Campion, Jane

Related Category: Film and Television: Biographies

1954–, New Zealand film director, b. Wellington; grad. Victoria Univ., Wellington (1975), Sydney College of the Arts, Australia (1979), Australian School of Film and Television, Sydney (1984). Campion, who both wrote and directed most of her early films, is particularly adept at depicting the plight of women who live outside society's norms. She made short films, e.g. the prize-winning Peel (1982), before embarking the feature-length, darkly comic Sweetie (1989). Campion won substantial praise for her next feature, An Angel at My Table (1990), a sensitive portrait drawn from the autobiographical writings of fellow New Zealander Janet Frame. It was, however, her following film, The Piano (1993), that brought Campion broad international acclaim. A moodily romantic, lushly sensual, and gorgeously photographed tale of love and obsession in mid-19th-century New Zealand, it won many awards including a best original screenplay Academy Award. Her later films include Portrait of a Lady (1996), Holy Smoke (1999), and In the Cut (2002).

See Jane Campion: Interviews (1999), ed. by V. W. Wexman; study by I. Gatti (1998); film documentary by Albert Maysles (2001).