Poetic challenges

Bright Star director Jane Campion, 55, says she was always terrified of poetry. “It wasn’t poetry that brought me towards this story; it was my ignorance about the subject. I hit 50 and decided to educate myself about it. I read a biography of Coleridge and then I found Andrew Motion’s book on Keats. I could not believe that I hadn’t heard of this great love story before. It was like Romeo and Juliet, only it was true.” Perhaps the few years in the wilderness have done Jane Campion some good. Though imperfect in many ways, Bright Star looks like the work of an auteur back in firm control of her material. Unlike Holy Smoke or In the Cut, the picture is very acute and precise in its focus. Bright Star has brought her back into the world. Now let’s see what that world makes of it. “Yeah, you never know what wave you’ll catch a small swell or a big fat one that will carry you all the way to the shore,” Campion says. What an appropriate metaphor for someone born under the Southern Cross.