London-bound
My family and I had the most surreal - and ridiculous - experience watching Bright Star last Saturday. Usually there’s a particular crowd that watches a British period movie at a matinee hour, and they’re mostly older and graying. That’s usually more than fine with me because it means there’ll be no rude cell phone interruptions; no annoying glare when someone starts texting, etc - none of that. But this particular crowd… was something else. About a row down, there were these two ladies whispering loudly like obnoxious teenagers; one even said, in a bit of a thick Long Island accent: “Oh, yeah, that’s tuberculosis, I’m sure of it, look, he’s coughing up blood.” To which another old lady snapped: “Please shut up!”
Then, during the tragic climax when Fanny and Keats are saying goodbye to each other, and you’re supposed to be feeling torn up inside, a random old guy makes a ruckus as he decides to enter the movie theater at that moment. His buddy is hissing “Richard, come back here!” but he leans over the railing and loudly asks: “IS THIS BRIGHT STAR?”
Needless to say, I’m not going back to see movies during matinee hour for a while.
Random interruptions aside, Bright Star was a decent movie - not the best, but still well-made. I think, though, that you’d have to be knowledgeable about Keats and his poetry to fully appreciate the movie, because otherwise the love story itself was not enough. The actress who plays Fanny is really quite lovely and moving in the role, and she has a quiet chemistry with the Keats actor, buuuut the darker and very simplistic storyline makes it hard to like the movie. The one aspect I really liked was the cinematography, though. Every scene is lush with detail and rich in light; I think it captures at least the intensity of their first love.
A Thing of Beauty
By John Keats
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its lovliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
Now that we're talking about all things British, I have exciting news: I'm going to London in a month!! Crazy sudden, I know. But I've been wanting to visit my friend from study abroad, and when my boss gave me the all-clear for a week off, I went straight to STA.com to book tickets. Well, emailed my friend first to find out if I could crash her couch, and then booked the ticket. I'm nervous, but excited-nervous (and not even thinking about the exchange rate - yet). The land of Dickens and Austen and Zadie Smith and Philip Pullman and JK Rowling and practically several bookshelves of my favorite books!!!! I will need your help, fellow bookworms, in thinking up the most iconic London spots in literature, because I definitely want to plan my sightseeing around that. Even the ones that don't exist - because who will be the fool in the train station pretending to find Platform 9 and 3/4? Yep. Not going to lie.