Preoccupation with Love

Jane Campion’s Bright Star, which recently opened in New York, won much praise at Cannes, some from unlikely sources. “I’m not really into poetry,” said Quentin Tarantino, who also said he believes Bright Star is Campion’s best film. Though Campion purists were less persuaded, and the film may disappoint female filmmakers emboldened by her David Lynch-inspired early work, for her part Campion is following her heart and her imagination wherever they take her. “I think the job when you’re a young person is to be wild,” she said. “I think I did my job.” It’s love that preoccupies Campion these days, but she remains exhilaratingly tough-minded about the trouble love can get you into. Which may be why her next film will be an adaptation of the title story in the Canadian writer Alice Munro’s collection Runaway. Few artists grasp the unintended consequences of passing passion better than Campion and Munro.