Great DirectorsFilm Studies 120

Jane Campion

JANE CAMPION

Jane Campion is Australasia's leading auteur director: Campion is New Zealand-born but

Australian-trained. She is one of the most successful

female directors in the world: She is the third woman ever to be

nominated best director for an Academy Award.

JANE CAMPION

Campion is devoted to the cause of developing female talent in the film industry. I read a New York Times piece recently

which said something like 6% of projects coming out of Hollywood are female-directed,” she says, her voice lowered. “That’s just evil. We need to get in the troops and fight it. We can’t stand back any longer.

JANE CAMPION

Campion’s films depict the lives of women who are in some way outside of society's mainstream, exploring what makes these women different, and the repercussions of their refusal to conform.

JANE CAMPION

Jane Campion has made seven feature films to date. Sweetie (1989) An Angel at My Table (1990) — based on the

autobiography of Janet Frame The Piano (1993) The Portrait of a Lady (1996) — based on the

novel by Henry James Holy Smoke! (1999) In the Cut (2003) — based on the novel by Susanna

Moore Bright Star (2009)

JANE CAMPION Sweetie (1989)

Dawn (nicknamed Sweetie) and Kay

JANE CAMPION An Angel at My Table (1990)

Janet

JANE CAMPION The Piano (1993)

Ada and Flora

JANE CAMPION The Portrait of a Lady (1996)

Isabel

JANE CAMPION Holy Smoke! (1999)

Ruth

JANE CAMPION In the Cut (2003)

Frannie

JANE CAMPION Bright Star (2009)

Frances “Fanny”

JANE CAMPION

Jane Campion:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRHh72YPF4k

Jane Campion:

Interview for Bright Star

JANE CAMPION

Debate has characterized the reception of Campion's films since the premiere of her first feature Sweetie at Cannes in 1989, where it was greeted with boos and hisses. Sweetie has since been reclaimed as a

hallmark of Campion's iconoclastic style, with its black humor, striking visual design (in terms of color and shot composition) and its compelling look at dysfunctional suburban family life.

Sweetie (1989)

JANE CAMPION

Sweetie “focuses on the hazardous relationship between the buttoned-down, superstitious Kay and her rampaging, devil-may-care sister, "Sweetie"—and by extension, their entire family’s profoundly rotten roots. A feast of colorful photography and captivating, idiosyncratic characters, Sweetie heralded the emergence of this gifted director as well as the breakthrough of Australian cinema, which would take international film by storm in the nineties.”

The Criterion Collection

Sweetie (1989)

JANE CAMPION

Thin and shy Kay works in a factory and lives a dull existence with her boyfriend Louis. One day, her sister Dawn arrives with her so-called manager, Bob. Nicknamed Sweetie, Dawn is everything Kay is not: lively, impulsive, and overweight. Kay is consumed with phobias, while Sweetie hangs on to her unrealistic dreams of show business. Meanwhile, their parents, Gordon and Flo, are involved in a ‘strange’ separation. Kay, Louis, and Gordon trick Sweetie so they can visit Flo at a ranch in the Australian outback. Everyone gets together back at the family home where Sweetie exposes the psychological realities of the situation.

Sweetie (1989): Synopsis

JANE CAMPION

CLIPS: Sweetie (1989) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evje1v19fpE&feature

=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaAgwMJslUU&feature=related