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
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.
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.
thinking ideas phrases
If you start with a good idea, you can encapsulate it in a phrase and explain it. I like high-concept films. Everyone can get hold of it. I don't think there's any harm in that at all.
mean journey poet
It's been such a deep and amazing journey for me, getting close to John Keats, and also I love Shelley and Byron. I mean, the thing about the Romantic poets is that they've got the epitaph of romantic posthumously. They all died really young, and Keats, the youngest of them all.
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.
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.
dream thinking artist
There's no artist in this world that doesn't enjoy the dream that if they have bad reviews now, the story of Keats can redeem them, in their fantasy or imagination, in the future. I think Keats' poem 'Endymion' is a really difficult poem, and I'm not surprised that a lot of people pulled it apart in a way.
growing-up fall ethos
This is the first generation to grow up on Thatcher - it's a different ethos. It's money minded, and it's the cult of yourself. Now that's fine, except when it falls down, and you can't achieve your goals - through high unemployment, through the fact that you probably need inherited money to get anywhere.
sex people stories
You know, sex is actually not so original as the way people love or the stories behind each relationship, which is what you remember. Sex is sex in the end.
laughing love-again
I fell in love again (laughs).
thinking television conservative
I think feature film can be quite conservative, because you have to now get audiences to come out, and it's quite a hard thing to do. Of course, television can be conservative too.
acting littles england
Between 18 and 26 I acted professionally, on the stage and a little bit on television. Acting is okay, but it's quite pressurized. Then I went to England - I wanted to reinvent myself.