Enough is enough: This "Bright Star" snubbing must cease!

Quite a while ago, there was a little movie called Bright Star directed Jane Campion, and starring Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw, and Paul Schneider (he of The Assassination of Jesse James and TV's "Parks and Recreation"), that was supposed to play a decent part in the 09-010 Awards Season. The reviews were generally quite positive, and deservedly so. And then something weird happened...and not the good kind of weird: Bright Star got the biggest of middle fingers. Since the National Board of Review kicked off awards season in early December, Jane Campion's small gem of a film has been snubbed is just about every way, barely making it onto the BAFTA longlists before it was left out in the cold on the official nominations. Cornish, who rightfully earned herself best-in-show reviews, has been particularly hurt by all of this. This should have been the performance that let the world know that she could lead a film, even though she's done it before (Somersault). "Why", is the question we're left with, and for the life of me the best answer I can come up with doesn't seem to fully answer the problem: campaigning. For some reason, either due to lack of faith or funds, the studio behind the film didn't campaign the film enough. Yes, there are For Your Consideration ads (beautiful ads, might I add), but there was never any sense that the film was being given special screenings to put it back into people's minds, or for those who missed it in regular theaters. The same could also be said for Duncan Jones' Moon, though at least that film and its star, Sam Rockwell, have show up in a few places (BAFTA). It's a shame, because with 10 Best Picture nominees, this film would have had a decent shot of making it in, and Cornish would be playing a solid role in the Best Actress race. I mean AT LEAST it could have had a role in the artistic categories! Costume design? Art direction? Cinematography!? Original Score? It's a mad mad mad mad mad mad (mad mad mad) world out there.

"Bright Star" - REVIEW

One of the most striking things about Jane Campion's "Bright Star" is how it doesn't luxuriate in its period settings. White is a prominent color, and seems to wash out certain scenes, leaving us a film that, as best it can, rejects the temptation to become little more than a pageant for pretty period costumes, and instead becomes a focused, lovely, and mostly true romance. Those expecting a biopic of poet John Keats will be underwhelmed, but if people can open themselves to Campion's woman-oriented romance, they will find a small treasure.

Opening in a rather direct and cut-to-the-point manner (thereby deviating from more "conventional" period pieces), we follow Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish), her mother, and two younger siblings as they pay a visit to Mr. Brown (Paul Schneider) and his friend, struggling poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw). Fanny is told to take a cup of tea to Mr. Keats, and from their first interaction, it's clear that there is some semblance of a connection. But where Campion and crew go right is in not jumping straight to the near 3 year love affair that occurred. Instead, the romance is built up gently, giving us time to come to learn about these people. In fact, some of the most interesting moments are in the first half, during which Fanny asks Keats to teach her about poetry, which causes her to clash with the pompous Mr. Brown, who continually tries to paint her as an empty flirt. Despite the the pale colors on the screen, Ms. Campion's script surprisingly crackles with life, namely when Brawne and Brown clash. As I said earlier, this is not "The John Keats Story", but is more about a woman's struggle with independence as well as falling in love with a man who, "has no real income". What evolves from a mere pleasant acquaintance feels genuine, and quietly absorbing.

Appropriately, color plays an important role. Beginning in winter, the use of white and brown feels more oppressive, making the later spring scenes (which are not extravagantly lit, however) give off a subtle sense of warmth and feeling. Perhaps the best scene in the film is one in which Keats (via voiceover) reads a letter to Fanny, while she lies down in a field of lavender. There are also a handful of beautiful scenes involving butterflies. But seeing as this is (sort of) about a poet, and poetry, there is the matter of words, and they don't disappoint. The sharp remarks are a small part; what's really important here are the exchanges between Fanny and John, and they're elegantly written, without feeling unreal.

But such words are useless if the cast can't deliver them. Luckily, Campion has given her words to a limited cast who are more than up to the task. Schneider makes an unlikeable antagonist without devolving into a caricature, while Whishaw captures the poet-in-need-of-inspiration aspect of his role. However, the film ultimately belongs to Cornish, who in addition to getting the most dynamic character, also has the meatiest scenes, and she doesn't disappoint. In her scenes with Whishaw, she's the more compelling actor, particularly in scenes in which the two recite lines of poetry together, which are more romantic than some of the steamiest sex scenes. Their chemistry is really what makes this film work so well; they create a relationship that we actually want to see succeed, without overtly sexualizing it.

Unfortunately, this focus on the relationship isn't always a good thing. My big complaint with the overall film is that Campion and crew get so wrapped up in the relationship scenes (and who can blame them) that plot details are often delivered rather lazily. Such lazy deliver can cause reactions to news to at first seem strange or over the top, before it is finally made clear exactly what is going on. It's unfortunate, because the scenes with Whishaw and Cornish are so beautifully rendered, but such scenes can't simply BE the entire movie; there needs to be some sense of forward motion, and it is this aspect alone where Campion's script stumbles.

Production wise, there's nothing spectacular, which I think was Campion's intention. There are a few nice costumes, but the film never becomes obsessed with them or the sets. The real stars of the artistic/tech departments are the cinematography and Mark Bradshaw's score. A handful of handheld camera shots, certainly not common in period pieces, are remarkably effective, especially when bolstered by Bradshaw's lovely score, which has its best moment in a song performed almost entirely by a "human orchestra" of male voices.

One of John Keats' more famous poems opens with the line "A thing of beauty is a joy forever". While Jane Campion's "Bright Star" may not endure forever, it is most certainly a thing of beauty.

Grade: B

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever..."

Stunning international trailer for Jane Campion's "Bright Star"

I love how almost the entire was simply images and music, before cutting to that beautiful John Keats quote. This is 10 times better than the dialogue/narration ridden American version. Why don't we ever get the great trailers, damnit!?

London Film Festival slate revealed

The programme for The Times BFI 53rd London Film Festival, announced today by Artistic Director Sandra Hebron, includes a diverse selection of world and international premieres with a total of 191 features and 113 shorts screening alongside an exciting line-up of special events and expected guests.

Opening Night film, Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox, is one of the Festival's 15 world premieres and will be presented by the director and cast members including Meryl Streep, George Clooney, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman and Helen McCrory. Other films celebrating their world premieres include Sam Taylor-Wood's Closing Night Gala Nowhere Boy and the Festival's first ever Archive Gala, the BFI's new restoration of Anthony Asquith's Underground, with live music accompaniment by the Prima Vista Social Club, led by Neil Brand. The Festival will also host 23 European premieres, including Jean-Pierre Jeunet's MICMACS, Scott Hicks' The Boys Are Back and Robert Connolly's Balibo, as well as Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni's The Well and Lucy Bailey and Andrew Thompson's Mugabe and the White African. The 4 international premieres that will be featured are 45365 from Bill and Turner Ross, Celine Danhier's Blank City, Mike Judge's Extract and Rumle Hammerich's Headhunter. Festival audiences will also have the chance to enjoy the UK premiere of John Lasseter's Toy Story 2 in Disney Digital 3D™.

Presenting a total of 146 UK premieres, the Festival showcases new work from established and emerging filmmakers alongside debuts by newly discovered talents. Directors travelling to London to introduce their latest work will include Michael Haneke (Cannes Palme d'Or winner, The White Ribbon), Atom Egoyan (Chloe), Steven Soderbergh (The Informant!), Lone Scherfig (An Education), Ang Lee (Taking Woodstock), Jane Campion (Bright Star), Gaspar Noé (Enter the Void), Lee Daniels (Precious), Grant Heslov (The Men Who Stare at Goats), and Jason Reitman (Up in the Air). George Clooney will also be in attendance to support his role in The Men Who Stare at Goats. In addition, the Festival will welcome back previous alumni such as John Hillcoat (The Road), Joe Swanberg (Alexander The Last) and Harmony Korine (Trash Humpers), whilst also screening films from Manoel de Oliveira (Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl), Jim Jarmusch (The Limits of Control), Claire Denis (White Material), Ho-Yuhang (At The End of Daybreak), Todd Solondz (Life During Wartime) and Joel and Ethan Coen (A Serious Man).

The programme introduces the work of debut directors including Tom Ford (A Single Man), Jordan Scott (Cracks) and Warwick Thornton (Samson & Delilah). Amongst the many British directors making their feature film debuts at the Festival are Paul King (Bunny and the Bull), Malcolm Venville (44 Inch Chest), David Morrissey (Don't Worry About Me), Tom Harper (The Scouting Book For Boys), Lindy Heymann (Kicks) and J Blakeson (The Disappearance of Alice Creed). They will screen alongside a compelling line-up of British films from directors such as Stephen Poliakoff (Glorious 39), Julien Temple (Oil City Confidential), Penny Woolcock (1 Day), Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas (American: The Bill Hicks Story), Jez Lewis (Shed Your Tears and Walk Away) and Chris Atkins (Starsuckers), several of which are world premieres.

Included in a strong selection of films representing new French cinema are Jacques Audiard's A Prophet, André Téchiné's The Girl on the Train, Jacques Rivette's Around a Small Mountain, Catherine Corsini's Leaving and Patrice Chéreau's Persecution. This year's French Gala is Mia Hansen-Løve's Father of My Children and as part of the Festival's Special Events programme, the Festival will present two exciting masterclasses with Audiard and Téchiné, in partnership with Unifrance.

Contemporary European cinema is celebrated in the Cinema Europa strand which includes 40 films, such as Jesper Ganslandt's The Ape from Sweden, Yorgos Lanthimos' Dogtooth from Greece and two Austrian-French-German co-productions: Lourdes by Jessica Hausner and Women Without Men by Iranian-American artist Shirin Neshat. Additionally, the Film on the Square strand includes the French-Romanian co-production Tales From the Golden Age, directed by Hanno Höfer, Cristian Mungiu, Constantin Popescu and Ioana Uricaru and Marco Bellocchio's Vincere, one of 8 films screening in the Festival from Italy. Marking its 10th year of a valuable association with Film Italia, the Festival will also host Maestri & Multiplexes: Italian Cinema Now, a panel discussion about the issues facing contemporary Italian films and filmmakers.

The very best of world cinema is reflected in the programme, as Festival audiences have a choice of films from 46 countries around the globe. Territories represented include Africa (Souleymane Cissé's Tell Me Who You Are), East Asia (Bong Joon-Ho's Mother), South Asia (Shyam Benegal's The Stolen Well) and the Middle East (Samuel Maoz's Lebanon and Haim Tabakman's Eyes Wide Open). A fresh slate of new films representing the next wave of American independent filmmaking includes Sophie Barthes' Cold Souls, Andrew Bujalski's Beeswax, Sam Fleischner and Ben Chace‘s Wah Do Dem, Nicholas Jasenovec's Paper Heart and Suzi Yoonessi's Dear Lemon Lima,.

Frederick Wiseman's La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet is one of 26 documentary features at the Festival which will compete for the annual Grierson Award for best feature-length documentary. Michel Gondry's The Thorn In the Heart, Ondi Timoner's We Live In Public and Connie Field's Have You Heard From Johannesburg: The Bottom Line also screen, in addition to music documentaries from Tom DiCillo (When You're Strange: A Film About the Doors) and Damani Baker and Alex Vlack (Still Bill). With a total of nine short film programmes and four experimental shorts programmes, audiences enjoy a wealth of choice ranging from recent work by the capital's most exciting new filmmakers in the London Calling selection, to A Thing Called Love- an assortment of films examining personal relationships, from the briefest encounter to love beyond the grave.

The Festival's cutting edge Experimenta strand will feature the series of seven films by American avant-garde artist and theoretician Hollis Frampton known as Hapax Legomena. Considered one of his most distinguished achievements, it will be presented in its entirety on new preservation prints. Additionally, Johan Grimonprez's ingenious hybrid Double Take will screen, as well as the latest instalment of the Film IST Series, A Girl and a Gun, by Gustav Deutsch. Treasures from the Archive celebrates the legacy of cinema with a wealth of classics from around the world that includes Ingmar Bergman's The Touch and Norman Z. McLeod's Topper, alongside Shadi Abdel Salam's The Night of Counting the Years, restored by Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation.

For the sixth year running, the Festival will host a free outdoor screening in Trafalgar Square. London Moves Me is an evening of more than 20 archive shorts that, in a link to the restoration of Underground, celebrate transport in London – a whistle stop tour from 1896 to 2009 with live piano accompaniment by Neil Brand. Open to all, London Moves Me will screen on 22 October.

As always, complementing the screenings is a full programme of unique Special Events, with an outstanding line-up of directors, writers, actors and producers due to attend the Festival. Environmental Filmmaking: Can Cinema Ever Be Truly Green? and Iranian Cinema: Post-New Wave, Post-Election...Where Now? promise to be provocative free events for audiences, whilst Stylish By Design: The Production Designer In Cinema will prove both interesting and informative, as designers discuss their different styles and experiences working with top directors.

Other guests expected to attend the Festival in October include: Clive Owen; Julianne Moore; Ray Winstone; Aaron Johnson; Nick Park; Catherine Breillat; Carey Mulligan, Alfred Molina, Rosamund Pike, Emma Thompson, Matthew Beard, Olivia Williams, Dominic Cooper; Nick Hornby; Lu Chan; Juno Temple; Alex Etel; Eliza May Bennett; Hugh Bonneville; Pauline Collins; Kwyedza Kureya; Federico León; Anurag Kashyap; Tarik Saleh; Josh Harris and James Schamus with many more still to be confirmed.

Commenting on the Festival line-up, Artistic Director Sandra Hebron said: “I'm delighted that we have such a strong and varied programme this year, presenting new work from some of the world's most renowned directors alongside films from exciting new talents, and showcasing creativity and imagination from around the world. We look forward to October when film-makers, industry and media guests and our public audiences will join us in London for what promises to be an exciting, stimulating and enjoyable two weeks.”

Trailer for "Bright Star"

Well...aside from that distracting narration, the trailer looks really promising. The only question is whether the September 18th release date includes the US...or are we going to have to keep waiting for this one?

Jane Campion's "Bright Star" finally gets a poster

American poster for "Cheri" and 3 clips from Jane Campion's "Bright Star"

Jane Campion's "Bright Star" earns raves at Cannes

Source: Incontention.com

Does the comeback begin here? This morning gave critics their first look at Jane Campion’s Keats biopic “Bright Star” — the director’s first feature in six years, and her first foray into period drama since “The Portrait of a Lady” — and early reactions indicate a genuine return to form.

The New York Times claims there were “few dry eyes” at the press screening of the tragic romance, while Screen International’s Allan Hunter goes so far as to suggest the film “match(es) the haunting intensity” of “The Piano,” which of course landed Campion the Palme d’Or 16 years ago. Like that masterpiece, he thinks this film could also be awards-bound, not least for the lead performances of Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw:

Beautifully crafted in every department from the composure of the camerawork to the precision of the costume and production design, Bright Star is a film to savour. Campion ensures that its pictorial appeal is matched by an emotional engagement thanks to a universally fine cast.

(Cornish) captures all the youthful impetuosity of the English Fanny and portrays her as a young woman trying to maintain control of a life torn apart by all the fresh emotions and new sensations that she is experiencing. It is a performance that should win her awards season consideration and emphatically underlines why she is one of the most highly regarded performers of her generation. Great expectations now also attend the performances of Ben Whishaw and he is equally impressive as John Keats, making the poet an entirely human figure.

I couldn’t be more pleased to hear that Campion is back in some critics’ good books, and I can’t say how excited I am at the possibility of Cornish finally cashing in on her “next big thing” buzz; the Australian blew me away in “Somersault” four years ago, but has never found a vehicle of that standard since. Here’s hoping.

Jeff Wells, meanwhile, is professionally warm but personally cool on the film, stating that it’s “done quite perfectly,” that he has “nothing but admiration for the various elements,” but that ultimately it’s “too damnably refined.” A matter of taste, then, but he reports speculation that the Academy could find it very much to their liking:

A journalist friend told me an hour ago that Bright Star will be Oscar nominated in seven or eight categories because it delivers that particular brand of period romance fulfillment that people of a certain persuasion line up for when movies of this sort play the Royal in West Los Angeles and the Lincoln Plaza in Manhattan.

Overall, then, it looks like another Competition title has passed the initial test. When can we expect the colossal failures, or polarising puzzles, that inspire boos and hisses across the Croisette? It wouldn’t be Cannes without at least one.