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
struggle writing piano
The Piano Lesson' is very sophisticated, easily the most adult or complex material I've attempted. It's the first film I've written that has a proper story, and it was a big struggle for me to write. It meant I had to admit the power of narrative.
powerful thinking interesting
I think this is interesting, us human creatures are capable of love, and it's a very powerful emotion. It also can go awfully wrong.
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.
stories letters biographies
When I read Andrew Motion's biography, I wept. It's something about the purity of the story and how fresh it was because of the love letters Keats wrote.
thinking political modern
But I think it's quite clear in my work that my orientation isn't political or doesn't come out of modern politics.
thinking good-movie made
I think I made good movies.
anxiety doubt tough
If you read Keats's poems, they're often full of doubts and anxieties. They can be quite tough.
character luxury long
It's a luxury to be able to tell a long form story. I love novels, and I love to have a long relationship with characters.
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.
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.
ocean piano goal
I've had a lot of different responses to my films. I got a lot of support from 'The Piano,' the obvious one, but it feels like an ocean, with a lot going on - the goal is to keep alive.
keys musical emotion
My musical knowledge is so bad it's embarrassing. When composers discuss music with someone as primitive as myself, they have to talk about it in terms of senses and emotion, rather than keys and tempo.
laughing love-again
I fell in love again (laughs).
mean scripts actors
I love it when actors come to you with a problem and you have to listen. You'd like them to just get on with it, but it often means that there's a problem with the script.