Tuesday, December 31, 2019

The film that changed my life / The Piano by Jane Campion (1993)

The film that

changed my life

The Piano

by Jane Campion

(1993)

Sussana White
Sunday 21 March 2010

If I hadn't seen The Piano when I did, I may never have made a feature film. I've been making little films since I was eight – I begged my father to buy me a Super 8 camera after he took me to see Doctor Dolittle with Rex Harrison – but for a long while I thought I wanted to make documentaries. I found cinema incredibly inspiring, but I wasn't hearing any voices that felt like my voice in that world. It was a bit like being a singer and hearing wonderful music, but feeling there was nothing in your range. When I first saw The Piano I suddenly felt, my goodness, this is something I could do. It was almost a lack of confidence, before. But seeing the film, the power of its imagery and the delicacy of the way that emotion was handled in it, it felt in tune with who I was as a person and who I was as a filmmaker. It made me see film as a possibility for myself.

I first saw it in a cinema on the King's Road with the man who was to be my husband. We'd only recently met. At that point I knew I very much wanted to have children, and here was a film exploring the relationship between a mother and a daughter. I was excited, but my boyfriend didn't really get it at all. He found it slow and uninspiring. Still, I remember in that moment feeling an incredible connection with the film.

It's really influenced me in a lot of specific ways, beyond giving me the feeling I could go out and do this. It has sunk in at a very deep level. There were shots in Bleak House that were directly inspired by The Piano. The way the humvees move across the desert in Generation Kill, these very still, tranquil shots – they're very like the shots of the piano on the beach. Even more recently, in Nanny McPhee, there are silhouette shots that are very like those of Holly Hunter being carried in across the waves. Anna Paquin who played the little girl is now in True Blood with Alex Skarsgård, who I cast in Generation Kill. She's so, so brilliant in the film and is now working with Alex. I love that.

It's been really interesting to me revisiting the film now that I've had children. It plays very differently, I've found other layers in it, about that closeness and the language between a mother and a daughter. They're a bit young now, but I look forward to the day when I can sit down and watch it with my daughters. I think they'd get a huge amount from it.

THE GUARDIAN