The “bitter” moment Jane Campion almost quit filmmaking: “I was really stunned”
It must be incredibly hard to be a successful, creative woman in a male-dominated industry, let alone when your first attempt at something faces such criticism that you question everything about what you’ve attempted. It happened to New Zealand director Jane Campion, who thankfully had the strength to move forward with what would end up as a multi-Academy Award-winning career.
While Campion’s future as an artist may have been pre-ordained thanks to being the daughter of an actress and a theatre director, it was painting that she wanted to originally pursue, only moving into film because she got frustrated with the limitations. At 21, she flew across the world to study in London before heading back down under a few years later to begin making short films in Australia.
Her talent was clear; even with her first short film, she won a Palme d’Or at the Cannes Festival, and that led to her being handed the reins to direct TV movies. Eventually, she was ready to make her movie directing debut with Sweetie in 1989, a black comedy about a dysfunctional Australian family that ends in tragedy.
Although it would go on to win prizes, opinion from critics at the time was sharply divided, with The Observer calling it ‘disgusting’ and an Italian outlet describing it as “dirty”. The feedback hurt Campion deeply, and she spent a day crying in her hotel suite in Cannes, recalling to Vanity Fair that: “Some critics just hated it… I was really stunned. If I had not been in preproduction on Angel at My Table already, I don’t think I would’ve made another film.”
She pushed on, however, and her next film was far more widely regarded, An Angel at My Table, winning several leading industry awards around the globe. Campion added about her experience on her debut: “It was so bitter. Maybe women don’t grow up with that locker-room toughness that guys have – they seem almost immune to criticism. I wish I had a little bit more of that in me.”
Little did she know that within a few years she would be an Oscar winner thanks to her historical romance The Piano starring Holly Hunter and Harvey Keitel, a phenomenal movie that brought in $140m at the box office against a budget of just $7m, Campion winning the Academy award for ‘Best Screenplay’ in addition to becoming only the second woman in history to be nominated for ‘Best Director’.
Almost 30 years later, she would go one better with The Power of the Dog with Benedict Cumberbatch and Kirsten Dunst, winning the ‘Best Director’ Oscar among three nominations. Between those films, Campion has had a long career directing not just movies but acclaimed TV shows too; her drama Top of the Lake with Elizabeth Moss ran for two seasons and won a raft of awards, including Golden Globes and Emmys.
Now 71, she is yet to make another film in the five years since The Power of the Dog, and even that film marked ten years since her previous work. Recently, she has been focusing on teaching film at her school, named A Wave in the Ocean, although there have been rumours she could be enticed into remaking the 1955 classic East of Eden starring James Dean.
