Jane Campion's, 'the Piano'

In the spring of 1993, a film was released to the world that would end up changing the way many people perceived and appreciated films, especially those made internationally. It would be delivered from New Zealand's most famous female filmmaker. Jane Campion, the director whom was previously known for her films, Peel-an Exercise in Discipline, and Sweetie, would achieve even higher acclaim for her masterpiece to date, The Piano.

The Piano portrays the story of a mute, unwed Irish woman in late 1800s New Zealand, arranged into a marriage with a colonial New Zealand settler. The main character, Ada, expresses herself with the keys of her piano. She finds herself falling in love with Baines, one of the natives of her new home, after he persuades her to give him piano lessons in exchange for her beloved musical instrument. Ada is very emotionally distant with her new husband, and as he discovers the romance between her and his intense neighbor, he becomes competitively jealous. In a pit of rage, Ada's husband severs one of her precious fingers and eventually gives up on the failed marriage. In the end of the film, Ada and her young daughter, Flora, set off from the island with Baines to start a new life, without her once loved piano.

The characters in this film hardly come shy of delivering performances that make for amazing cinema. The actors in The Piano include Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Anna Paquin, and Sam Neill. Holly Hunter's character, Ada, delivered a fantastic performance on camera. Although many average moviegoers and few critics may discard Hunter's role as achievement since she didn't have to memorize any lines, the majority of film critics worldwide certainly disagreed, as Holly Hunter ended up taking home the Palme d'Or and an Academy Award for best actress soon after the films release. Hunter's films previous to The Piano included films Raising Arizona, and a film by acclaimed Simpson's producer, James L. Brooks, entitled Broadcast News (Davis 1.) Campion noted that as she was deciding whom to cast as her admirable Ada, that Hunter was not her imaginative image of the character at all:

Holly was my image of Ada at all. But, in fact, I was very much saved from myself by Holly. Originally, I had an almost clichйd, romantic view of this tall, statuesque, black-haired, black-eyed beauty. In many ways, she wasn't a very real human being, and when meeting Holly I was not very willing to see her as Ada. Holly was completely the opposite to my understanding of how Ada should be. However, I liked Holly very much and I started to open up to the idea of using her because she was so interested and willing to do an audition (Wexmen 118)

Perhaps the most amazing performance came from the young actress that was not even acknowledged on the cover of The Piano. This, of course, was the adorable and talented young actress, Anna Paquin. Paquin was a Canadian actress that gave a performance that would have been amazing at any age. Jane Campion told Lynden Barber, "With a little girl like Anna, she's just got great instincts; I don't know where it comes from. She's just an example of how some people have that acting spirit". What might have been most amazing thing about Paquin's performance, other than the performance itself, is the fact that this was her first film that she ever acted in (Pageen 1 IMDB). Anna Paquin took home an Oscar for "best actress in a supporting role" at the 1994 Academy Awards.

Harvey Keitel, who played William Baines in the film, had been better known from previous movie roles such as tough guys in Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino films, until Jane Campion stumbled upon him. Like Holly Hunter, Keitel was an American, and his character transition into the New Zealand setting was very accurate and remarkably believable when watching The Piano.

The only New Zealand native that is a main character in the film is Sam Neill. Although Neill was born in Northern Ireland, he was raised by army parents, and quickly resettled in the South Island of New Zealand. An experienced director and editor, Neill was also a skillful actor who had acted in such movies as The Rainbow Warrior, and Jurassic Park. Sam Neill, Anna Paquin, Harvey Keitel, and Holly Hunter all worked very well together in The Piano to fulfill a masterpiece for Campion.

The cinematography itself is astonishing. The Piano incorporates many beautifully captivating images, all on gorgeous 35mm film. In the opening scene, the viewer is welcomed with subdued colors; unsaturated and cold. The colors themselves are very reminiscent to director Tim Burton's 1999 horror film, Sleepy Hollow. The coldness of these colors allow one to be more taken in by the characters, as the blandness and lack of actual color allows the viewer to see the mood of the scene. For instance, the touches of blue and grey in the opening scene give the sense of coldness and disparity. The cold look of the film also makes Ada appear lonely and unhappy, as she would in response to her prearranged marriage to an unknown New Zealand man. At other points in the film the color is warm; using more earthy tones of soil and sky to metaphorically display the times when Ada is away from her husband, Stewart. World renowned film critic, Rodger Ebert, comments about the use of tinting and color in the cinematography of the film:

Stuart Dryburgh's cinematography is not simply suited to the story, but enhances it. Look at his cold grays and browns as he paints the desolate coast, and then the warm interiors that glow when they are finally needed. And if you are oddly affected by a key shot just before the end (I will not reveal it), reflect on his strategy of shooting and printing it, not in real time, but by filming at quarter-time and then printing each frame four times, so that the movement takes on a fated, dreamlike quality (Ebert 2)

Of course, the color of the film is only one aspect of the brilliant cinematography orchestrated by Stuart Dryburgh. As Ebert points out, Dryburgh increases the vivid resolution of his film by shooting at one-quarter time, rather than standard real-time printing. When the piano itself is seen on the beach while Ada is looking down at it from the height of a cliff, the cinematography, once again, sets the sense of loneliness. As Ada gazes at her beloved piano, the camera zooms into the boarded instrument resting on the shoreline of the New Zealand beach, creeping so close to the waves that it almost becomes plausible that it could be swept away. As the camera hones in on the piano, Ada's scarf occasionally flutters into the foreground, unfocused, and battering in the wind. Dryburgh explains that, "The camera's viewpoint...is that of a witness directing the viewer's attention

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