Reimagination of John Keats' Love Story in The Film 'Bright Star'

Jane Campion’s postmodernist framing of John Keats poetry in her film ‘Bright Star’ gives new understanding and awareness into Keat’s work and personal life. While the romantic era provided a background for Keats poetry, Campion reframes the romantic ideals of the creative mind as the ultimate creative power through modern values to showcase the love story that unfolds between Keats and Fanny. Reflecting the romantic view of nature as a pathway to creativity, Campion rejects the perspective of women being femme fatale and instead presents Fanny as someone symbolicaly equal who raises Keats creativity. The postmodern imagination of the narrative which both reflects the poetry of Keats whilst colliding with the 19th century perspective on gender and power demonstrates how textual conversations reshape significance for new audiences and times.

Campion reframes Keats and Fannys love through a feminst point of view in a postmodernist society to challenge the idea of Fanny as the romantic stereotype of a ‘minxtress’ instead situating us to see Keats as the object and Fanny as the subject through her perspective. Campion undermines the ‘tongueless nightingale’ from the poem ‘The Eve of St Agnes’ through the characterisation of Mr Brown. Mr Brown captures the 19th century male perspective of women through his remorseless ridiculing tone of Fannys knowledge on literature. However, this view of women collides with Campion's reframing of Fanny, as Keats must submit himself to this additional human realm of the creative mind if he is to increase his insight into nature, thus presenting Fanny as an instigator of Keats creativity rather than the destroyer. Campion uses sewing as a framing device to identify fanny as a creative mind through the opening scene of a needle and thread. Champion investigates the paradoxical nature of sewing as an art form, one that has previously been invisible in history as the role of women was organised in society to be controlled by men where women were positioned as the ‘muse’. Campion reinvents the romantic figure of the destabilser through a feminst lens to refine the stereotype of the domestic female who interefers in the males creative world colliding with the 19th century view of women being inferir to men allowing modern audiences with feminist values to relate personally to the views relevant to theitr context.

Campion's reimagining of the love story that unfolds between Keats and Fanny presents how ordinary and human it is to fall in love which is conveyed with Keats poetic questioning of the immortality of death which is seen when mourning Fanny reads ‘Bright Star’ when walking through the snow. The idea that emotion and creativity are the entrance to immortality is seen in the poem ‘When i have fears’ where Keats uneasiness of an early death mirrors the idea that he will never see his ‘fair creature’ and therefore never experience his creativity reflected back to him through ‘unreflecting love’. Keats characterises the qualities of love with something mystical contrasting it with “faery power” as something mysterious and beautiful however still remaining a dream or illusion. Thus, he is alone, unfulfilled, in an existence between rational thoughts or an ironic movement where he dismisses this. However, while he longs for immortality, he doest wish to exist without anyone else. Instead he desires to be “awake forever” and “pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast”. Unfortunately, these two desires, to experience love and to be immortal, can’t exist together. It is this process of falling in love that Campion privileges as being central to Keats thereby appealing more to contemporary audiences as these parts of history that are incorporated in the sensations and nature of love were silenced due to the status wealth had on marriage. COnsistently referenced by Campion, is also Keats inability to marry Fanny. This is exemplified as Mrs Brawne, Fannys mother, enquires in his last book asking ‘is this successful?’. Campion allows the contemporary audience to feel the excitement in the impulsiveness and disorder that love brings through her modern context disregarding the stereotypical depiction of women.

Jane Campion’s reimagination of John Keats love story through Fanny Brawnes eyes utilising his poetry as a stimulus connects new audiences to evaluate the role of Fanny as integral to the work of Keats, not just as a muse. Through an understanding of the modern context of ‘Bright Star’ and the Romantic ideals of Keats poetry, the textual conversations initiated by Jane Campion reshape meaning for new audiences and times. Thus, the reframing of a text as a stimulus to authenticity and truth will continue to be framed by the contextual forces which seek to bring new understandings whilst further captivating audiences with fresh interpretations of historical stories.