Jane Campion
Encyclopedia
Jane Campion is a filmmaker and screenwriter. She is one of the most internationally successful New Zealand
directors, although most of her work has been made in or financed by other countries, principally Australia
– where she now lives – and the United States
. Campion is the second of four women ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director.
, New Zealand, the daughter of Edith, an actress, and Richard Campion, a theater and opera director. She graduated with a degree in anthropology from Victoria University of Wellington
in 1975. In 1976 she attended Chelsea Art School
in London and travelled in Europe. She graduated with a painting major at the Sydney College of the Arts
in Australia in 1979. She made her first short film, Tissues in 1981. In 1982 she began studying at the Australian Film and Television School
where she made further short films.
.
Her first short film, Peel
(1982) won the Short Film Palme d'Or
at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival
, and other awards followed for the shorts Passionless Moments
(1983), Girls Own Story (1984) and After Hours (1984).
Having left the Australian Film and Television School she directed an episode for ABC's light entertainment series Dancing Daze (1986), which led to her first TV film, Two Friends (1986) produced by Jan Chapman.
Sweetie
(1989) was her feature debut, and won international awards. Further recognition followed with An Angel at My Table
(1990), a biographical and psychological portrayal of the New Zealand poet Janet Frame
. International recognition followed with another Palme d'Or at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival
for The Piano
, which won the best director award from the Australian Film Institute
and an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1994. At the 66th Academy Awards
, she was the second woman ever to be nominated for Best Director.
Campion's work since that time has tended to polarize opinion. The Portrait of a Lady
(1996), based on the Henry James
novel, featured Nicole Kidman
, John Malkovich
, Barbara Hershey
and Martin Donovan
. Holy Smoke!
(1999) teamed Campion again with Harvey Keitel
, this time with Kate Winslet
as the female lead. In the Cut
(2003), an erotic thriller
based on Susanna Moore
's bestseller, provided Meg Ryan
an opportunity to depart from her more familiar onscreen persona. Her 2009 film Bright Star
, a biographical drama about poet John Keats
(played by Ben Whishaw
) and his lover Fanny Brawne
(Abbie Cornish
), was shown at the Cannes Film Festival.
Campion was an executive producer for the 2006 documentary Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story
.
at the Royal Hospital for Women
in Sydney.
They have a daughter named Alice, born in 1994. They have since divorced. Colin has a son Gabriel born in 2004.
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
directors, although most of her work has been made in or financed by other countries, principally Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
– where she now lives – and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Campion is the second of four women ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director.
Early life
Campion was born in WellingtonWellington
Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...
, New Zealand, the daughter of Edith, an actress, and Richard Campion, a theater and opera director. She graduated with a degree in anthropology from Victoria University of Wellington
Victoria University of Wellington
Victoria University of Wellington was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a former constituent college of the University of New Zealand. It is particularly well known for its programmes in law, the humanities, and some scientific disciplines, but offers a broad range of other courses...
in 1975. In 1976 she attended Chelsea Art School
Chelsea College of Art and Design
Chelsea College of Art and Design, the erstwhile Chelsea School of Art, is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London, and is a leading British art and design institution with an international reputation...
in London and travelled in Europe. She graduated with a painting major at the Sydney College of the Arts
Sydney College of the Arts
The Sydney College of the Arts in Rozelle, Sydney, Australia is the visual arts faculty of the University of Sydney. It is housed in the Kirkbride complex, a cluster of sandstone buildings designed by James Barnet, the government architect in the late 19th century...
in Australia in 1979. She made her first short film, Tissues in 1981. In 1982 she began studying at the Australian Film and Television School
Australian Film Television and Radio School
The Australian Film, Television and Radio School is the Australian national centre for professional education and advanced training in film, television, radio and digital media. The School is an Australian Commonwealth government statutory authority...
where she made further short films.
Career
Campion started making films in the early 1980s at the Australian Film Television and Radio SchoolAustralian Film Television and Radio School
The Australian Film, Television and Radio School is the Australian national centre for professional education and advanced training in film, television, radio and digital media. The School is an Australian Commonwealth government statutory authority...
.
Her first short film, Peel
Peel (film)
Peel aka. An Exercise in Discipline - Peel is a 1982 Australian short film directed by Jane Campion. A father along with his son and sister is taking a trip, during which an orange peel has significance. Peel won the Short Film Palme d'Or at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival....
(1982) won the Short Film Palme d'Or
Short Film Palme d'Or
The Short Film Palme d'Or is the highest prize given to a short film at the Cannes Film Festival. It is chosen by the same jury of the Cinéfondation....
at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival
1986 Cannes Film Festival
- Jury :*Sydney Pollack*Alexandre Mnouchkine*Alexandre Trauner*Charles Aznavour*Danièle Thompson*István Szabó*Lino Brocka*Philip French*Sonia Braga*Tonino Delli Colli-Feature film competition:* After Hours by Martin Scorsese...
, and other awards followed for the shorts Passionless Moments
Passionless Moments
Passionless Moments is a 1983 short Australian drama film written and directed by Jane Campion and Gerard Lee. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* David Benton - Ed Tumbury...
(1983), Girls Own Story (1984) and After Hours (1984).
Having left the Australian Film and Television School she directed an episode for ABC's light entertainment series Dancing Daze (1986), which led to her first TV film, Two Friends (1986) produced by Jan Chapman.
Sweetie
Sweetie (film)
Sweetie is an 1989 Australian drama film co-written and directed by Jane Campion. It was Jane Campion's first feature film. Genevieve Lemon plays Dawn, nicknamed Sweetie. Karen Colston plays her sister, Kay...
(1989) was her feature debut, and won international awards. Further recognition followed with An Angel at My Table
An Angel at My Table
An Angel at My Table is a 1990 New Zealand-Australian-British film directed by Jane Campion. The film is based on Janet Frame's three autobiographies, To the Is-Land , An Angel at My Table , and The Envoy from Mirror City ....
(1990), a biographical and psychological portrayal of the New Zealand poet Janet Frame
Janet Frame
Janet Paterson Frame, ONZ, CBE was a New Zealand author. She wrote eleven novels, four collections of short stories, a book of poetry, an edition of juvenile fiction, and three volumes of autobiography during her lifetime. Since her death, a twelfth novel, a second volume of poetry, and a handful...
. International recognition followed with another Palme d'Or at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival
1993 Cannes Film Festival
- Jury :* Louis Malle * Claudia Cardinale * Inna Churikova * Judy Davis * Abbas Kiarostami * Emir Kusturica * William Lubtchansky * Tom Luddy * Gary Oldman * Augusto M...
for The Piano
The Piano
The Piano is a 1993 New Zealand drama film about a mute pianist and her daughter, set during the mid-19th century in a rainy, muddy frontier backwater on the west coast of New Zealand. The film was written and directed by Jane Campion, and stars Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin...
, which won the best director award from the Australian Film Institute
Australian Film Institute
The Australian Film Institute was founded in 1958 as a non-profit organisation devoted to developing an active film culture in Australia and fostering engagement between the general public and the Australian film industry...
and an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1994. At the 66th Academy Awards
66th Academy Awards
The 66th Academy Awards were presented March 21, 1994, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles. The show was landmark in that it featured a female African American host for the first time, Whoopi Goldberg, and represented a direct contrast in edgy style from Billy Crystal who had hosted the...
, she was the second woman ever to be nominated for Best Director.
Campion's work since that time has tended to polarize opinion. The Portrait of a Lady
The Portrait of a Lady (film)
The Portrait of a Lady is a 1996 film adaptation of Henry James's novel The Portrait of a Lady directed by Jane Campion.The film stars Nicole Kidman, Barbara Hershey, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker, Martin Donovan, Shelley Duvall, Richard E...
(1996), based on the Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
novel, featured Nicole Kidman
Nicole Kidman
Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...
, John Malkovich
John Malkovich
John Gavin Malkovich is an American actor, producer, director and fashion designer with his label Technobohemian. Over the last 25 years of his career, Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures. For his roles in Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire, he received Academy Award...
, Barbara Hershey
Barbara Hershey
Barbara Hershey , also known as Barbara Seagull, is an American actress. In a career spanning nearly 50 years, she has played a variety of roles on television and in cinema, in several genres including westerns and comedies...
and Martin Donovan
Martin Donovan
Martin Donovan is an American stage and film actor. He has had a long collaboration with the director Hal Hartley, appearing in many of his films, including Trust , Surviving Desire , Simple Men , Flirt , Amateur , and The Book of Life...
. Holy Smoke!
Holy Smoke!
Holy Smoke! is a 1999 Australian drama film directed by Jane Campion, who co-wrote the screenplay with her sister Anna. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival and was shown at the New York Film Festival and the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival before being released theatrically.-Plot...
(1999) teamed Campion again with Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel is an American actor. Some of his most notable starring roles were in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, Ridley Scott's The Duellists and Thelma and Louise, Ettore Scola's That Night in Varennes, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Jane Campion's The...
, this time with Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
as the female lead. In the Cut
In the Cut
In the Cut is a 2003 American erotic thriller and mystery film, written and directed by Jane Campion and starring Meg Ryan, Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Campion's screenplay is an adaption of the novel of the same name by Susanna Moore...
(2003), an erotic thriller
Erotic thriller
The erotic thriller is a film and literary sub-genre which consists of a mixture between erotica and thriller. The genre increased in North American popularity from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s, before declining in marketability.-1980s:...
based on Susanna Moore
Susanna Moore
Susanna Moore in Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania, is an American writer.Susanna Moore grew up in Hawaii. Her memoir, I Myself Have Seen It: The Myth of Hawai'i gives the reader deep insight into a life in Hawaii other than that presented by tourist brochures.In 1999 she received the Academy Award in...
's bestseller, provided Meg Ryan
Meg Ryan
Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra , professionally known as Meg Ryan, is an American actress and producer. Raised in Bethel, Connecticut, Ryan began her acting career in 1981 in minor roles, before joining the cast of the CBS soap opera As the World Turns in 1982...
an opportunity to depart from her more familiar onscreen persona. Her 2009 film Bright Star
Bright Star (film)
Bright Star is a 2009 film based on the last three years of the life of poet John Keats and his romantic relationship with Fanny Brawne. It stars Ben Whishaw as Keats and Abbie Cornish as Fanny...
, a biographical drama about poet John Keats
John Keats
John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
(played by Ben Whishaw
Ben Whishaw
Benjamin John "Ben" Whishaw is an English actor who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Whishaw is perhaps best known for his breakthrough role as Hamlet, and his role as the lead character in Tom Tykwer's film Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.-Early life:Whishaw was born and raised in...
) and his lover Fanny Brawne
Fanny Brawne
Frances Brawne Lindon is most known for her betrothal to 19th-Century English Romantic poet John Keats, a fact largely unknown until 1878, when Keats' letters to her were published...
(Abbie Cornish
Abbie Cornish
Abbie Cornish is an Australian actress. She is well known in Australia for a number of film and television roles, particularly her award-winning lead performance in 2004's Somersault, and internationally for her role as Fanny Brawne in Bright Star and her appearance as Sweet Pea in Sucker Punch.-...
), was shown at the Cannes Film Festival.
Campion was an executive producer for the 2006 documentary Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story
Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story
Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story is an American documentary about Megumi Yokota, a Japanese student who was abducted by a North Korean agent in 1977.The film made its world premiere at the 2006 Slamdance Film Festival and has won numerous awards...
.
Personal life
In 1992 she married Colin Englert, second unit director on The Piano and leads group work with dads who suffer postnatal depression (PND)Postpartum depression
Postpartum depression , also called postnatal depression, is a form of clinical depression which can affect women, and less frequently men, typically after childbirth. Studies report prevalence rates among women from 5% to 25%, but methodological differences among the studies make the actual...
at the Royal Hospital for Women
Royal Hospital for Women
The Royal Hospital for Women is a specialist hospital for women and babies located in the suburb of Randwick in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.-History:The RHW began life in 1820 as a 'lying-in' hospital under auspices of the Benevolent Society...
in Sydney.
They have a daughter named Alice, born in 1994. They have since divorced. Colin has a son Gabriel born in 2004.
Director
- A Girl's Own StoryA Girl's Own StoryA Girl's Own Story is a 1984 short Australian drama film directed by Jane Campion. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival...
(1984) - SweetieSweetie (film)Sweetie is an 1989 Australian drama film co-written and directed by Jane Campion. It was Jane Campion's first feature film. Genevieve Lemon plays Dawn, nicknamed Sweetie. Karen Colston plays her sister, Kay...
(1989) - An Angel at My TableAn Angel at My TableAn Angel at My Table is a 1990 New Zealand-Australian-British film directed by Jane Campion. The film is based on Janet Frame's three autobiographies, To the Is-Land , An Angel at My Table , and The Envoy from Mirror City ....
(1990) - The PianoThe PianoThe Piano is a 1993 New Zealand drama film about a mute pianist and her daughter, set during the mid-19th century in a rainy, muddy frontier backwater on the west coast of New Zealand. The film was written and directed by Jane Campion, and stars Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin...
(1993) - Portrait of a LadyThe Portrait of a Lady (film)The Portrait of a Lady is a 1996 film adaptation of Henry James's novel The Portrait of a Lady directed by Jane Campion.The film stars Nicole Kidman, Barbara Hershey, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker, Martin Donovan, Shelley Duvall, Richard E...
(1996) - based on the novel by Henry JamesHenry JamesHenry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.... - Holy Smoke!Holy Smoke!Holy Smoke! is a 1999 Australian drama film directed by Jane Campion, who co-wrote the screenplay with her sister Anna. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival and was shown at the New York Film Festival and the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival before being released theatrically.-Plot...
(1999) - In the CutIn the CutIn the Cut is a 2003 American erotic thriller and mystery film, written and directed by Jane Campion and starring Meg Ryan, Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Campion's screenplay is an adaption of the novel of the same name by Susanna Moore...
(2003) - based on the novel by Susanna MooreSusanna MooreSusanna Moore in Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania, is an American writer.Susanna Moore grew up in Hawaii. Her memoir, I Myself Have Seen It: The Myth of Hawai'i gives the reader deep insight into a life in Hawaii other than that presented by tourist brochures.In 1999 she received the Academy Award in... - The Water diary8 (2008 film)8 is a series of eight short films centered on the eight Millennium Development Goals.-Topics:Eight directors had "carte blanche" to treat one of the eight topics:*Segment by Abderrahmane Sissako: Tiya's dream...
- segment of the feature film 8 - Bright StarBright Star (film)Bright Star is a 2009 film based on the last three years of the life of poet John Keats and his romantic relationship with Fanny Brawne. It stars Ben Whishaw as Keats and Abbie Cornish as Fanny...
(2009) - Top Of The Lake (2013)
Producer
- Soft FruitSoft Fruit (film)Soft Fruit is a 1999 drama about a dying mother, and her children who come together to fulfill her last wishes. It is an Australian American co-production produced by Australian filmmaker Jane Campion and directed by Christina Andreef.-Cast:...
(2000) - Abduction: The Megumi Yokota StoryAbduction: The Megumi Yokota StoryAbduction: The Megumi Yokota Story is an American documentary about Megumi Yokota, a Japanese student who was abducted by a North Korean agent in 1977.The film made its world premiere at the 2006 Slamdance Film Festival and has won numerous awards...
(2006)