The Piano

Jane Campion was born in 1954 in an artistic family in New Zealand. An internationally acclaimed female filmmaker, who is a director, a screenwriter, and a producer, she was awarded with an Oscar, two Palmes d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, the Grand Jury prize and Best Director Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival and multiple other awards for her bold and unconventional work.

She first studied in Wellington, New Zealand where she got a BA in Anthropology.  She then moved to Australia to attend the Sydney College of Arts since she was interested in the prestigious Australian Film Television and Radio School. At the time she benefited from a determined movement to promote female careers in film by Australian educational institutions and government funding agencies. Female perspectives in story telling were greatly encouraged that is how she collaborated with Gillian Armstrong and Jan Chapman.

Jane Campion thus took an interest in female characters showing their intuitiveness, their generosity and their capacity to be emotional. Her characters are women outsiders in society who struggle to be understood and recognised in a male-dominated world ; she emphasizes women’s issues such as injustice, discrimination, mental health. She depicts strong female protagonists who are determined to make their voice heard. Her heroines are complex and flawed individuals who express their individuality. Some of her male characters are fascinated by what goes on in a woman’s mind.

Jane Campion’s work consists of eight movies and she worked for television and made a few short films as well. She started in 1982 with « An Exercise in Discipline » for which she won the Palme d’Or at Cannes for Best Short Film. She made « Sweetie », her first feature film in Australia in 1989 ; « An Angel at my Table » about New Zealand author Janet Frame, in New Zealand in 1990. After « The Piano » followed « The Portrait of a Lady » in 1996 which is an unfaithful adaptation of Henry James’s 1881 novel, then « Holy Smoke » in 1999, « In the Cut » in 2003, « Bright Stars » in 2009, « Top of the Lake » (TV mini series) in 2013 and 2017, « The Power of a Dog » in 2021. She was acclaimed as the first female director to win the Palme D’Or at the Cannes film Festival in 1993 for her feature film « The Piano ».

In 2016 Jane Campion was appointed a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit  for services to film.

« The Piano », Campion’s fourth feature film, was released in 1993 and soon became an international success. Jane Campion won an Academy Award for best original screenplay and was nominated for best director plus a nomination for best picture ; whereas Hunter won the Award for Best Actress and Paquin for Best Supporting Actress, and she remains the second-youngest actor to win an Oscar while she was only 11 at the time. Jane Campion’s film won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, thus making Campion the first female director to receive such an award.

Jane Campion was inspired by Jane Mander’s 1920 novel « The Story of a New Zealand River » and also Emily Brontë’s « Wuthering Heights » and C. Forester’s « The African Queen ». Her historical drama film deals with a love story in the mid 19th century New Zealand. The plot focuses on a mute woman and her young daughter who arrive by boat from Scotland to a remote part of land in the 1850’s for an arranged marriage to a British frontiersman. Ada, the main protagonist has a passionate love affair with her husband’s overseer.

« The Piano » stars Holly Hunter as Ada Mc Grath, the heroine ; Sam Neill as Alisdair Stewart, her husband and Harvey Keitel as George Baines, her lover while Anna Paquin is Flora Mc Grath, her young daughter. 

Flora acts as her mother’s interpreter though we do not know why Ada cannot speak, both communicate thanks to sign language and the music Ada plays on the piano conveys her emotions. This central element in the film is about to be left on the beach since Alisdair will not take the piano home. His neighbour George agrees to help Ada get her  piano back but not at any cost. The following love story will be depicted through lust, desire and love between Ada and George in a colony of Victorian-era Great Britain. As for Ada’s husband he will struggle to understand his wife and eventually accept her independence of mind.