Bright Star, would I were steadfast as thou art -
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors-
No-yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever-or else swoon to death. 

John Keats -1819

LoglineBright Star, a portrait of love and loss.

One Paragraph Synopsis
John Keats, the romantic poet, wrote the love poem "Bright Star" for his 18 year-old next door neighbour Fanny Brawne. This is the story of their first love.

Short Synopsis
London 1818:  a secret love affair begins between 23 year old English poet, John Keats, and the girl next door, Fanny Brawne, an outspoken student of fashion. This unlikely pair started at odds; he thinking her a stylish minx, she unimpressed by literature in general. It was the illness of Keats's younger brother that drew them together. Keats was touched by Fanny's efforts to help and agreed to teach her poetry. By the time Fanny's alarmed mother and Keats's best friend Brown realised their attachment, the relationship had an unstoppable momentum. Intensely and helplessly absorbed in each other, the young lovers were swept into powerful new sensations, "I have the feeling as if I were dissolving", Keats wrote to her. Together they rode a wave of romantic obsession that deepened as their troubles mounted. Only Keats's illness proved insurmountable.

Director's Notes
The film is in itself a kind of ballad, like Keats's 'Eve of St Agnes' - it is a story about the love affair of Fanny Brawne and John Keats.  The story progresses in verses charting their increasing involvement and attachment as well as their deepening difficulties.The storytelling's restraint mimics Fanny's own life restraint, the passive waiting fate of any young woman of her time: the life amongst the family, her obsession with sewing, the restrictions on her activities and her chaperoned outings.  Against all these restraints, her determined passion for John Keats expressed through the notes she left under his pillow or by presenting herself at his window when he was sick, seem all the more remarkable.The most important quality of this story was to get across the intimacy of the characters to the viewer.  Rehearsal was very important for this as it helped the actors to establish a subtle Being.  Both Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish have a particular delicious charisma which, through the rehearsal period, they gave their characters claim to.  The more real they are, the more the mystery of their unique personalities is allowed to fascinate us, capturing our imagination and our hearts.I see the world of Keats and Fanny as light filled, literally leaking light, and even though the film ends with Keats's death, the lamp lit by his poetic genius and unique spirit cannot be extinguished.  It is Bright Star's ambition to sensitize the audience, to light the lamp.

Jane Campion, writer and director

Production Story
Romantic poet, John Keats's love for Fanny Brawne inspired some of the most beautiful love letters ever written. The eldest daughter of the Brawne family, Fanny was initially considered by Keats as a 'minx.' But whilst living next door to her in Hampstead, north London, between 1819  and 1820, he enjoyed a stupendous burst of creativity, producing three of his most beautiful works of poetry: 'Ode on a Grecian Urn,' 'Ode on Melancholy' and 'Ode to a Nightingale.' 
The pair became unofficially engaged in October 1819, but their wedding day would never arrive. Stricken by tuberculosis, Keats was advised to convalesce in a warmer climate, and left Britain for Italy in 1820. He never saw Fanny again and died in Rome in February 1821 at the young age of 25, unrecognised as the celebrated poet he would later become.  His final poem was called simply: 'To Fanny'.Brawne mourned Keats as if they had been married, wearing a widow's black dress for three years and spending hours in her room re-reading his letters or wandering alone on Hampstead Heath. In 1833 she married and later had two children, but she never took off the ring Keats had given her.  She also kept over three dozen of Keats's love letters to her.  Many were mere notes, others lengthy chronicles of his devotion.  These letters have become celebrated as among the most beautiful ever written.
The film's title, Bright Star, comes from a love poem for Brawne which Keats wrote in the flyleaf of his copy of the works of Shakespeare. The project had been a dream of director Jane Campion's for several years. "I was reading a biography of Keats," she says. "I got to the part where he met Fanny and I fell in love with their story.  I was drawn to the pain and beauty and innocence of their love affair. I was incredibly moved by Andrew Motion's book.  They were so young; it was a true life Romeo and Juliet story well-documented but one I had not known.  I found myself weeping at the end of it. The story is so tragic and tender.  The book also connected me to his poetry; I realised he was writing about his life and what he was going through.  At that point I couldn't really imagine what kind of film you could make.   I'm not really a fan of the biopic. I felt like I needed a specific angle." Campion decided to tell Keats's story through the lesser-known eyes of Fanny. We meet Keats, discover his poetry and lose him, as she does, over a two year period. The story is informed from a variety of sources including Keats's letters and poems and Andrew Motion's moving and fulsome biography of Keats.
Keats's poetry provided the inspiration for the structure of the story as Campion explains.  "Some of Keats's poems are in the form of odes and some are in ballads and I started to think about the story of Fanny and Keats as a ballad, a sort of story poem." The film stays as true to history as possible.  I needed to invent the story between the facts. I was very conscious of remaining modest and true to the spirit of these two extraordinary beings. Keats was easy, his personality, his playfulness that I read in his letters felt very familiar.  But as Keats destroyed his letters from Fanny I had less to guide me for her character. For example, Fanny sometimes showed remarkable restraint.  On returning home after saying a final farewell to Keats when he left for Rome, she simply wrote in her diary "Mr Keats left Hampstead."  Yet Keats also quoted Fanny in a letter to his friend Brown in the days preceding his departure as repeatedly asking, "Is  there another Life? Shall I awake and find this all a dream? There must be. We cannot be created for this sort of suffering." Then there was the summer of extraordinarily passionate love letters, which to receive must have been overpowering, so it was amidst these contrasts between passionate outpouring, grieving and extraordinary restraint that helped set the world in which they faced their fate."
Campion's long-time collaborator Jan Chapman (The Piano, Lantana) produced the film and consulted with Campion on the development of the screenplay after early backers Pathé came on board. "I had really fallen in love with Keats's poetry in my last year at high school. He was a sensualist about nature; you can feel the experience of it in his poems. There's also a really palpable sense of young love, of the transience of that and of the desire to capture a moment and never let it go. I responded immediately to Jane's interest in the love story being told from Fanny's point of view."

A true co-production
"The film is a true co-production in that it wasn't forced in any way. Screen Australia joined Pathe as investors followed by BBC Films, the UK Film Council's New Cinema Fund, the New South Wales Film and Television Office and Hopscotch International." Deciding to shoot in the UK, Chapman brought on board English producer, Caroline Hewitt (Mr Bean's Holiday, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy).  Hewitt knew the team socially after producing Jane's sister Anna Campion's Loaded.
Hewitt was delighted to be involved.  "It was a beautifully written script, poetic but with a modern cadence which makes it hugely accessible.  It was almost a shock to read something so good, it was one of the best scripts I've ever read.  Although it's a period film, it is very modern, immediate and pertinent and completely universal, about first love and creativity."For Hewitt the script was given texture by the relationship between Keats, Fanny and Keats's friend Brown, with whom he lived and worked. "One of the most interesting things in it for me was the effect that love has on the creative person. Are you distracted or does it enhance it?  This was the central core of the whole thing, his relationship with Fanny and his relationship with Brown and the way the territory of Keats is fought over. The idea of having propriety over someone else's creativity is very interesting.  Brown sees Fanny as a flibbertigibbet, but she has a very deep capacity for understanding what Keats is about and who he is.  And that takes it beyond a straightforward love story."     
To Hewitt, their differing attitudes to love were also key. "Brown shows a broader crasser and casual idea about what love could be, while Keats has a spiritual, passionate and deep love.  They each represent a different state of masculinity."Campion's vision does not feel like typical corseted UK fare. "Jane's script is totally immediate," explains Hewitt. "You're not removed emotionally by the historical nature of this. The film is unfussy - minimal but beautiful." 

The cast
Bright Star's two leads, Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw, also helped clear out any stuffiness that might be expected with a story starting in 1818. "Period films can feel stuffy and you need actors to feel real," says Campion. "Abbie can make things feel so immediate. And Ben's also very real."Chapman agrees the casting has also been crucial. "We wanted to have the freedom to cast the actors of our choice and we happened to choose leads from each country. Abbie and Ben are quite exceptional. They completely surpassed our wildest dreams in bringing the two characters to life."  Read more

Champion's production team
"There's a lot of intimacy in the story, but in a restrained way," adds Chapman.   "You imagine Fanny being able to hear Keats next door, through her bedroom wall.  The intimacy is echoed in the cinematography and design, but that doesn't mean you get a lack of visual sensuality.  Jane and Greig decided early on to have simple frames and not to move the camera a lot and Janet has echoed that in her design." Keats's poetry is, of course, included, but Campion made sure it was in an accessible way.  "I was determined to get as much of his poetry in as we could" she says. "A lot of people feel alienated from poetry because they feel they don't understand it. But Keats is a great explainer of poetry and I wanted to use that in the story.  Poetry is a drug really, it goes into your head and it sticks."  Read more

CAST
Fanny Brawne - Abbie Cornish
Abbie Cornish grew up on a farm in the Hunter Valley region outside Sydney, Australia. Her first acting job came at the age of 15 in an episode for the Australian Broadcasting commission series Childrens Hospital. Abbie then starred in Wildside (1997), a gritty Australian police drama series, for which she won the Young Actor's AFI Award at the Australian Film Institute for her performance. Abbie was next seen in Samantha Lang's feature film The Monkey's Mask (2000). From 2000 to 2004 Abbie worked on several television shows and films including Life Support, One Perfect Day (2004) and Marking Time (2003)- for which she received her second AFI Nomination.Abbie's international breakthrough role was as 'Heidi' in Cate Shortland's Somersault (2004) - her first collaboration with Bright Star producer Jan Chapman. Abbie won the Australian Film Institute, the Inside Film Award and the FCCA Award for Best Actress for her stunning performance. 2006 saw Abbie pull off yet another masterful performance in Neil Armfield's Candy, for which she again received both AFI and IF Award Nominations and won the FCCA Award for Best Actress.
Abbie's other credits include Ridley Scott's A Good Year (2006), Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) and Stop-Loss (2008), the second feature film from American director Kimberly Peirce.

John Keats - Ben Whishaw 
Ben Wishaw came to the fore early in his career playing the title role in Dom Rotheroe's My Brother Tom, for which he was named Most Promising Newcomer at the British Independent Film Awards 2001.  He then went on to train at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, graduating in 2003.  Ben has appeared in Roger Michell's adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel Enduring Love and Matthew Vaughn's Layer Cake before taking the lead role in Tom Tykwer's Perfume: A Story of a Murderer, for which he was nominated Best Actor at the European Film Awards and for the BAFTA Orange Rising Star Award in 2007.In 2005 Ben starred as Rolling Stones singer Keith Richards, in the biopic Stoned, before going on to interpret the venerable Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes' award-winning I'm Not There.  Ben, together with his co-stars, won a 2008 Independent Spirit Award for this role.  More recent credits include Brideshead Revisited directed by Julian Jarrold and Tom Twkwer's The International.  He will next be seen on screen in Julie Taymor's The Tempest.Ben's theatre work includes the stage adaptation of Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials", the title role in Trevor Nunn's electric 'youth' version of "Hamlet", for which he received an Olivier award nomination, and  Katie Michell's 2006 version of "The Seagull" at the National Theatre.For TV, Ben starred in the popular comedy-drama "The Booze Cruise" for ITV and "Nathan Barley" from director Chris Morris.  Most recently he starred in the tv series Criminal Justice."

Mr Brown - Paul Schneider
Paul Schneider will next be seen opposite John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph in Sam Mendes Away We Go.  He has also appeared in Lars and the Real Girl, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Family Stone  and garnered critical notice for his work as Jesse in Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown. 
Paul co-wrote and starred in the critically acclaimed All The Real Girls directed by David Gordon Green. The film was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival and Schneider was nominated for a Gotham Award for his performance.
His other film credits include George Washington, written and directed by David Gordon Green, Security Colorado, and The Rough South of Larry Brown.Paul directed his first feature film entitled Pretty Bird which starred Paul Giamatti and Billy Crudup and screened in competition in Sundance in 2008.

Mrs Brawne - Kerry Fox
Born in Wellington New Zealand Kerry came to prominence playing author Janet Frame in the movie An Angel at My Table directed by Jane Campion, which garnered her a Best Actress Award from the New Zealand Film and Television Awards.Kerry has gone on to build a truly international career, working far and wide in quality independent films and on television. She received praise and a nomination at the Australian Film Institute Awards for her leading role in Country Life, starred in Danny Boyle's Shallow Grave, was nominated for the Canadian Academy Award (Genie Award) for her supporting role in The Hanging Garden and starred in Michael Winterbottom's Welcome to Sarajevo.
In 2001 she won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for 'Best Actress' for her role as Claire in Intimacy (directed by Patrice Chereau). Bright Star is her second collaboration with Jane Campion (after An Angel at My Table) and also with producer Jan Chapman following her lead role in Gillian Armstrong's film The Last Days of Chez Nous.

Writer and Director - Jane Campion
Born in Wellington, New Zealand into a theatrical family, Campion graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Victoria University of Wellington then pursued a Diploma of Fine Arts at Chelsea School of Arts in London, completing her studies at Sydney College of Arts where she majored in painting but made films.  Subsequently, Campion completed three short films at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School in Sydney. 
Campion's career owes much to Frenchman Pierre Rissient, a seasoned Cannes selector who discovered her three short films in the Australian Film Commission archives in 1986.  He invited them along with her television feature Two Friends, to a special programme in Cannes and Peel, her first short film won the Palme D'Or.
In 1989 her first feature "Sweetie," was selected by Rissient, this time for main competition.  Rissient later connected Campion and Chapman to CIBY 2000 who fully financed her second feature The Piano (1993). This film also premiered at Cannes and won the Palme D'Or for best film and best actress.  The Piano won more than thirty awards including nine Oscar nominations and three Oscars.
Other films include:  An Angel At My Table, originally intended for television but screened as a feature in 1990 at the Venice Film Festival where it won seven prizes including The Silver Lion; A Portrait Of A Lady; Holy Smoke and In The Cut.

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