Romantic poet John Keats's love for Fanny Brawne inspired some of the most beautiful love letters ever written. The title of the film, 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 was a dream of director Jane Campion 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 which 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."
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.
Keats's poetry provided the inspiration for the structure of the story. Campion explains: "Some of Keats's poems are in the form of odes and some are in ballads. 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, 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 vision does not feel like typical corseted UK fare. "Jane's script is immediate," says English producer Caroline Hewitt. "You're not emotionally removed by the historical nature of it. The film is unfussy, minimal but beautiful."
Bright Star's leads, Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw, also helped clear out any stuffiness that might be expected in 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 is also very real. I remember first meeting Ben Whishaw outside the audition room. I looked at this young man, this creature, beautiful like a cat, not real almost. When he spoke, he sounded like Keats, not posh, slightly London or northern. In the audition, he was completely brave, open emotionally, febrile yet strong and very sensual and intimate with the actress reading for Fanny. Later, in rehearsal, I found his presence addictive. Ben is not chatty, but deeply honest and trusting.
"When Ben and Abbie finally first met before rehearsals, I remember Abbie saying something like, "G'day mate". As underplayed as those first words were, it was a special match. I watched the appreciation, intrigue and respect between them grow daily," says Campion.
Campion found herself using her daughter as inspiration for the character of Fanny. "Writing Fanny was difficult as I don't think of myself as witty. My daughter, Alice, who is 13, however, is very passionate and quick speaking, so whenever I got to a point when I thought 'what would Fanny do about this?', I thought 'what would Alice do about it', and that really helped me out. Then, along came Abbie. She's singular minded and would definitely have the courage to do what Fanny did; to go against what society thought was suitable and to pick a partner who was almost inevitably going to cause her extraordinary pain. I was not only surprised and moved by the depth of her performance, but also by how funny and light, even silly she can be."
