Depicting an artist at work in a film is a tricky thing.
The possibilities are greater when dealing with the visual arts because the
process of creation is dynamic. But when it comes to filming the story of a
writer, what can the filmmaker do to depict process? After all, what is a
writer’s process in the majority of cases if not to sit at a desk and think…and
write…and drink coffee…and think…and wait for ideas or inspiration? This does
not make for very interesting cinema. So the most interesting films centered on
writers tend to focus on something that is only tangentially connected to the
writing or the finished product. Jane Campion’s Bright Star was a mesmerizing love story to me when I first saw it
nearly four years ago and it remained so when I watched it again recently. The
movie circumvents the problems of filming a writer’s life and work by making
the story about the poet John Keats’ three year unconsummated love affair with
Fanny Brawne.
