The Feminist History of Jane Campion From 'Sweetie' To 'Top Of The Lake'

Starting tomorrow, The Film Society of Lincoln Center will honor Jane Campion with a retrospective, “Jane Campion’s Own Stories,” including an evening with the filmmaker herself. This is just one more accolade in the Academy Award and Palme d’Or-winning filmmaker’s estimable career, as she has spent decades in the male-dominated world of cinema creating profound work by and about women. According to the press release from FSLC:

“Campion makes films that reflect a highly personal and idiosyncratic style, influenced by her background in anthropology and painting, and notable for their visual inventiveness, dark sense of humor, and complex depictions of women and sexuality. For four decades now, Campion has moved freely across genres—family melodrama, gothic romance, literary adaptation, farce, suspense-thriller—and also between cinema and television.”

Through her illustrious, 35-year career, New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion has irrevocably evolved the medium and industry. Whether creating indelible female characters and women-driven stories or financing up-and-coming female directors, Campion has used her talents to create a decades-long legacy of feminist film projects. Her projects prod at patriarchal frameworks from the 19th century to present, and many of her key works magnify the breadth and complexity of women’s trauma.

An Angel At My TableThe filmmaker burst onto the experimental/art film scene at just 28 with her 1982 short Peel: An Exercise in Discipline,” which took home the Short Film Palme d’Or at Cannes. She spent the next four years creating three more shorts and an award-winning telefilm, Two Friends,” before premiering her first feature, Sweetie,” in 1989. “Sweetie” follows a family, vis-à-vis daughter Kay, as they struggle to accommodate their daughter Sweetie’s mental illness.

READ MORE: Jane Campion’s ‘Top Of The Lake: China Girl’ With Elisabeth Moss & Nicole Kidman Gets Off To An Uneven Start [Cannes Review]

Propelled by the success of “Sweetie,” Campion went on to direct Laura Jones’ screenplay An Angel at My Table.” Though quickly overshadowed by Campion’s worldwide smash hit “The Piano,” “An Angel at My Table” debuted at TIFF and Venice, where it was the first ever film from New Zealand to compete. Although the film won Venice’s Grand Special Jury Prize, audience members loudly protested when the film was snubbed a Golden Lion. Variety called “An Angel at My Table” “a potentially painful and harrowing film…imbued with gentle humor and great compassion, which makes every character come vividly alive.”

the piano jane campionThat same predilection for pain and compassion led Campion to produce her most well-known work, “The Piano,” in 1993. “The Piano,” set in Victorian New Zealand, explores female sexuality and oppression via protagonist Ada (Holly Hunt), who travels with her daughter, Flora (Anna Paquin), to the island country after being sold into marriage. Mute since the age of six, Ada uses her prized possession, a handcrafted piano, to communicate her deepest thoughts. When her husband’s friend, Baines, blackmails her into giving him sexually exploitative “piano lessons,” Ada embarks on a confounding journey of desire and objectification. The film launched Jane Campion into universal fame, winning the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and she became the second woman ever nominated for the Best Director Oscar. Because of “The Piano,” Campion became the first woman to ever win the coveted Palme d’Or at Cannes.