13 May 2014

The films of Jane Campion (part II)


There was a big drive when I was at art school to make you aware of the economy of meaning - after all, this was still during the tail end of minimalism. Being responsible for everything you put in your picture, and being able to defend it. Keeping everything clear around you so you know what is operating. To open the wound and keep it clean.” — Jane Campion

The Portrait of a Lady (1996)


She had a desire to leave the past behind her, and, as she said to herself, to begin afresh. This desire, indeed, was not a birth of the present occasion; it was as familiar as the sound of the rain upon the window, and it had led to her beginning afresh a great many times.”— Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

   Three years after the success of The Piano, Jane Campion, with the help of screenwriter Laura Jones, filmed this adaptation of the Henry James' novel. This was the first film from Campion that I ever watched so even not being my favorite from her it has a special meaning for me. Actually, it is the first film I remember watching at cinema along with Gattaca (1997). It was in 2000, I was 10 years old and the film was shown as part of a series of film screenings surrounding the topic of Women in Film. My mother was part of the women organization in charge of the festival and I used to love to go with her to these kind of events. So there I was, in a cinema full of women watching this. I liked a lot the character of Pansy (probably because she was the closest one to my age), and the beautiful scenarios, the music and the lightning fascinated me. I've always been a sucker of the late 19th century  some of my favorite writers and painters were active during that time  so I loved the whole atmosphere of the film. With all that said, I didn't enjoy this film as much as others from Campion. I guess it is because it suffers the lack of character development regarding some of the characters' from the novel, and their actions appear to be a bit confusing. It's a pity because the cast is quite amazing: a young Nicole Kidman, in one of her first big roles; John Malkovich, a great Barbara HersheyMartin Donovan, Valentina Cervi, and the regretfully brief appearances of Richard E. Grant and Viggo Mortensen. John Gielgud also has a little role, like a very young Christian Bale.

    There were a couple of things that stayed with me after watching the film. The ending in the snow, the surrealistic black and white images in the middle of the film, and the poetical opening. Campion's title sequences are usually special, but this anachronistic one is specially remarkable. It echoes the surreal closing of one of her previous works, the short film A Girl’s Own Story (1984).







The hypnotic prelude to Campion’s The Portrait of a Lady begins in darkness, murmurous with the dreaming voices of young girls: “…the best part of a kiss is the moment just before…we become addicted to being intertwined…finding the clearest mirror, the most loyal mirror…when I love, I know he will shine that back to me.” Her camera gazes down into a grove where a sorority of lovely Mirandas lies about in innocent abandon, their bodies curved like silver fish in a sea of grass. Then, in a series of shots in black and white alternating with color, Campion’s hieratic virgins undulate slowly or stand still, always gazing out at us with the provocative serenity of brave new souls. These vestals in modern dress point the way—the film’s title is literally inscribed on the flesh of a woman’s hand—into the film proper, he 19th century pilgrim’s progress of Isabel Archer, New World Candide.”— Kathleen Murphy on Filmcomment


The ladies of Portrait of a Lady


(Valentina Cervi on set)

    Italian actress Valentina Cervi plays Pansy Osmond, a lovely character. She was on her early 20s in this film. This was her breakthrough role along with the painter Artemisia Gentileschi in the biopic called Artemisia a year later. I also loved her in Rien sur Robert (1999), La via degli angeli (1999) and as Pier Angeli in the Tv Movie James Dean (2001)

(Cervi and Kidman on set, stepdaughter and stepmother)

    Too bad didn't get more attention in other countries, besides France and Italy, until recent years. You might have seen her in Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre (2011) — but she plays Bertha Antoinetta Mason, so we have little of her in there — and in Tv series True Blood as the sultry Salome Agrippa, where she was perfectly cast.

(Barbara Hershey and John Malkovich in the film)

    Barbara Hershey plays Madame Serena Merle. Her performance, which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, is one of the finest you'll ever see. She's cold, elegant, distant, yet also wildly emotional and in showing the nuances of her character you can see Hershey's talent. I also loved her in Boxcar Bertha (1972), The Stunt Man (1980)Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)Falling Down (1993) and more recently in The Black Swan (2010)

(Nicole Kidman in a promotional still)

    Nicole Kidman is the star of the film as she plays James' heroine: Isabel Archer. She did a good job in here, and she totally embodies the type of tragic heroine that you imagine when you read stories from the late 19th century. 

(Kidman at Cannes Film Festival)

    On a documentary from the DVD of the film you can see a lovely moment between Campion and the actress, where Campion dries her tears after an emotional scene between Kidman and Malkovich. Campion usually "mothers" her cast, and I love this quote from her talking about her relation with the actors on set:

Performers are so vulnerable. They're frightened of humiliation, sure their work will not be crap. I try to make an environment where it's warm, where it's OK to fail – a kind of home, I suppose.”— Jane Campion on The Guardian 

(Nicole Kidman on set)
Isabel wakes to the discovery of how things are. Her insight is her reward. Hers is a tragic rite of passage. Through suffering, she finds her real self. She didn’t realize how though the journey was going to be. She is beautiful, tall, intelligent, arrogant, courageous. But, like women who are not as beautiful, not as sought after, she also experiences the hardships of life. Growing up, the expectation is that life will turn out sweetly. When it doesn’t, you handle it. It’s very 20th century. I’m a romantic-obsessive. I love to fall in love”. One relationship left her “unable to trust for two years,” but she got over it. “I fell in love again (laughs).” — Jane Campion on the Jane Campion Interviews


    The haunting soundtrack was composed by Wojciech Kilar — who sadly passed last December —,  one of the greatest film composers we've had. He composed the extraordinary soundtrack of  Coppola's Dracula, and he worked three times with Polanski in Death and the Maiden (1994), The Ninth Gate (1999) and The Pianist (2002) for which he won the César Award for Best Film Music. He also wrote the epic "Exodus" (famous as the trailer music from Schindler's List). My two favorite pieces in the soundtrack of The Portrait of a Lady are  "Phantasms Of Love" and "Love Remains". You can listen to the whole thing in here, that it also features three delightful pieces from Schubert:





    There is one last thing that I specially love from this film and that is the scene of Isabel on her knees by her cousin's, Ralph Touchett, bed, and how he later hugs her. I guess it's my favorite moment from the film 'cause it also is my favorite scene from the novel. Martin Donovan played Ralph in the film and he was fantastic. He rightfully won the National Society of Film Critics Award to Best Supporting Actor for this role.


(Martin Donovan and Kidman during the scene in the film)

    When I watched Holy Motors (2012), I was quite surprised when a particular scene took place in the film. I instantly recognized the dialogue in which it has to be one of my favorite scenes from the bizarre film. During a Q&A at the New York Film Festival, the brilliant and misunderstood, Leos Carax, the director of the film, explained his love for the scene:

(Elise Lhomeau and Denis Lavant in Holy Motors)
 I thank Henry James for the scene in the hotel room, that I stole from Portrait Of A Lady… This particular scene is the most beautiful scene ever written.” — Leos Carax


Holy Smoke (1999)


“The soul is the match, the spark, the flame that can light your path.”


 In some ways Holy Smoke is about people's journey to the heart. — Jane Campion

    Holy Smoke is a crazy film. It's some kind of comic romance with surrealist elements and an insight of the women/men relations, something that Campion loves to explore, always giving her female characters strong roles, showing relations that unfortunately we don't usually see in film. If you don't get into Campion's sense of humour and bizarrism, you probably won't like this film at all. The reaction to the film was polarized since its premiere: you'd love it or hate it. 

(Kate Winslet and Harvey Keitel in Holy Smoke)

    I think the story — and therefore the characters, not the actors playing them —, gets a bit lost at some point, but the visual imagery — stunning work with the lights and the landscapes by cinematographer Dion Beebe (Memoirs of a Geisha, Collateral and also Campion's In the Cut) — the setting in the middle of South Australia's isolated landscapes that reminded me of my beloved Paris, Texas (1984) — film critic Anthony Lane from The New Yorker commented that the movie 'has a strong smell of the 1970s about it' —, and the opportunity to see the amazing tour de force between Harvey Keitel and Kate Winslet, made me enjoy it, and love some unforgettable scenes. Winslet rocks singing and dancing to  Alanis Morissette, P.J. Waters introduction with Neil Diamond on the background and Keitel looking as badass as he knows how to look, it's also funny and awesome. But the way Keitel looks at Winslet in the scene at the club while The Angel's cover of "I put a spell on you" plays is one of the best. You can tell everything by the way he looks at her. 



Here there are some great behind the scenes photos
 taken by Gerald Jenkins featuring Keitel, Winslet, Campion:

(Campion hugs Winslet after shooting the ending)


I would never accept a role that wasn't going to stretch me or challenge me in some way. I'd say Holy Smoke! probably did that more than anything I'd ever done. It took me to places I didn't actually know I could go to, and that's what I want my career to be all about.— Kate Winslet 

(Winslet dancing in the scene where she listens to Alanis Morissette)

Jane Campion asked me, 'Do you need to be liked?' and I said, 'Yes, but I don't really care. I don't care if I'm criticised'. She said, 'Do you want the audience to like you?' I said, 'I think I do. I like to make nice people'. 'Well, forget it', Campion said, 'Ruth's not a nice person. You'll have to get over wanting to be liked'. I will always be grateful to her for that.”Kate Winslet, on playing an unlikable character.

(Keitel and Winslet shooting a scene)

“The nice thing about Harvey is that he’s not a young actor and he’s not an old actor, he’s ageless in a way. His commitment to acting and his philosophy about it is absolutely staunch and excited. For me, he brought a whole alertness and awareness of the acting tradition, he’s one of those people that really live it.Jane Campion on Harvey Keitel  
That description of Keitel is perfect, and Keitel really admires her: 
Jane Campion is a goddess and I'm a mere mortal.— Harvey Keitel  on Jane Campion


 I gave myself one hundred per cent to the film. I still can't believe what I did.— Kate Winslet on Holy Smoke for The Guardian.

    Winslet received glowing reviews for her role and she totally deserved them. This is, again, another brilliant female performance in a Campion film. Not just because she writes strong and unique female characters, but also because she pushes the actresses to limits that other filmmakers won't dare. Winslet was a 24-year-old English girl speaking with a perfect Australian accent, and brave enough to do some emotionally and physical rough scenes opposite none other than Harvey Keitel.


(Campion hugs Winslet while filming in India)

She's gorgeous, wonderful, but bloody hard. She's mad; she's a self-confessed mad person. Plus, she's humane and honest and intuitive, and she pushes her actors, challenges them. She asks us to be as revealing as possible, as open as you can be; to transfer the whole of your self on to the character that you are playing.— Kate Winslet on Campion.

(Keitel, Campion and Winslet at the Venice Film Festival)

Holy Smoke premiered at the 1999 Venice Film Festival,  
being a contender for the Golden Lion

Both Campion and Winslet won the 
Elvira Notari Prize at the Festival. 

Too bad Winslet's terrific performance was overlooked at major awards. She only received the 3rd place at the NSFC Awards, and the 2nd at the NYFCC Awards.

In the Cut (2003)


    In the Cut takes New York, the most vibrant of contemporary cities, as its milieu. The narrative is set in the present, and centres on Frannie Avery (Meg Ryan), a teacher of writing, who has an erotic encounter with a police detective (Mark Ruffalo). Malloy, the detective, is investigating a gruesome murder in her neighbourhood. However, the story unfolds not from Malloy’s, but from Frannie’s (female) perspective. Ostensibly a thriller, the film is also a mystery and a love story, and it is significant that Campion’s own summary of what the film is about does not mention the detective story at all, which was evidently of secondary interest to her. As a Campion film, it is imbued with her preoccupations with relationships, love, female desire, trauma, female bravery, gender relations, and ideology.”  Lisa French, Centring the female: the articulation of female experience in the films of Jane Campion

    I couldn't have used better words than the ones from French to describe this film. She analyzes Campion's films and her vision of women in an incredible work that you can read by clicking on the title or here. The film received negative to mixed reviews from critics. There was a lot of complaining about the plot and Ryan's performance. Being honest with you, I totally disagree with the latest, I think Ryan did a decent job. In the Cut turns out to be a haunting experience because of its atmosphere. Let's say I enjoyed it and not disliked it as much as I was expecting. Surprisingly, it received good reviews here in Spain, from El Pais and El Mundo, the two major newspapers.

    There are two things that I particularly liked from the film. Along with the poetic references and the mentions to Virginia Woolf's To the LighthouseDion Beebe's photography fascinated me. The cinematographer also worked with Campion in her previous film. The use of lights and shadows is amazing, and the whole film has a beautiful shade of colors between red and greens that reminded me of the ones used by Kieslowski in La double vie de Véronique (1991)

(In the Cut's opening)

The opening sequence with the credits is also a marvelous thing, and it 
reminded me of a very similar scene on Lars von Trier's Melancholia (2011)

(Melancholia, 2011)

Simultaneously blossom falls from the trees and Frannie awakes—seeing it in her half consciousness. Campion has described this as “a beautiful... a kind of transcendent moment. Frannie ... mistakes these blossoms for snow”, and this is the first misrecognition resulting in the first misreading. Campion has said of this moment that it is so emblematic of the whole way this film moves. A series of mistaken identities, just how thinking is like that we think we’ve seen something but we haven’t seen it all or haven’t seen enough of it. Frannie’s private dream in the story, the dream she’s trying to free herself from is romantic mythology of her father which is on the one hand so attractive because its so heightened and beautiful, but on the other hand, she saw her mother who was so betrayed by him; so you have the thing that is so desired and the harm it has done.”— Lisa French, Centring the female: the articulation of female experience in the films of Jane Campion.

    The other thing is Mark Ruffalo's performance. He's one of those actors that I always enjoy watching. That year he also had a little but essential role in Coixet's My Life Without Me (2003). Here he gets in the skin of Detective Malloy.



“The character of Malloy is ambiguously represented. As Adrian Martin has observed, Malloy is “an odd mixture of brutalism and sensitivity, the classic figure of the ‘demon lover’, both repellent and seductive, who drives so many contemporary thrillers centred on women”. PJ in Holy Smoke and Baines in The Piano are also represented as both rough and soft. It is this mixture that in fact attracts Frannie to Malloy, and through them Campion seems to be trying to understand how men and women relate to each other — a resonant theme, but one explored in particularly complex ways in her films.” Lisa French, Centring the female: the articulation of female experience in the films of Jane Campion

I think it’s a really adult, really beautiful cinematic piece of work. I think the characters are really complex. I think it’s really honest and it doesn’t objectify women. It’s a really harrowing piece of storytelling.— Mark Ruffalo

(Ryan, Ruffalo and Campion on set)

My relationship to Jane [Campion]... I haven’t worked with a director who really had such a handle on what an actor needs to go places they’ve never been before. It was the type of thing that pushes your boundaries, pushing what you think you’re capable of. There’s always the next level - this bottomless human potential that Jane’s really aware of. I think you see performances in that movie that you've never seen from these particular actors.”Mark Ruffalo on working with Campion.

    *Funny trivia from the film, you have to take attention but the "mysterious blonde" that dances with Malloy's partner in a bar, is Jane Campion itself. She did a cameo on this film, à la Hitchcock.



Jane and Alice 

(Jane Campion / Alice Englert)


    After filming In the Cut, Campion decided to take some time off. One of the reasons was to spend more time with her daughter, Alice Englert.

I had a daughter who was 9 years old and I had the feeling I wasn't going to be a real parent if I didn't quit making movies for a while and spend time with her. I also felt that I'd made enough movies and said what I had to say at the time. — Jane Campion

(Campion with 2-year-old Alice on the set of The Portrait of a Lady)

    Alice was born in Australia on 1994. Her father is also a filmmaker, assistant director of Campion, the Australian Colin Englert. Campion and Englert divorced when Alice was seven. The girl was raised in Sydney and on locations where her mother's work took the family. At 12, she starred in her mother's short film The Water Diary, a segment of the United Nations' film project called  8 (2008), a compilation of 8 shorts centered around 8 themes directed by 8 famous film directors (Wenders, Noé, Jan Kounen, Gus Van Sant, Mira Nair, Gael García Bernal, Abderrahmane Sissako and Campion) involved and sharing their opinion on progress, on the set-backs and the challenges our planet faces today. The Water Diary, as you can guess by its title, is centered around water and environmental sustainability. Some kids narrate their experience living during a time of drought. You can watch it below:  

(12-year-old Alice in The Water Diary)


    Around 2010 Englert decided to leave high school to become an actress. Since then she has starred in  Singularity, which was showcased at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival; and the acclaimed Ginger & Rosa, opposite Elle Fanning. In 2013, she starred in the low-budget horror film In Fear, and in the supernatural romance film Beautiful Creatures. A poet and singer, Englert's self-penned song "Needle and Thread" was used in the film. I wonder how long would it take to see these two working together.

I was 13 when I first saw my mum's films. There were these boys who said to me, ‘Your mum makes sexy films,’ and I said, ‘She doesn’t.’ Then I watched them and … my mum makes sexy films! I’m a huge fan of my mum.” — Alice Englert

(Campion and Englert, mother and daughter)


Bright Star (2009)


There is a holiness to the heart's affections.


John Keats: Touch has a memory. 

Fanny Brawne: I know it.

    Bright Star is my favorite film from Campion and one of my personal top favorite films from cinema. Basically because John Keats is one of my favorite poets and I found this film to be a beautiful and poignant elegy from Campion to Keats. It's a delicate and intimate portrayal of a very important part of his life: his last three years, before his tragic death at the age of 25, and his romantic relationship during that time with Fanny Brawne. What it's most tragic about Keats is not just how young he was, but that during the time he lived he didn't receive good critics nor had the recognition he deserved, à la Van Gogh. 

(English Romantic poet John Keats by William Hilton)


(Ben Whishaw as Keats in the film)

    The cast is excellent. I can't imagine anyone doing a better Keats than the extremely talented Ben Whishaw — the sound of Keats' words in his voice is delightful —, his manners and romantic look are perfect, and Abbie Cornish (already loved her in Somersault and Candy, she never stops impressing me) delivers one of my favorite female performances as Fanny. Paul Schneider's meanness as Mr. Brown works perfectly opposite to the kindhearted Keats. And we also have good performances in little roles by Kerry Fox, who starred in Campion's An Angel at My Table, and plays Fanny's mother; Thomas Brodie-Sangster (who's currently playing the role of Jojen Reed in Game of Thrones) as his little brother, and the cute Edie Martin as her little sister, Toots. The British actor Olly Alexander (Skins: Pure, The Dish and the Spoon, Enter the Void) also has a little role as Keats' brother. And I can't forget about Fanny's cat. That cat is a scene stealer like the chihuahua named Coco from Campion's Top of the Lake



He sent me an email about the script before we met that really touched meAnd thenwhen he came to do a reading, I opened the door and there was this beautiful, fragile boy; he had that magical quality that people who have written about Keats say he hadHe read from the script and instantly made me believe that he was capable of writing that poetry and loving that much. — Jane Campion on Ben Whishaw, The Telegraph 

    You can see below an insightful interview with Whishaw and Campion during the Toronto Film Festival, on September 2009. Campion talks about woman in filmmaking, her approach to the story, and you can see the great understanding between her and the actor, how fondly she talks about his acting and his sensibility, and Whishaw's favorite bits from the film and how much he loved Cornish's performance: 



    Here there are a couple of clips from the set, with the actors and Campion talking about the making of the film, and a collection of really cool polaroids and photos from the set and the rehearsals for the film:


(Abbie Cornish on set)
Abbie bonded with Fanny straight away and if I disagreed about something she'd insist she knew better. So I just said, 'OK, the character's yours.' I suppose some men would be allowing in the way I am, but Abbie told me she'd never had this kind of empathetic connection with a male director. For me, being a director is about watching, not about telling people what to do. Or maybe it's like being a mirror; if they didn't have me to look at, they wouldn't be able to put the make-up on.” — Jane Campion on Abbie Cornish


(Ben Whishaw)
(Campion and Martin with Cornish's Birthday cake)
(Sangster, Martin and Cornish)
(Above: Whishaw and Schneider; below: exhausted Whishaw)
(Cornish reading to Martin)

    Greig Fraser's work (Let Me In, Zero Dark Thirty, Snow White and the Huntsman) in the photography department is stunning, he won several awards in Australia and the British Independent Film Award for this work. And also the flawless costume design by Janet Patterson (who also worked with Campion in The Piano, The Portrait of a Lady and Holy Smoke) was nominated to an Oscar and received several other nominations and accolades in Australia. The soundtrack composed by the great composer Mark Bradshaw, who has worked again with Campion in Top of the Lake, is magnificent. Below you can watch a compilation of some of the best scenes of the film with Bradshaw's soundtrack:


    The relation between John Keats and Fanny Brawne is one of the most moving love relations of history. And its impact on literature is what makes it so unforgettable. Fanny inspired many of the greatest poems of Keats. You can read here the whole story, which is pretty well depicted in the film. She kept his letters in secret during all her life. She mourned Keats for a long long time, and even after marrying later to another man, as she was supposed to do for the social conventions, she never forgot him. I love how Campion managed to show us the emotional turmoil of the relation, the difficulties, and the beauty of it. 


I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days - three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.” 
— John Keats,  Love Letters and Poems to Fanny Brawne


Campion's daughter Alice, who was 14 years old by the time she filmed this, served as her household muse, a touchstone of veracity. She was almost an unofficial consultant on Bright Star

Keats didn't keep Fanny's letters, so when I was writing the script I wondered how I'd be able to get her voice. Whenever I was unsure, I thought, 'How would Alice react?' She has the same kind of personality, always flying off, fantastic emotional ups and downs, yet very tender and kind under it all.” Jane Campion on how her daughter Alice helped bringing Fanny to life.


The film's title is a reference to one of the most famous sonnets by Keats, 
which he wrote while he was with Brawne: 
Bright star, would I were stedfast 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 stedfast, 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, Bright Star

The film premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival in competition for 
the presitigious Palme d’Or, and it was acclaimed by the critics.

(Above: Whishaw, Campion and Cornish; 
below: Whishaw and Cornish during the photocall)

Here there are some great excerpts from the Press Conference at Cannes:



1. Jane Campion on the role of women during the period that her film takes place.
2. Jane Campion on how she got to know Keats through numerous resources.
3. Marc Bradshaw on writing the music for the movie.
4. Ben Whishaw on the humorous side of Keats
5. Campion, Chapman and Hewitt (producers) on female producers 
in Australia / England and independent film.
6. Jane Campion on trying to find Fanny's voice.

(Above: Whishaw, Cornish, Campion, Sangster and Fox; 
Below: Whishaw and Cornish)

With 'Bright Star' and with 'The Piano,' too, I felt a kind of sadness about it being in such a different era, because of my lack of experience with the era. And one of the ways I'd get over it is to remind myself that every film, even if it's contemporary, creates its own world.
It's been such a deep and amazing journey for me, getting close to John Keats, and also I love Shelley and Byron. I mean, the thing about the Romantic poets is that they've got the epitaph of romantic posthumously. They all died really young, and Keats, the youngest of them all
There's no artist in this world that doesn't enjoy the dream that if they have bad reviews now, the story of Keats can redeem them, in their fantasy or imagination, in the future.”  Jane Campion on Bright Star

(Female filmmakers: Julie Taymor, Zoe Cassavetes, Sofia Coppola, and
Mira Nair with Jane Campion at the New York premiere of Bright Star. 
*Note: Coppola is part of the Cannes Film Festival Jury this year, 
under Campion's presidency)



You can see Part I clicking here


— Mara



Info and photos: Cinemaaxis, The Observer, Portait of a Lady screen caps at dvdbeaver and dvdactive, cinema series, Holy Smoke screen caps by me, Gerald Jenkins, katewinsletfan, BBC news, Centring the female: the articulation of female experience in the films of Jane Campion by Lisa French, About.com, In the Cut screen caps by me and cultandexploitation, Nzedge, Bright Star screen caps at ladybluelake / theotherayn / marie-theshiningstars / laduermeveladelvisionario, icapturetheperiodpieces / vinylisheavy, behind the scenes pics on ONTD.

5 comments:

. said...

I've never heard of Holy Smoke before, so I'm going to have to check it out. It looks beautiful, and I love Kate Winslet.

Alex Withrow said...

Another GREAT post. Excellent work here. I too like In the Cut more than the masses. I thought it was unlike anything Campion had done before, and I kind of dug it.

I need to see The Portrait of a Lady again ASAP. And I definitely need to watch that DVD special feature you were talking about. That sounds so special.

Question: in your post you say you saw The Portrait of a Lady in 2010, when you were 10. So does that mean you're only 14 years old? Like, right now? In real life? If so, then that is just insane.

holabolababes@gmail.com said...

Wauw, I really love the way Kate Winslet looks her, never seen here like this before.
Beautiful post girls. Keep on goin'

xx Emilie

Katy said...

I'm not sure I could put into words how magical this post was - from the very first quote you used by Campion. You made me a hardcore fan! I'm putting more of her films on my to-watch list this summer (since Bright Star is sorta the only one I've seen so far). Thanks for all the work you put into this Mara - it shows! :D

Laura Sánchez said...

Bright Star entró a formar parte de mis películas preferidas al instante de verla. Todas las escenas saben plasmar a la perfección la delicadeza y el romanticismo que envuelven tanto a la persona de Keats como a su amada. Sin lugar a dudas me quedo con el momento en el que Fanny lee una carta en su habitación, rodeada de mariposas. Refleja el poder de las palabras al ser leídas y la proximidad que un simple trozo de papel es capaz de recrear, hasta el punto de que el simple contacto con la tinta seca podría equipararse al contacto físico con la persona amada.

Me apunto el resto de títulos, porque tienen muy buena pinta.

Un beso, preciosa.