Jane Campion Quotes
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So many actors are not open in front of the camera - they have a persona.
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Between 18 and 26 I acted professionally, on the stage and a little bit on television. Acting is okay, but it's quite pressurized. Then I went to England - I wanted to reinvent myself.
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I think feature film can be quite conservative, because you have to now get audiences to come out, and it's quite a hard thing to do. Of course, television can be conservative too.
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You know, sex is actually not so original as the way people love or the stories behind each relationship, which is what you remember. Sex is sex in the end.
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I'm someone who loves to play. I make films so I can have fun with the characters.
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If you start with a good idea, you can encapsulate it in a phrase and explain it. I like high-concept films. Everyone can get hold of it. I don't think there's any harm in that at all.
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I don't belong to any clubs, and I dislike club mentality of any kind, even feminism - although I do relate to the purpose and point of feminism. More in the work of older feminists, really, like Germaine Greer.
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With 'Bright Star' and with 'The Piano,' too, I felt a kind of sadness about it being in such a different era, because of my lack of experience with the era. And one of the ways I'd get over it is to remind myself that every film, even if it's contemporary, creates its own world.
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I took four years off after 'In the Cut' because I wanted to see who I'd be without work. I even tried being a hermit in the wilderness in New Zealand. I stayed in a warden's hut two-and-a-half hours off the Routeburn Track through the fjords on the South Island. It was early winter, so there was no electricity or running water.
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Eight years ago, I was drawn into Keats's world by Andrew Motion's biography. Soon I was reading back and forth between Keats's letters and his poems. The letters were fresh, intimate and irreverent, as though he were present and speaking. The Keats spell went very deep for me.
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My musical knowledge is so bad it's embarrassing. When composers discuss music with someone as primitive as myself, they have to talk about it in terms of senses and emotion, rather than keys and tempo.
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To deny women directors, as I suspect is happening in the States, is to deny the feminine vision.
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I think the whole tension about romanticism is the way it builds and builds, and the moment it's consummated, the tension's over.
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I've had a lot of different responses to my films. I got a lot of support from 'The Piano,' the obvious one, but it feels like an ocean, with a lot going on - the goal is to keep alive.
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I have to admit that I had a lot of problems with poetry.
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Women often postpone their lives, thinking that if they're not with a partner then it doesn't really count. They're still searching for their prince, in a way. And as much as we don't discuss that, because it's too embarrassing and too sad, I think it really does exist.
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I think women don't grow up with the harsh world of criticism that men grow up with, we are more sensitively treated, and when you first experience the world of film-making you have to develop a very tough skin.
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I would love to see more women directors because they represent half of the population - and gave birth to the whole world. Without them writing and being directors, the rest of us are not going to know the whole story.
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I had a daughter who was 9 years old and I had the feeling I wasn't going to be a real parent if I didn't quit making movies for a while and spend time with her. I also felt that I'd made enough movies and said what I had to say at the time.
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I feel that directors at times are like the janitors on the set. I am the secretary, I am the organizer, I am the maid, and I ask if they have eaten or rested. The best things are always out of your control. It's those moments that surpass the imagination that are thrilling.
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'The Piano Lesson' is very sophisticated, easily the most adult or complex material I've attempted. It's the first film I've written that has a proper story, and it was a big struggle for me to write. It meant I had to admit the power of narrative.
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I think if it's interesting, it's interesting, and if it's not, it's not working.
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It's a luxury to be able to tell a long form story. I love novels, and I love to have a long relationship with characters.
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What I have learned from my work up to now, is to try to be open, but also protect myself by not letting the good and the evil get too much importance.