides of the wall, pressed against each other.
Or "that I may at least touch my lips where yours have been".
Not to mention the last time they see each other.
I know I am a hopeless romantic, and I know moments like these are not significant to everyone, and that's is their way of seeing the world. But to me, those kinds of fleeting seconds are the memories I hold nearest to my heart.
You're like a little Pac-Man in cargo pants.
Some people confuse romance with sexuality, I think. It's because our modern world is so different from the one they lived in. True romance is the actual courting of someone, mulling relentlessly over the little things: a poem recited from memory, a night spent in mourning toiling over a hand-made gift, a letter written with intimate words for only one other person in the world to read. This movie is the purest definition of romance.
shareThe op may be looking at this film the wrong way, the thing Is that some writers tell the story as if sex was almost mandatory for a couple deeply in love for this time period and some will tell the story as It may truly happen, as this writer did. Women were like this in those days and you have to understand the writer is portraying them in a more traditional way then having the couple engage in sex. It is appropriate to me if the writer wants to say they took it a step further and engage the couple in love making. In this movie it was not a portrayal that went past the norm and a lovemaking scene was added, but a love story told in a traditional way. Out of these two ways to portray this couple the traditional way was best. If you are looking for the less traditional way of [love scenes] there are no shortages of them. One last point, In my opinion If the woman has sex with a man in this time period To me some writers understand that the woman may seem weak or less than heroic because women in those days were taught that the act of sex with a man was very wrong and to real film buffs the character looses a bit of her luster. This Is how great movies stars were made in old film because most of them had more self respect and carried themselves as upright women in a classier way. I am not against sex scenes the appropriate, if that is what the writer is trying to portray, But i wanted to give the traditional way of films some credit.
shareDo you mean "uncomsumated" romance? I thought the romance was intense.
shareThere was a scene where Fanny came on to Keats, but he was really sick. I wouldn't want to have sex with someone who had TB. Not to mention he probably feared getting Fanny pregnant and ruining her life. That was a pretty risque scene where they were laying on the bed, I thought young women were chaperoned all the time in those days. Although her younger siblings did tag along a lot when the couple was alone .
share