Date: 11/27/2009 TO 12/3/2009
Time:

Salina Art Center & Cinema
150 S. Santa Fe
Salina, KS 67402

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Event Description: Rated PG for thematic elements, some sensuality, brief language and incidental smoking -- 119 min. The Romantic poets included William Blake, Lord Byron, and Percy Bysshe Shelley: impossibly handsome, youthful, self-destructive, hedonistic pleasure-seekers; it was the brevity of their lives, a sense of inevitable tragedy destined to extinguish their creative flames too early, which made their myth immortality. No poet better embodied that feeling of other-worldy talent tragically cut short like John Keats, who died of tuberculosis at the age of 25. And no love affair better embodied the idea that the purest love was the communion of two souls, not bodies, than the romance between Keats and his young neighbor, Fanny Brawne. Director Jane Campion creates a truly romantic, dreamlike atmosphere that infuses the film. "Bright Star" is also remarkable in its depiction of how a creative genius creates. Campion employs beautiful images, gloriously photographed by cinematographer Greig Fraser. The male and female characters are both complex, interesting, three-dimensional figures, superlatively acted. Because of their moral and social codes, Keats and Fanny never consummated their love, but the actors convey the idea that this was not just a capitulation to Victorian society or convention. The physical separation actually evoked an "ideal" which makes their love burn brighter. The film soars because of the chemistry between the main actors, who make the unfulfilled lovers ache with longing that's palpable to the audience--and far more erotic than most of today's more graphic couplings.

Take a writerly look at the poetry of John Keats in a post-Thanksgiving talk at the Salina Art Center, 242 S. Santa Fe, with Patricia Traxler and Lori Brack. We promise no turkey, just good food for the spirit. FREE, 4pm Sunday, November 29th.


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