'Jane Eyre'

Tonight, all Transition Year are going to the new film version of Charlotte Bronte's novel, Jane Eyre. Below, the official trailer.

'Cracks' trailer

18 months ago, Cracks was partly filmed at the College. It's now about to be released, and here's the official trailer (you can see glimpses of the Chapel and the Dining Hall).

'Bright Star'

Some of our Leaving Cert pupils are now studying Keats's poetry, including his famous love sonnet 'Bright Star' (below). Jane Campion's film Bright Star has just been released to strong reviews. Go here to the film's 'production scrapbook', which includes plenty of material on its making, rehearsal and location photos and more, and here to the website, which also has short films by Campion about how young people are 'poetically connected', and on 'bringing the poet to life'. At the bottom of this post, the trailer.

In the New York Times recently, Caleb Crain examined how Campion created convincing dialogue by going to Keats's own famous letters :-

So the movie Keats does talk the way the real Keats wrote. But does he talk the way the real Keats talked? Like most moviegoers, I expect early-19th-century characters to speak in sentences more carefully and elaborately structured than the ones I usually hear, but my expectation may be an artifact of the recording technology then available.

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art-
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors-
No- yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever- or else swoon in death.

William Trevor Films

The forthcoming Kilkenny Arts Festival (7th to 16th August) is featuring the works of Old Columban William Trevor, as seen on the cinema and TV screen. The screenings are on Saturday 8th August in the Set Theatre in John Street: Hidden Ground (a 1990 BBC documentary on Trevor), Felicia's Journey, Access to the Children and The Ballroom of Romance. Colm Tóibín introduces the day. Full details (and online booking) here.

'Closer' review

Today, TY pupils handed in their Work Portfolios, thus completing their written work for the year. Over the next week, we hope to post some of this work, especially after the TY English Evening on Tuesday next (more about this in due course).

Pupils can write a play/film review for this Portfolio, and Virginia Peck wrote a review of the 2004 film Closer, starring Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, Natalie Portman and Jude Law:-

Set in modern London, this hypnotic tale is simply a killer. With Damien Rice blaring out ‘The Blower’s Daughter’ in the background and the ironic title ‘Closer’ it is certainly refreshingly different but what I like most by far is the dialogue. People this sharp, witty and clever just don’t exist. Still my fascination with the dialogue continues. The characters constantly assault each other with perfectly timed verbal abuse. It’s a stylised and idealised language that you’ll only wish you could speak. However back in reality these are the kind of retorts you think of ten minutes after losing an argument. In fact there are lots of things in that movie I wish I’d said because they are so true!

Read Virginia's full review here.

Below, Damien Rice's song, with images from the film.

Fight Club review

Today, two reviews by pupils from Mr Canning's Junior Cert set. First, Michael Kemp is reading Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club, and has seen the 1999 film. He writes :-

It is a seamless transition to screen; Palahniuk even says it’s an improvement on his novel. The story is about how the unnamed Narrator (Edward Norton) tries to redeem himself from his mundane life by following his friend’s advice to reach “bottom”, so he can be free of society’s shackles and how it all revolves around a girl named Marla Singer.

This pitch-black comedy satire is among the most bleak films I’ve ever seen. It's shot with a spherical lens to capture the grimness of the narrator’s world, which could mirror his perverted psyche. The bleakness is a definite barrier, but the character’s jokes and observations save the film from being unbearable and make you revel in its nightmarish vision.

Read Michael's full comments here.

Below, Shannen Keogan's review of Romeo and Juliet.