Piano lessons
Jane Campion composes herself
Difficult women come easy for Australian (née New Zealand) filmmaker Jane Campion, as can be seen from the retrospective of her films that's about to open at the Harvard Film Archive. From her brilliant first short films (February 3 at 9:15 p.m. and the 7th at 4 p.m.) to her masterpiece The Piano (1993; February 5 at 6:30 p.m., the 6th at 2 p.m., the 7th at 6:30 p.m., and the 8th at 9 p.m.) to her latest feature, the ambitious but disappointing The Portrait of a Lady (1996; February 4 at 6 and 9 p.m. and the 7th at 1 p.m.), Campion explores not only what women want but how they get it.
From the beginning, she herself seems to have known want she wanted as a filmmaker -- and how to get it. Made in 1982, her student short "Peel" establishes in its taut and kinetic nine minutes the style and themes she would develop throughout her career. The color orange and little else unites a father, a mother, and their bratty son on a motor......
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Approximate Pages: 7 (260 words per double-spaced page) |