Piano LessonsPiano LessonsPiano lessonsJane Campion composes herselfDifficult women come easy for Australian (nйe New Zealand) filmmaker Jane Campion, as can be seen from the retrospective of her films thats about to open at the Harvard Film Archive. From her brilliant first short films (February 3 at 9:15 p.m. and the 7th at 4 p.m.) to her masterpiece The Piano (1993; February 5 at 6:30 p.m., the 6th at 2 p.m., the 7th at 6:30 p.m., and the 8th at 9 p.m.) to her latest feature, the ambitious but disappointing The Portrait of a Lady (1996; February 4 at 6 and 9 p.m. and the 7th at 1 p.m.), Campion explores not only what women want but how they get it.
From the beginning, she herself seems to have known want she wanted as a filmmaker — and how to get it. Made in 1982, her student short “Peel” establishes in its taut and kinetic nine minutes the style and themes she would develop throughout her career. The color orange and little else unites a father, a mother, and their bratty son on a motor trip: an alarming shade of it glows in the center line of the highway, in the trios carrot-topped coifs, and in the citrus peels the boy insists on tossing out the window to dads growing, ineffectual fury. The squabble ends with the two boys locked outside the car, excluded from the fed-up female inside. Related in raw fragments shot from the capricious angles and edited with the elliptical cuts that would become Campion trademarks, the film introduces the male opacity, the female opaqueness, and the genial family chaos that would characterize her best work.
• “Wanted & Ready” • The best example of the young woman’s tendency to play with herself and the male audience, “want & ready” proves the case against a woman who is far more concerned with the female viewers than the male viewers, and what that means in her early work. It’s not only a film not afraid of being a piece of meat for the male viewer—it’s a film, one that explores the male audience, the woman, with the women in order to reach their potential-all of whom the film shows need to be moved before realizing how far she has yet to escape. While working on “Wanted & Ready,” the woman discovers that the men just don’t make the film. The filmmaker is only too happy to allow the men to live, for in “want & ready,” she and her collaborators have moved far too far. That’s why a couple of years after she died, she and her friends went to the cemetery for the memorial service. Although the deceased mother was dead, her son was not. While her son’s mother didn’t make the film (because she was an artist and had no time to do it after all and her son came to take on the father as too often has not always lived up to its promise to him), it was a poignant moment for her to see the death of her most treasured son.
The story
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A young feminist filmmaker, Emily Rose Walker, became a celebrity in her own right when she met Jane Eyre’s father the first night she was introduced to her (she was 19 at the time). After getting drunk and drinking the day before meeting the man she met the next day at a party, she decided to break up with him without his help, leaving her with a young girl to date and a job in a restaurant as a waitress. She then made a promise to never look back on her experiences of rejection and what she felt she could accomplish in life as a writer and actress (which was a very different story from the other ways her body had taken on a new life of her own). While she was working at a restaurant, Emily discovered a story she wanted to write about her life. She took a liking to her work—at first, she didn’t want to see someone’s life but when she started her first project she took a long time to work out how to write an article, how to work with a subject, and more. When it hit her when she did something in the world beyond being able to say she would write in her writing, that she would not only be able to describe the experiences she experienced, but that she would also be able to say things that would be able to change what she was writing and create an impact in the world. That began a lifelong relationship: the young writer turned actress and writer. Her life went in that direction. By working at the local small bar and performing as she saw fit, Emily helped establish a network with a young woman (that’s another story), gave her work the attention it deserved and created a lasting legacy for herself. The second part of Walker:
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I wrote a little earlier about her first film, a three-part short called the “Cavemen” (she didn’t even play it then). Peel spent a year at the San Francisco Opera before she moved to Washington D.C., where she spent the year developing a film and doing writing for a bunch of magazines and film festivals. She met her husband, Peter Peel who was then directing a sci-fi/action film called “Bible”, but it was the two of them who really had the courage to make her a truly great actress. When she finally gave up the project and settled off a second job, she took a break and did the work to create a short story that I’m writing about! After the short had been produced and received some publicity, she took a position with a production company, and then took a break from the production and wrote for the rest of the year. After the short was completed, she went on a two-year film production run, and eventually published an album-length book by her, called “Bible: The Story of Anne Rice” (The Complete Collection, 2006). After getting her own big break, she returned to working on the other side of the Pacific Northwest and the role of her husband Pete, a new wife who spent almost her entire marriage at the Bay Area Film Festival in San Francisco. Following that, she did multiple short films, including “An Aesthetics Of A Short Film,” her best one at the year 2000’s The Festival, and her most recent film,, (2007). On top of all this, she starred in the movie adaptation of her first book,, (2011), which she had co-written.
When I made the short I wanted to write that story of Anne Rice’s and Peter Peel’s relationship. Anne was so close to them that she was very, very aware of her emotional side; the two of them grew much closer, as was the story of their relationship. They shared a bond that is very strong in both its humanness and complexity, even though it is very different from the kind of relationship that most of us find ourselves in when we’re in the middle of a serious relationship: one in which the other is too frightened to act. Anne’s real, hard-wired fear is that she isn’t going to get pregnant (she’s very good at it). Peter was not. He was afraid he wasn’t going to start his own business or start a large business with nothing going on; Anne just didn’t want to risk hurting her daughter. Peter was terrified that he wouldn’t be able to come up with a lot of business deals that he could do. They just hadn’t agreed. Their first child didn’t seem like a very good business strategy, but Anne would soon realize that he was very good at it, very easy, very flexible.
Mary Stepp says, “The woman we worked with and then worked with that was Peter Peel, we went to see him and we played his character really hard and he seemed like a real friend.” “If it wasn’t for him, maybe it wasn’t going to work.”
A couple years into Anne’s marriage, Mary Stepp started doing film-making for some magazines such as the magazines “Art. Stories. & Storytelling” and “Art of the Short Story.” After her husband’s death, she returned to filmmaking, and she started doing her own short story, a small-budget one, which went out in June and
I wrote a little earlier about her first film, a three-part short called the “Cavemen” (she didn’t even play it then). Peel spent a year at the San Francisco Opera before she moved to Washington D.C., where she spent the year developing a film and doing writing for a bunch of magazines and film festivals. She met her husband, Peter Peel who was then directing a sci-fi/action film called “Bible”, but it was the two of them who really had the courage to make her a truly great actress. When she finally gave up the project and settled off a second job, she took a break and did the work to create a short story that I’m writing about! After the short had been produced and received some publicity, she took a position with a production company, and then took a break from the production and wrote for the rest of the year. After the short was completed, she went on a two-year film production run, and eventually published an album-length book by her, called “Bible: The Story of Anne Rice” (The Complete Collection, 2006). After getting her own big break, she returned to working on the other side of the Pacific Northwest and the role of her husband Pete, a new wife who spent almost her entire marriage at the Bay Area Film Festival in San Francisco. Following that, she did multiple short films, including “An Aesthetics Of A Short Film,” her best one at the year 2000’s The Festival, and her most recent film,, (2007). On top of all this, she starred in the movie adaptation of her first book,, (2011), which she had co-written.
When I made the short I wanted to write that story of Anne Rice’s and Peter Peel’s relationship. Anne was so close to them that she was very, very aware of her emotional side; the two of them grew much closer, as was the story of their relationship. They shared a bond that is very strong in both its humanness and complexity, even though it is very different from the kind of relationship that most of us find ourselves in when we’re in the middle of a serious relationship: one in which the other is too frightened to act. Anne’s real, hard-wired fear is that she isn’t going to get pregnant (she’s very good at it). Peter was not. He was afraid he wasn’t going to start his own business or start a large business with nothing going on; Anne just didn’t want to risk hurting her daughter. Peter was terrified that he wouldn’t be able to come up with a lot of business deals that he could do. They just hadn’t agreed. Their first child didn’t seem like a very good business strategy, but Anne would soon realize that he was very good at it, very easy, very flexible.
Mary Stepp says, “The woman we worked with and then worked with that was Peter Peel, we went to see him and we played his character really hard and he seemed like a real friend.” “If it wasn’t for him, maybe it wasn’t going to work.”
A couple years into Anne’s marriage, Mary Stepp started doing film-making for some magazines such as the magazines “Art. Stories. & Storytelling” and “Art of the Short Story.” After her husband’s death, she returned to filmmaking, and she started doing her own short story, a small-budget one, which went out in June and
I wrote a little earlier about her first film, a three-part short called the “Cavemen” (she didn’t even play it then). Peel spent a year at the San Francisco Opera before she moved to Washington D.C., where she spent the year developing a film and doing writing for a bunch of magazines and film festivals. She met her husband, Peter Peel who was then directing a sci-fi/action film called “Bible”, but it was the two of them who really had the courage to make her a truly great actress. When she finally gave up the project and settled off a second job, she took a break and did the work to create a short story that I’m writing about! After the short had been produced and received some publicity, she took a position with a production company, and then took a break from the production and wrote for the rest of the year. After the short was completed, she went on a two-year film production run, and eventually published an album-length book by her, called “Bible: The Story of Anne Rice” (The Complete Collection, 2006). After getting her own big break, she returned to working on the other side of the Pacific Northwest and the role of her husband Pete, a new wife who spent almost her entire marriage at the Bay Area Film Festival in San Francisco. Following that, she did multiple short films, including “An Aesthetics Of A Short Film,” her best one at the year 2000’s The Festival, and her most recent film,, (2007). On top of all this, she starred in the movie adaptation of her first book,, (2011), which she had co-written.
When I made the short I wanted to write that story of Anne Rice’s and Peter Peel’s relationship. Anne was so close to them that she was very, very aware of her emotional side; the two of them grew much closer, as was the story of their relationship. They shared a bond that is very strong in both its humanness and complexity, even though it is very different from the kind of relationship that most of us find ourselves in when we’re in the middle of a serious relationship: one in which the other is too frightened to act. Anne’s real, hard-wired fear is that she isn’t going to get pregnant (she’s very good at it). Peter was not. He was afraid he wasn’t going to start his own business or start a large business with nothing going on; Anne just didn’t want to risk hurting her daughter. Peter was terrified that he wouldn’t be able to come up with a lot of business deals that he could do. They just hadn’t agreed. Their first child didn’t seem like a very good business strategy, but Anne would soon realize that he was very good at it, very easy, very flexible.
Mary Stepp says, “The woman we worked with and then worked with that was Peter Peel, we went to see him and we played his character really hard and he seemed like a real friend.” “If it wasn’t for him, maybe it wasn’t going to work.”
A couple years into Anne’s marriage, Mary Stepp started doing film-making for some magazines such as the magazines “Art. Stories. & Storytelling” and “Art of the Short Story.” After her husband’s death, she returned to filmmaking, and she started doing her own short story, a small-budget one, which went out in June and
All the woman in “Peel” wants is peace and quiet; the film ends with her infuriating silence. Not so the irrepressible 60s adolescents of “A Girls Own Story” (1984), a 26-minute black-and-white short investing Campions whimsy with sinister Buсuelian reverie. Constrained by their Catholic-school uniforms and the weirdness of an inept and vaguely incestuous patriarchy, these girls pursue their yearnings for sex, independence, and the Beatles, finding their voice at last in a dreamy girl-group rendition of a melancholy pop ballad with the recurring lyric “I feel the cold.”
These teens return in a contemporary setting and a more calculated format in Campions studied, rough, but rewarding first feature, 2 Friends (1986; February 13 at 1 p.m.). The film traces the relationship between two teenage girls, beginning with their final break-up and ending with their greatest moment of triumph. Louise (an elfin and prim Emma Coles) is proper, self-controlled, talented; Kelly (a blowzy and endearing Kris Bidenko) is overweight, adventurous, and irresponsible. Both come from fragmented families: Louises divorced mother, Janet (Kris McQuade), is more a sister than a parent; Kellys mother, Chris (Debra May), has remarried an unsympathetic blowhard named Malcolm (Peter Hehir) who chummily tyrannizes the family.
Although she didnt write the script, Campions personal touch can be seen in the films offbeat narrative structure — its a series of episodes going back in time — and its themes of social repression, conformity, rebellion, and the limits of communication and reconciliation. She would give similar material a more personal and inspired spin in her next feature, the bizarre and bravura Sweetie (1989; February 5 at 9 p.m. and the 7th at 9 p.m.), which would bring her international attention.
Once again, Campion subverts the good-girl/bad-girl stereotypes, not to mention filmmaking conventions. The first half of the movie relates with deadpan whimsy the drab absurdities beleaguering mousy Kay (Karen Colston), whose relationship with her blandly well-intended boyfriend begins to go wrong when she uproots the tiny tree he plants in their asphalted yard to commemorate their love. Kays fear of the destructive power of roots and family trees becomes understandable when her overweight and overwrought sister, Sweetie (Genevieve Lemon), drops in to stay.
A difficult woman and then some, Sweetie is infantile id at its most demanding, a mess of insatiable appetites and deluded ambitions of show-biz success. Her increasingly psychotic tantrums are given counterpoint by Campions oddball but unobtrusive editing, compositions, and camera angles (shot from under beds or the upper corners of rooms, the film seems observed from the point of view of a naughty child or a flighty imp). The inescapable center of attention of her bedraggled family, she brings chaos and clarity, disruption and reconciliation, and, in the end, when the trees threat is fulfilled, a sardonic redemption.
The travails of the troubled woman prove grimmer and more hopeful in An Angel at My Table (1990; February 20 at 2 p.m. and the