Jane Campion: Director and Visionary

Mychael Foster

Film Studies

Julie Verdini

Final

Jane Campion: Director and Visionary

Jane Campion was born April 30^th, 1954 in Wellington New Zealand. As a young adult she graduated with a BA in Anthropology, and in the early 80’s she started filmmaking. With a few shorts under her belt, “Peel”, “Passionless Moments”, and “A Girls Own Story”, she finally got to co-write and direct her first feature film titled “Sweetie” in 1989 which won the Georges Sadoul prize for Best Foreign Film, in addition to a numerous amount of other awards for this film.

Her background in anthropology shows immensely through her films by showing a lot of “primitive” cultures and spirituality, two things in common with the study of anthropology. In all three films I watched, there was at least one character attached strongly to faith or spirituality. Furthermore, this woman (Jane Campion) has an obsession with…well obsession. In “The Piano”, we have a mute woman whom becomes involved with an overly pushy neighbor whom trades sex favors for pieces of her beloved piano. In “Holy Smoke”, a man trying to “save” this woman from a cult gets sucked into a cult of his own…the woman he is trying to save. She uses Harvey Keitel again as one of the men obsessed with our leading lady Holly Hunter, which was a perfect choice since his character/performance in “Holy Smoke” was similar. She directs as if these movies are documentaries, not letting the camera leave the unwanted showcase, immersing the audience into these estranged lives of the unusual yet usual world that she is showing us. In the 3 films I watched, there is always a presence of local culture. For example, in “The Piano” Sam Neil’s character is neighbors with the local New Zealand natives called Maori, in “Holy Smoke” there is a heavy Eastern religious influence with the main character, and in “Sweetie” you can argue the local outlander cowboys living in Australia could be considered local culture.    

In “Sweetie” most of the shots are composed in such a way that encloses the characters in their surroundings making them feel small in a world with so much going on around them, or for a better word trapped. She tends to put the characters in small confined settings in which they evolve emotionally, for better or worse. She does a good job at mimicking real life problems and relationships with people. I like her because in these portrayals of intimacy, she tends to show the darker more complicated relations between troubled characters. How many directors can accomplish this successfully? I can’t think of many.

With the way all 3 movies end, I would say that something Jane Campion believes is “nothing can really be fixed unless something gets broken”, in conjunction with “sometimes the savior becomes the one that needs to be saved”. Her style is a melting pot of, sensuality, emotional darkness, and psychological torment with a dash of humor.  Time seems to stop when she isolates her characters, as if everything important is happening then. She loves using her main female leads as the narrator, bringing us into an even more intimate relationship with the characters.

It wasn’t until “The Piano” that she got Oscar recognition in being the 2^nd Female Director to be nominated for Best Director of a film. Even though “The Piano” was very beautiful, it stood out to me as unusual because the look of the movie did not embody what I would call Jane Campions style. “Sweetie” and “Holy Smoke” have a lighter feel to them even though tragic chaos is happening all around, whereas “The Piano” is very dark. Not only in the lighting, but more so the colors used and the lack of humor. In the other 2, humor is always there, but in “The Piano” she seems to try (and succeed) in making a full-blown drama. I enjoyed “Sweetie” and “Holy Smoke” for the dark humor factor and color that filled the screen.

It appears as if Jane Campion herself has had a few relationships like the ones I saw in her movies. At least it can be inferred since there is a reoccurring theme in the way she portrays these main characters. She generally uses a female as her main character even, which is a breathe of fresh air since you rarely see a female lead being the “hero” who saves the man. Jane once said, “I think that the romantic impulse is in all of us and that sometimes we live it for a short time, but it's not part of a sensible way of living. It's a heroic path and it generally ends dangerously. I treasure it in the sense that I believe it's a path of great courage. It can also be the path of the foolhardy and the compulsive.”

Director Sheet:

Name: Jane Campion

Year Born: April 30^th, 1954

Background (education):

Jane Campion was born in Wellington, New Zealand. She graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with a BA in Anthropology in 1975, she later got a BA in painting at Sydney College of arts in 1979. She didn’t start making movies until the early 1980s when she released a few short films and worked at the Australian Film and Radio School.

First Feature: Sweetie (1989), which won her recognition and awards.

Most Notable Film: “The Piano” (1993)

Genre’s Explored: Drama, Romance, Psychology, Obsession, Dark Humor

Stylistic Tendencies: Opinionated, love-obsessed, landscape, earth-tones/muted colors, portrayal of realism.

Typical Content: Generally we have a female lead who seems to distraught and someone always tries to save her, and in turn the man is the one needing to be saved.  Intimate secluded settings between characters (Holy Smoke) (The Piano) (Sweetie) which allow for emotional growth and obsession to become more apparent.

Awards: For Sweetie, which won the Georges Sadoul prize in 1989 for Best Foreign Film, as well as the LA Film Critics' New Generation Award in 1990, the American Independent Spirit Award for Best Foreign Feature, and the Australian Critics' Award for Best Film, Best Director and Best Actress. For The Piano she won the Palme D'Or at Cannes, making her the first woman ever to win the prestigious award. She also captured an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay at the 1993 Oscars, while also being nominated for Best Director.

Long-term collaborators: She worked with Harvey Keitel in making Holy Smoke and The Piano.

Interesting Facts/etc.: She became the second female to be nominated for an Oscar in the Best Director category for her film “The Piano”. She has directed 3 actresses in Oscar nominated performances; Holly Hunter, Anna Paquin, and Barbara Hershey. Hunter and Paquin won Oscars for their performances in “The Piano”.