Jane Campion: Biography
By Ellen Pullar
Jane Campion was born 30 April 1954 to theatre director, Richard Campion, and esteemed stage actress, Edith Campion. She is their second child, having an older sister, Anna, and a younger brother, Michael. Born and raised in Wellington, New Zealand, Campion completed a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology at Victoria University.
Many of Campion's films focus on travel as a significant personal experience. In Campion films, various forms of travel are employed not only to catalyse narrative progression, but also to instigate radical psychic development within her characters. From Isabel Archer's ( The Portrait of a Lady (1996)) and Janet Frame's ( An Angel at My Table (1990)) liberating European journeys of education and experience, Ruth Barron's ambiguous experience of self and spiritual discovery while backpacking in India in Holy Smoke (1999), and Ada's McGrath's enforced exile across the ocean in The Piano (1993), to the family road trips depicted in Peel (1982) and Sweetie (1989), the journey is consistently depicted as a crucial event in shaping the personality of Campion's characters.
In fact, Campion herself is quite the seasoned traveller. As an established film director, Campion would gain the necessary means to travel extensively as her job would enable, and in fact require, her to go abroad to make films and attend festivals. Campion, however, had already experienced a lengthy overseas adventure during her twenties. In the formative years between completing her degree at Victoria University, and attending film school in Sydney, Campion travelled abroad to Europe. Here she studied art in Venice, learnt Italian in Perugia, and worked as an assistant for an advertising company in London. Campion relocated to Australia in the late 1970s. She studied painting at the Sydney College of the Arts from 1979 to 1981 (she made her first short, Tissues (1980), during this period) and then attended the Australian Film, Television, and Radio School between 1981 and 1984.
The first film that Campion made as a student at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School was Peel (1982). Campion went on to complete several acclaimed shorts while studying at the film school. These include Passionless Moments (1983), Mishaps: Seduction and Conquest (1984), and A Girl's Own Story (1984). Campion was very involved with these early shorts, often adopting a number of different production roles. She worked on her early films not only as director, but also variously as screenwriter, editor and producer. For these short films Campion employed Sally Bongers, her friend and fellow student, as cinematographer. Campion's one-time boyfriend, actor/writer/director, Gerard Lee was also a frequent artistic contributor. Among these early shorts, Peel received particular acclaim, winning the prize for the best short film at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival.
On completing film school, Campion wrote and directed After Hours (1984) for the government funded Women's Film Unit. She then worked briefly in Australian television, working on the series Dancing Daze (1986), and directing Two Friends (1986), a feature produced for television. In 1989, Campion directed Sweetie (1989), her first theatrically released feature. She was also responsible for writing the screenplay. Here Campion once again collaborated with Sally Bongers, the cinematographer, and Gerard Lee, who is credited as a scriptwriter and also acts a small role in the film. Sweetie presents an unidealised depiction of family dynamics, focusing on the strained relationship between Kay (Karen Colston), an introvert, and Sweetie/Dawn (Genevieve Lemon), her extroverted but mentally unstable sister.
When screened at the 1989 Cannes film festival, the film proved to be hugely controversial, with many critics expressing disgust at the psychologically deranged and overweight title character Sweetie's transgression of norms of femininity. Nevertheless the film did receive admiration from some crucial critics. The film was praised by Positif and Cahiers du Cinema writers who hailed her as a new auteur. Furthermore, the film won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association New Generation Award in 1990, the Best Foreign Feature prize at the 1991 American Independent Spirit Awards, the 1991 George Sadoul Award for Best Film, and the 1991 Australian Film Critics Association awards for Best Film, Best Director and Best Actress (Genevieve Lemon).
Later in 1989, Campion tried her hand at acting, appearing in her sister Anna Campion's short film, The Audition. Jane Campion has a significant role in this film in which Anna Campion interrogates the complex relationship between mother and daughter, taking her own sibling and mother as subjects. The Audition blurs the distinction between documentary and fiction, with Anna Campion's subjects often appearing as extreme characters, despite the fact that the scenario and subjects are sourced from her own life.
The influence of Jane Campion's own life on her work has also been a significant point of discussion as exemplified by the ever-raging debate surrounding the issue of whether Campion is a New Zealand or Australian director. Although New Zealand born and raised, Campion received her education in filmmaking and made her first films in Australia. Furthermore, Campion has been largely based in Sydney for quite some time. In spite of the playful but fiercely patriotic antagonism between New Zealanders and Australians, Campion seems to be able to liaise quite smoothly between the two cultures, embracing aspects of both nationalities. On one hand, Campion has made Sydney her home and feels that her creative process has been heavily inflected by Australian culture, stating ‘I feel as a filmmaker I grew up in Australia'. While on the other hand, Campion is attracted to stories that address New Zealand's cultural past, and she expresses fond memories of her Wellington childhood.
While in Campion's early works, set and filmed in Australia, with largely Australian casts, the influence of Australian culture is manifest, in the two films that Campion would go on to make after completing Sweetie, a story of suburban Australia, Campion draws from different cultural standards of reference. An Angel at my Table (1990) and The Piano (1993) are deeply rooted in New Zealand culture.
An Angel at my Table is an adaptation of celebrated New Zealand author Janet Frame's autobiography. Green and idyllic New Zealand country landscapes are a prominent feature of the mise-en-scène. Originally conceptualized and filmed as a television mini-series of three episodes, the film was also theatrically released as a long feature constituted by three parts. An Angel at my Table was well received, winning eight prizes at the Venice Film Festival, including the Silver Lion.
The Piano is Campion's most commercially successful and critically acclaimed film to date. It is a film in which she was very personally invested, having not only directed the film, but also worked on the story and screenplay for nearly ten years, from her initial conception of a story of New Zealand's colonial past developed after completing film school in 1984. Set amidst the dense, untamed native bush of nineteenth century New Zealand, the film tells the story of Ada (Holly Hunter), a woman whose father ships her to New Zealand to marry a husband that she has never met.
The Piano won a number of important awards; including the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1993 (she was the first female director ever to receive the award). The film was also nominated for eight Academy Awards. Among these, Campion was nominated for the Best Director Academy Award, although she did not win. Nonetheless, The Piano received Academy Awards for Best Screenplay, Best Actress (Holly Hunter) and Best Supporting Actress (Anna Paquin).
After completing production on The Piano, Campion took some time off filmmaking and dedicated herself to being a mother. Her daughter Alice was born to Campion and her husband Colin Englert (who she had married in 1992) in 1994. A son, Jasper, had been born in 1993 but unfortunately he only survived for twelve days.
Campion's next film, The Portrait of a Lady (1996), was released three years after The Piano. The film is an adaptation of Henry James' novel. The Portrait of a Lady tells the story of Isabel (Nicole Kidman), an American woman who travels to Europe, where she is pursued by many admirers. She ends up marrying Gilbert (John Malkovich), a coldly manipulating man. The film received mixed responses from critics, with some taking issue with Campion's interpretation of the James text.
In her next venture, Holy Smoke (1999), Campion returned to the setting of Australian suburbia. She co-wrote the screenplay with her sister, Anna Campion. The film depicts Ruth's (Kate Winslet) indoctrination by an Indian cult and her comically small town family's subsequent attempts to aid her recovery. They hire P.J. (Harvey Keitel), an expert ‘de-programmer', with whom she initiates an intensely erotic relationship.
Campion's latest offering to date, In the Cut (2003), is also notable for its erotic elements. The film is based on the controversial best-selling novel of the same title by Susanna Moore. Starring Meg Ryan, who here is cast against type as Frannie, the film draws heavily from the thriller genre. The film revolves around the repressed Frannie's journey of sexual discovery with Detective Malloy (Mark Ruffalo), a man who she distrusts as potentially murderous. Set in New York, and with a predominantly American cast, Campion here taps into yet another culture.
It seems that Jane Campion's ample experiences of international travel, as well as her education in anthropology, have enabled her to intelligently engage with a range of different cultures in her films. Her ability to work from a range of cultural viewpoints complicates her relationship to traditional concepts of national cinema.
For Campion's characters the journey (in which is manifested a psychic as well as geographic shift) is a liberating experience. Once free from stable but often restrictive homes, Campion's female protagonists are able to explore new communities and cultures, and pursue their spiritual, erotic and creative desires. This may also be the case for Campion herself, whose passion for filmmaking was discovered only after she had left the comforts of her New Zealand home to explore the wider world, and whose talents were fostered ‘across the ditch' in Australia.
Sources
Dana Polan, Jane Campion (British Film Institute: London, 2001), 54.
Internet Movie Database, ‘Biography for Jane Campion', Seattle, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001005/bio, (accessed August 2, 2006).
Ellen Cheshire, Jane Campion (Pocket Essentials: London, 2000), 7.
Yahoo! Movies, ‘Jane Campion Biography', http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/contributor/1800022340/bio, (accessed August 2, 2006).
TV news broadcast (Perth), 25 May 1993, Seven Nightly News .
‘The Grass Is Greener: Interview with Jane Campion' (Television programme). 1990, Rhymer and Bayly Watson, New Zealand and Australia.
Jane Campion: Filmography
Tissues (1980)
An Exercise in Discipline- Peel (1982)
Passionless Moments (1983)
Mishaps: Seduction and Conquest (1984)
A Girl's Own Story (1984)
After Hours (1984)
Two Friends (1986)
Dancing Daze (1986)
Sweetie (1989)
An Angel at My Table (1990)
The Piano (1993)
The Portrait of a Lady (1996)
Holy Smoke (1999)
In the Cut (2003)
The Water Diary (2006)
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