Jane Campion thought she had finished making films when she completed the Oscar-winning Power of the Dog ; she was fixed on the next thing, which was to run a pop-up school for aspiring filmmakers in her native New Zealand.
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“It was such a thrill to have a late-career success and to feel that at the end of it that I could do anything I wanted – and the idea of giving back was really fun,” she said yesterday at the Locarno Film Festival.
“Then I just wanted to do more yoga, but that didn’t really happen, even though I had the time. And now I’ve noticed some more ideas coming up. Really surprising ones I can’t really share yet. I think I’m in a good place, to be honest. I think I’m very lucky because I know there will be money for me. People in the industry believe, maybe wrongly, that there will be another really good film. I certainly will be trying.”
Campion, 70, is in Locarno to receive a lifetime achievement award, having started directing short films in the early ‘80s as a woman in an almost completely male-dominated field. In 2017, she was memorably the only woman in the picture when past winners of the top award at the Cannes Film Festival, the Palme D’Or, were photographed for the festival’s 60 th anniversary. Her win for The Piano dates back to 1993. She was as shocked as anyone, she says, looking at that image.
“Visually, it was a shock. I think if there were no women there, you wouldn’t even have noticed,” she said. “Oh, women don’t make films! But the fact there was one: you went ‘where are all the others?’ And the guys – the other directors – seemed embarrassed; we all felt something was wrong. But it’s all about power and money. At the time, it was tough. There was a feeling that women and what they were interested in was not interesting. But it’s so changed.”
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Now, she says she feels “like an auntie” to younger directors like Justine Triet, who called after her Cannes 2023 win for Anatomy of a Fall to consult about what to do next. Julia Ducournau had won with Titane two years earlier. “It’s so exciting that not only are they making films, but they are succeeding at the top,” Campion said.
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Barbie , directed by Greta Gerwig, was another breakthrough. “That’s fantastic. For once we have a film that’s not about Marvel characters but a humorous and very creative take on the Barbie and Mattel story. And she is the first woman who has made a historical bundle out of it. It meant women can be trusted with money, finally,” Campion added.
After the worldwide success of The Piano , Campion made several films that were unsuccessful, critically and commercially but have since been reassessed. Her adaptation of Portrait of a Lady (1996) – possibly her own favorite among her films – was critically mauled partly because she cast Nicole Kidman as Henry James’s heroine Isabel Archer. Outside Australia, Kidman was seen solely as Tom Cruise’s wife, “a kind of handbag role, so she shouldn’t be playing a classical heroine, especially an American,” Campion said of the time.
In the Cut (2003), with Meg Ryan and Mark Ruffalo as a sexually experimental couple, was similarly slammed but, she says, has had a critical revival.
“I spoke to someone who is writing about it for BFI Classics. That’s my dream, to have a cult film.” At the time, she said, “I found the best response was just to shut up and keep going. Because you could feel so disappointed. But then, everything changed. And the world will never be perfect, but it’s certainly easier.”
The Locarno Film Festival ends tomorrow.
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