I watched one of the most charming movies last night - "Miss Potter" - about Beatrix Potter, the author and artist of the Peter Rabbit children's books. It's a sweet period biography, beautiful scenery, cute animated animals that come to life from her drawings, and very interesting. I'd never looked into her life before, I was never interested. It turns out she was a 19th c. conservationist responsible for preserving 4000 acres of the Lake District in England that she loved from the developers. Who knew there were developers buying up pastoral land and building tract homes 100 years ago?
She was a single woman uninterested in marriage and committed to her drawings and stories - the characters were her friends. It doesn't come across as a feminist message - she simply didn't conform to the strict Victorian expectations for women. But then love found her and Mr. Warne, her publisher, finds the over-the-hill old maid delightful.
I haven't enjoyed a movie this much in a long time. And Miss Potter herself is an interesting woman and it appears, from the little research I've done so far stimulated by the movie, that the story is a pretty accurate depiction of what it covers of this interesting woman.
Beatrix Potter. Now there's an interesting name. I wonder what Bellatrix Lestrange and Harry Potter would think of it.
Posted by: Sam | July 23, 2007 at 03:25 PM
great movie...I loved it also...ust saw it on dvd
Posted by: Alesia | July 23, 2007 at 08:38 PM