Campion was born in Wellington, New Zealand, the second daughter of Edith Campion (born Beverley Georgette Hannah), an actress, writer, and heiress; and Richard M. Campion, a teacher, and theatre and opera director.[3][4][5] Her maternal great-grandfather was Robert Hannah, a well-known shoe manufacturer for whom Antrim House was built. Her father came from a family that belonged to the fundamentalist Christian Exclusive Brethren sect.[6] She attended Queen Margaret College and Wellington Girls' College.[7] Along with her sister, Anna, a year and a half her senior, and brother, Michael, seven years her junior, Campion grew up in the world of New Zealand theatre.[4] Their parents founded the New Zealand Players.[8] Campion initially rejected the idea of a career in the dramatic arts and graduated instead with a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Victoria University of Wellington in 1975.[4]
In 1976, she enrolled in the Chelsea Art School in London and travelled throughout Europe. She earned a graduate diploma in visual arts (painting) from the Sydney College of the Arts at the University of Sydney in 1981. Campion's later film work was shaped in part by her art school education; she has, even in her mature career, cited painter Frida Kahlo and sculptor Joseph Beuys as influences.[4]
Campion's dissatisfaction with the limitations of painting[4] led her to filmmaking and the creation of her first short, Tissues, in 1980. In 1981, she began studying at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, where she made several more short films and graduated in 1984.[9]
Campion's first short film, Peel (1982), won the Short Film Palme d'Or at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival,[10] and other awards followed for the shorts Passionless Moments (1983), A Girl's Own Story (1984), and After Hours (1984). After leaving 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.[11] Her feature debut, Sweetie (1989), won international awards.
She was the head of the jury for the Cinéfondation and Short Film sections at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival[20] and the head of the jury for the main competition section of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.[21] When Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan received the Prix du Jury for his film Mommy, he said that Campion's The Piano "made me want to write roles for women—beautiful women with soul, will and strength, not victims or objects." Campion responded by rising from her seat to give him a hug.[22][23] In 2014, it was announced that Campion was nearing a deal to direct an adaptation of Rachel Kushner's novel The Flamethrowers.[24][25]
In 2015, Campion confirmed that she would co-direct and co-write a second season of Top of the Lake with the story moved to Sydney and Harbour City, Hong Kong, and with Elisabeth Moss reprising her role as Robin Griffin.[26] The sequel series titled Top of the Lake: China Girl was released in 2017. Shot and set in Sydney, Top of the Lake: China Girl features Alice Englert, Campion's daughter, in a lead role as Robin's biological daughter. The series also features Ewen Leslie, David Dencik and Nicole Kidman.
In 2019, Campion's first film in a decade was announced, an adaptation of Thomas Savage's novel The Power of the Dog. The film was written and directed by her and was released in 2021,[27] having premiered at the 78th Venice International Film Festival, where Campion was awarded the Silver Lion for Best Direction.[28] The film was critically acclaimed internationally, winning numerous awards and nominations for the direction, screenplay, and performance of the cast of actors.[29] Campion earned three nominations in the respective categories for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Picture at the Golden Globe Awards, AACTA International Awards, Critics' Choice Movie Awards, and Satellite Awards. Campion issued an apology to Serena and Venus Williams following criticism of her acceptance speech for Critics Choice for Best Director, in which Campion said, "And you know, Serena and Venus, you are such marvels. However, you do not play against the guys — like I have to." Her apology included, "I made a thoughtless comment equating what I do in the film world with all that Serena Williams and Venus Williams have achieved," she said. "I did not intend to devalue these two legendary Black women and world-class athletes."[30] In February 2022, the film received 12 nominations at the 94th Academy Awards, leading that year's Oscar nominations.[31] The film was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor for Benedict Cumberbatch, Best Supporting Actress for Kirsten Dunst, and Best Supporting Actor for both Kodi Smit-McPhee and Jesse Plemons.[32] Campion became the first woman to receive multiple Best Director nominations, and she won Best Director for the film.[33] She is also the first woman to win Best Director without also winning a corresponding Best Picture.
Personal life
In 1992, Campion married Colin David Englert, an Australian who worked as a second unit director on The Piano.[34] Their first child, Jasper, was born in 1993 but lived for only 12 days.[35] Their second child, Alice Englert, was born in 1994; she is an actress. The couple divorced in 2001.[36]
Reception
Her work, according to the critic bell hooks, "seduces and excites audiences with its uncritical portrayal of sexism and misogyny. Reviewers and audiences alike seem to assume that Campion's gender, as well as her breaking of traditional boundaries that inhibit the advancement of women in film, indicate that her work expresses a feminist standpoint."[37] Accordingly, Campion's work has received praise from other critics. In V.W. Wexman's Jane Campion: Interviews (1999), critic David Thomson describes Campion "as one of the best young directors in the world today."[38] In Sue Gillett's "More Than Meets The Eye: The Mediation of Affects in Jane Campion's Sweetie", Campion's work is described as "perhaps the fullest and truest way of being faithful to the reality of experience"; by utilising the "unsayable" and "unseeable", she manages to catalyze audience speculation.[39] Campion's films tend to gravitate around themes of gender politics, such as seduction and female sexual power. This has led some to label Campion's body of work as feminist; however, Rebecca Flint Marx argues that "while not inaccurate, [the feminist label] fails to fully capture the dilemmas of her characters and the depth of her work."[40]
^ abcdeMcHugh, Kathleen (2007). Contemporary Film Directors: Jane Campion. United States of America: University of Illinois, Urbana. ISBN978-0-252-03204-2.
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