Jane Campion
Jane Campion
Dame Elizabeth Jane Campion DNZMis a New Zealand screenwriter, producer, and director. Campion is the second of four women ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and is the first female filmmaker in history to receive the Palme d'Or, which she received for directing the acclaimed film The Piano, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay...
NationalityNew Zealander
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth30 April 1954
mother daughter real
I had a daughter who was 9 years old and I had the feeling I wasn't going to be a real parent if I didn't quit making movies for a while and spend time with her. I also felt that I'd made enough movies and said what I had to say at the time.
art school tails
There was a big drive when I was at art school to make you aware of the economy of meaning - after all, this was still during the tail end of minimalism. Being responsible for everything you put in your picture, and being able to defend it. Keeping everything clear around you so you know what is operating. To open the wound and keep it clean.
running cutting winter
I took four years off after 'In the Cut' because I wanted to see who I'd be without work. I even tried being a hermit in the wilderness in New Zealand. I stayed in a warden's hut two-and-a-half hours off the Routeburn Track through the fjords on the South Island. It was early winter, so there was no electricity or running water.
art children father
I did this Super-8 film at art school called 'Tissues,' this black comedy about a family whose father has been arrested for child molestation. I was absolutely thrilled by every inch of it, and would throw my projector in the back of my car and show it to anybody who would watch it.
falling-in-love waiting firsts
When you first fall in love it's so thrilling, you can't wait to throw yourself away and make this new wonderful twosome.
growing-up tragedy grows
Tragedy makes you grow up.
home trying directors
Performers are so vulnerable. They're frightened of humiliation, sure their work will be crap. I try to make an environment where it's warm, where it's OK to fail - a kind of home, I suppose.
ethos vision directors
To deny women directors, as I suspect is happening in the States, is to deny the feminine vision.
problem
I have to admit that I had a lot of problems with poetry.
husband wife directors
It's harder being a woman director because on the whole women don't have husbands or boyfriends who are willing to be wives
different kind different-kinds
There is a different kind of vulnerability when a woman is directing
growing-up men thinking
I think women don't grow up with the harsh world of criticism that men grow up with, we are more sensitively treated, and when you first experience the world of film-making you have to develop a very tough skin.
thinking order ideas
I think that three-act fundamentalism in film culture is a problem sometimes, because it's almost too obvious, or it's too expected. And it's not the only way to fill two hours, or to phrase things, or to order thoughts, or order ideas.
lessons taught study
I'm a much better filmmaker than painter. But studying it did make me visually acute and taught me lessons like being economic: Say something once and you don't have to say it again.