Beauty is truth, and truth beauty, that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Tweet The title of this post comes from the final two lines of Ode on a Grecian Urn, written by John Keats in 1819. I'm not usually a fan of poetry, but I do have a soft spot for Keats. In my humble opinion, he was the greatest of the Romantic poets, and it's a crying shame he didn't receive the attention he deserved during his lifetime.

Since I'm such a fan, I decided to go and see Bright Star, Jane Campion's latest film depicting his romance with Fanny Brawne. Critics are touting it as her best work since The Piano, and I'm deeply saddened to say that this may be so, but it's also by far one of the most boring films I've seen all year - and I forced myself to sit through the travesty that was Dorian Gray.

Scenes are left woefully unfinished as though Campion got so bored of her own work that she simply wandered off to do something else, while the actors seem prone to occasional fits of over-acting. The costumes are gorgeous, but the dialogue lets it all down as it attempts to be pithy but instead comes across as self-indulgent. The film focusses more on Fanny and her talent for dressmaking, which in itself doesn't bother me as it's nice to see a film that re-trains the focus on the muse instead of the genius. What does bother me is how happily the film skips over Keats' actual poetry, only occasionally referring to it, in favour of burning glances between the star-crossed lovers.

As a seemingly headstrong, independent young woman, I desperately wanted to like Fanny. She's at odds with society around her and simply wants to pursue her heart, regardless of convention or practicality. Yet I couldn't like her at all. Yes, she inspired some of the greatest poetry ever written in the English language, but based on this depiction of her...I can't fathom how.

Imagination

Tweet I finally saw The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus at the weekend, and as much as I'd like to discuss the film as a fantastical swansong for the much-missed (by me, at any rate) Heath Ledger, I'd much rather discuss the film in slightly more highbrow terms. Terry Gilliam presents the film as a meditation on the inherent benefits and downfalls of immortality, particularly the peculiar form of immortality presented by a life captured on celluloid (see the rather ham-fisted attempt during the Johnny Depp segment to prove that those that die young, e.g. James Dean, Princess Diana, will always live on). However, scratch the surface of this visually impressive, though occasionally slightly gaudy, piece, and you'll find that at its heart, the film would much rather discuss the dichotomy of Imagination vs Temptation.

Christopher Plummer's Dr Parnassus represents Imagination, a fertile inner land particular to every individual. In this mental expanse, stories are born, and these stories offer the path to Immortality. Indeed, he firmly believes that the universe is sustained because someone somewhere is always telling a story. The film itself tells a story, and thus maintains this belief in the mind of the viewer.

However, his nemesis is film's old friend, the Devil, played here to excellent effect by Tom Waits, and he, as ever, represents Temptation. It's not such a stretch to boil these two opposing forces down to the Mind (or Soul) vs the Body. It has long been held by many schools of thought that the Body is somehow dirty, and sinful, and purity can only exist within the Mind, and by extension the Soul. Clearly, if we pursue this particular theory, Dr Parnassus represents Good, while the Devil represents Evil. So far, so typical.

Yet this eternal struggle between Imagination and Temptation goes back further than Terry Gilliam's concept for this film. Indeed, the poetic genius that was John Keats continually tussled with the two throughout his career, perhaps reaching its apogee in his epic, Lamia. In it, Lycius must choose between the pure world of Apollonius (the Imagination) and the senuous world of Lamia (Temptation). Apollonius exposes the cruel reality of Lamia, and the deprivation of one option proves too much for the young chap and he dies. Keats believed that only a balance between the two could sustain man, and that by living by one or the other, he was only living half of a life.

What does this then mean for Dr Parnassus? In forcing humans to make a choice between Imagination or Temptation, these people are surely doomed to living their lives to only half of their potential. Or is there in fact a deeper paradox within the entire situation, since in order to choose the path of the Imagination, one must first be tempted by it?


Top image: Lamia, by John William Waterhouse