Jane Campion thought she had quit filmmaking when she saw the Oscar-winning The power of the dog; she was focused on her next goal: running a pop-up school for aspiring filmmakers in her native New Zealand.
“It was so exciting to have success so late in my career and to finally feel like I could do anything I wanted – and the idea of giving something 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 work out, even though I had the time. And now I’ve noticed that more ideas are coming to me. Really surprising ones that I can’t really reveal yet. I think I’m in a good place, to be honest. I think I’m very lucky because I know I’m going to make money. People in the industry believe, perhaps wrongly, that there will be another really good film. I’m definitely going to try.”
Campion, 70, is in Locarno to accept a lifetime achievement award. She began making short films in the early 1980s as a woman in a field almost entirely dominated by men. In 2017, she was memorably the only woman in the frame when past winners of the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, were photographed for the 60th edition of the festival.th Anniversary. Your victory for The piano dates back to 1993. She says she was as shocked as everyone else when she saw the picture.
“Visually it was a shock. I think if there hadn’t been women there you wouldn’t have even noticed,” she said. “Oh, women don’t make films! But the fact that there was one: you wondered, ‘Where are the others?’ And the guys – the other directors – seemed embarrassed; we all felt something was wrong. But it’s all about power and money. It was tough back then. There was a feeling that women and what they were interested in wasn’t interesting. But that’s changed so much.”
Now she says she feels “like an aunt” to younger directors like Justine Triet, who called for Anatomy of a fall to discuss what to do next. Julia Ducournau had won with titanium two years earlier. “It’s so exciting that they’re not just making films, but also being successful at the top,” Campion said.
Barbiedirected by Greta Gerwig, was another breakthrough. “It’s fantastic. For the first time, we have a film that is not about Marvel characters, but a humorous and very creative take on Barbie and Mattel history. And she’s the first woman to make it a historical bundle. It meant that women could finally be trusted with money,” added Campion.
After the worldwide success of The pianoCampion made several films that were not a success with critics or at the box office, but have since been re-evaluated. Her adaptation of Portrait of a lady (1996) – possibly her own favourite film – was panned by critics in part because it cast Nicole Kidman as Henry James’ heroine Isabel Archer. Outside Australia, Kidman was seen exclusively as Tom Cruise’s wife, “a sort of handbag role, so she wasn’t supposed to play a classic heroine, especially an American one,” Campion said at the time.
On average (2003), starring Meg Ryan and Mark Ruffalo as a sexually experimental couple, was similarly panned but, she says, entered a new chapter with critics.
“I spoke to someone who writes about it for BFI Classics. It’s my dream, to become a cult film.” At the time, she said: “I found the best reaction was to just shut up and move on. Because you could be so disappointed. But then everything changed. And the world will never be perfect, but it’s certainly easier.”
The Locarno Film Festival ends tomorrow.
