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Director Jane Campion lights a Bright Star
Katherine Monk
TORONTO - If Aussie gals are natural born rebels, Jane Campion may as well be the equivalent of Louis Riel.
Confident in her point of view and creative purpose, the New Zealand-born and Sydney-based director doesn't compromise - and she knows that comes at a price.
But as the woman behind The Piano talks about her latest film Bright Star, which had its North American premiere here at the Toronto International Film Festival before its Sept. 18 release, it's clear she's as committed as ever to her feisty film vision, where women are allowed to be heroic while men wax poetic.
Bright Star explores the privately documented love saga between icon of Romantic verse John Keats and 18-year-old Fanny Brawne, the woman who inspired the motions of his fountain pen.
An early 19th century romance with a Romeo and Juliet arc, Campion says her film is even bigger than Shakespeare's teen tragedy.
"(Fanny and Keats) really lived . . . And Romeo was no poet," she says, with a deadpan beat.
"You know they, Fanny and Keats, used to compare themselves to Romeo and Juliet. They could see the connection."
Campion is referring to the fact that Keats died at the tender age of 25, just a short time after he met Brawne and the two formed a deep, and somewhat immediate, connection.
"I think, for me it was really one of the most powerful love stories in history, and anecdotally, it's extraordinary because we have the love letters. And these aren't ordinary love letters, they're probably some of the most passionate ever written . . . and likely to be written, given what's happening to our communication."
Campion can't stop herself from adding that little extra bit of editorial commentary. And once you look straight into her clean blue eyes that catch your glance and keep it, you can tell she probably doesn't even care to.
That may have something to do with her Aussie upbringing, she says. Women who spend their formative years Down Under are just a bit wilder than those reared in other parts of the world.
While casting the part of Fanny, Campion says she first looked at Australian ingenue Abbie Cornish (Stop-Loss, Candy) because she was home grown, but nonetheless, felt forced to seek an English actor to play the role of Hampstead girl-next-door.
"I didn't have a particular Fanny in mind. The inspiration for me was actually my 13-year-old daughter, who, I think has a personality quite like Fanny's, and as far as I can understand - and as we all know - personalities don't change a lot . . . you can still have a tantrum in your 50s," she says, with a hint of smirk.
"When (producer Jan Chapman) suggested to me of going with Abbie, I said: Oh Jan, she's Australian," Campion groans.
"She's supposed to be English!"
Yet, after seeing a parade of British actors audition, Campion came back to the rising starlet because she had a certain pluckiness that couldn't be found elsewhere.
"The thing Australia does well with women is make rebels. It's kind of the way they bring girls up there. It's the criminal element or something: They first colonized the country. They like renegades. It's supported," she says.
"In America . . ." Campion hesitates, looks at her female interlocutors, and asks if they are American. When the answer is "no," she continues.
"You know, my observation is American women are a lot politer. They know how to behave, shut up and be respectful. We don't learn that in Australia," she says, laughing.
"Quite sadly, by the time most girls get to be 18 or 20, they're pretty trained up by the culture: How to be submissive, and shut up, and try to be pleasing and be nice. In England, we found the same thing. Girls have lost a bit of their spirit."
Campion's oeuvre, filled with quirky and undeniably potent women, stands in opposition to the status quo, but it's not like she's a woman on a feminist mission. She simply makes movies about the stronger brand of female who sees the world for what it is, and commits herself to a different view and purpose, regardless of the consequences.
In the case of Bright Star, Fanny Brawne was feisty enough to fall in love with a man who had no money to marry, but had words flowing from his heart.
"This story, when I read it, expanded my view of (what a romantic movie can be). I felt really moved by the courage of these two young people dealing with such momentous things like their first love, and their first loss, at the same time," she says.
"It just opened my heart up completely because the story is so pure, it doesn't feel exploitative. When I read it, it just felt so brave, so courageous. The odd thing is when you begin, you think, aw, they're falling in love. Isn't that cute? You can look down at them and go ha ha ha!... But then they go to this incredibly courageous place."
Bright Star opens in theatres September 18.
