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The Piano
1993 film by Jane Campion From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Piano is a 1993 historical romance film written and directed by New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion. It stars Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin (in her first major acting role). The film focuses on a mute Scottish woman who travels to a remote part of New Zealand with her young daughter after her arranged marriage to a settler. The plot has similarities to Jane Mander's 1920 novel, The Story of a New Zealand River, but also substantial differences. Campion has cited the novels Wuthering Heights and The African Queen as inspirations.[6]
An international co-production between Australia and France, The Piano premiered at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival on May 15, 1993, where it won the Palme d'Or,[a] rendering Campion the first female director to achieve that distinction. It was a commercial success, grossing US$140.2 million worldwide against its US$7 million budget. The film was also noted for its crossover appeal beyond the arthouse circuit in attracting mainstream popularity, largely due to rave reviews and word of mouth.[7]
The Piano earned numerous accolades, including three Academy Awards (for Hunter as Best Actress, Paquin as Best Supporting Actress, and Campion for Best Original Screenplay), a WGA Award, a Golden Globe Award, three BAFTA Awards, and eleven Australian Film Institute Awards.
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Plot
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In the mid-1800s,[8] Ada McGrath, a Scottish woman with elective mutism, travels to colonial New Zealand with her daughter Flora for an arranged marriage to settler Alisdair Stewart. Ada has not spoken since the age of six, and the reason for this as well as the identity of Flora's father remain unknown. She communicates through playing the piano and sign language, with Flora acting as her interpreter.
Ada and Flora, along with their handcrafted piano, are stranded on a New Zealand beach by a ship's crew. The next day, Alisdair arrives with his Māori crew and neighbour George Baines, a retired sailor who's adapted to Maori customs, including facial tattoos. Alisdair tells Ada that they don't have enough bearers for the piano and then refuses to go back for it, claiming that they all need to make sacrifices. Desperate to retrieve her piano, Ada seeks George's help. While at first saying no, he appears to give in due to her keenness on recovering the piano. Once at the beach, he is entranced by her music and appears charmed by her happy ways when she is playing, in contrast to her stern behaviour when in the farm.
George offers Alisdair the land he's been coveting in exchange for the piano and Ada's lessons. Alisdair agrees, oblivious to George's attraction to Ada. Ada is enraged by George's proposition but agrees to trade lessons for piano keys. She restricts the lessons to the black keys only and resists George's demands for more intimacy. Ada continues to rebuff Alisdair's advances while exploring her sensuality with George. George eventually realizes that Ada will never commit to him emotionally and returns the piano to her, confessing that he wants Ada to care for him genuinely.
Although Ada has her piano back, she longs for George and returns to him. Alisdair overhears them having sex and watches them through a crack in the wall. Furious, he confronts Ada and tries to force himself on her despite her strong resistance. He then coerces Ada into promising she will no longer see George.
Shortly after, Ada instructs Flora to deliver a package to George, which contains a piano key with a love declaration engraved on it. Flora delivers it to Alisdair instead. Enraged after reading the message, Alisdair cuts off Ada's index finger, depriving her of the ability to play the piano. He sends Flora to George with the severed finger, warning him to stay away from Ada or he will chop off more fingers. Later, while touching Ada as she sleeps, Alisdair hears what he thinks is her voice in his head, asking him to let George take her away. He goes to George's house and asks if Ada has ever spoken to him, but George says no. George and Ada leave together with her belongings and piano tied onto a Māori canoe. As they row to the ship, Ada asks George to throw the piano overboard. She allows her leg to be caught by the rope attached to the piano and is dragged underwater with it in an attempt to drown herself. As she sinks, she appears to change her mind and struggles free before being pulled to safety.
In the epilogue, Ada describes her new life with George and Flora in Nelson, where she gives piano lessons in their new home. George has made her a metal finger to replace the one she lost, and Ada has been practicing and taking speech lessons. She sometimes dreams of the piano resting at the bottom of the ocean with her still tethered to it.
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Cast
- Holly Hunter as Ada McGrath
- Harvey Keitel as George Baines
- Sam Neill as Alisdair Stewart
- Anna Paquin as Flora McGrath
- Kerry Walker as Aunt Morag
- Genevieve Lemon as Nessie
- Tungia Baker as Hira
- Ian Mune as the Reverend
- Peter Dennett as the head seaman
- Cliff Curtis as Mana
- Pete Smith as Hone
- Te Whatanui Skipwith as Chief Nihe
- Mere Boynton as Nihe's daughter
- George Boyle as Ada's father
- Rose McIver as Angel
- Mika Haka as Tahu
- Gordon Hatfield as Te Kori
- Bruce Allpress as the blind piano tuner
- Stephen Papps as Bluebeard
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Production
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The film was originally titled The Piano Lesson, but the filmmakers could not obtain the rights to use the title because of the American play of the same name, and it was changed to The Piano.[9]
Casting the role of Ada was a difficult process. Sigourney Weaver was Jane Campion's first choice, but she was not interested. Jennifer Jason Leigh was also considered, but had a conflict with her commitment to Rush (1991).[10] Isabelle Huppert met with Campion and had vintage period-style photographs taken of her as Ada, and later said she regretted not fighting for the role as Holly Hunter did.[11]
The casting for Flora occurred after Hunter had been selected for the part. They did a series of open auditions for girls age 9 to 13, focusing on girls who were small enough to be believable as Ada's daughter (as Hunter is relatively short at 157 cm; 5 ft 2 in tall[12]). Anna Paquin ended up winning the role of Flora over 5,000 other girls.[13]
Hunter collaborated extensively with Pierce College sign language instructor Darlene Allen Wittman,[14] blending American, British, Russian, Indigenous, as well as some unique new signs into an amalgamated sign language for her character Ada.[14][15] Hunter also took piano lessons to authentically play the compositions that Michael Nyman wrote for the film.[15]
Alistair Fox has argued that The Piano was significantly influenced by Jane Mander's The Story of a New Zealand River.[16] Robert Macklin, an associate editor with The Canberra Times newspaper, has also written about the similarities.[17] The film also serves as a retelling of the fairytale "Bluebeard",[18][19] itself depicted as a scene in the Christmas pageant. Campion has cited the novels Wuthering Heights and The African Queen as inspirations.[6]
In July 2013, Campion revealed that she originally intended that the main character would drown in the sea after going overboard after her piano.[20]
Principal photography took place over 12 weeks from February to mid-May 1992.[21] The Piano was filmed in New Zealand’s North Island. The scene where Ada comes ashore and the piano is abandoned was filmed at Karekare Beach, west of Auckland. Bush scenes were filmed near Matakana and Awakino, while underwater scenes were filmed at the Bay of Islands.[22]
Campion was determined to market the film to appeal to a larger audience than the limited audiences many art films attracted at the time. Simona Benzakein, the publicist for The Piano at Cannes noted: "Jane and I discussed the marketing. She wanted this to be not just an elite film, but a popular film."[23]
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Reception
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Critical reception
The performances of Holly Hunter and Anna Paquin garnered widespread critical acclaim, earning them Academy Award for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively.
Reviews for the film were overwhelmingly positive. Roger Ebert wrote: "The Piano is as peculiar and haunting as any film I've seen" and "it is one of those rare movies that is not just about a story, or some characters, but about a whole universe of feeling".[24] Hal Hinson of The Washington Post called it an "evocative, powerful, extraordinarily beautiful film".[25]
The Piano was named one of the best films of 1993 by 86 film critics, making it the most acclaimed film of 1993.[26]
In his 2013 Movie Guide, Leonard Maltin gave the film three and half out of four stars, calling the film a "haunting, unpredictable tale of love and sex told from a woman's point of view" and went on to say "writer-director Campion has fashioned a highly original fable, showing the tragedy and triumph erotic passion can bring to one's daily life".[27]
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 90% based on 71 reviews, and an average rating of 8.50/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Powered by Holly Hunter's main performance, The Piano is a truth-seeking romance played in the key of erotic passion."[28] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 89 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[29]
Box office
In New Zealand, the film became the highest-grossing film of all time, surpassing Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale (1986) with a gross of $NZ3.8 million.[30]
It grossed over US$140 million worldwide (equivalent to $305.2 million in 2024), including $7 million in Australia, $16 million in France, and $39 million in the United States and Canada against its US$7 million budget (equivalent to $15.2 million in 2024).[31]
Accolades
The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards (including Best Picture), winning three for Best Actress (Holly Hunter), Best Supporting Actress (Anna Paquin) and Best Original Screenplay (Jane Campion). At age 11, Anna Paquin became the second youngest competitive Academy Award winner (after Tatum O'Neal in 1973).[32]
At the Cannes Film Festival, the film won the Palme d'Or (sharing with Chen Kaige's Farewell My Concubine), with Campion becoming the first woman to win the honour, as well as the first filmmaker from New Zealand to achieve this.[33][34] Holly Hunter also won Best Actress.[35]
In 2019, the BBC polled 368 film experts from 84 countries to name the 100 best films by women directors, and The Piano was named the top film, with nearly 10% of the critics polled giving it first place on their ballots.[36]
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Soundtrack
The score for the film was written by Michael Nyman, and included the acclaimed piece "The Heart Asks Pleasure First"; additional pieces were "Big My Secret", "The Mood That Passes Through You", "Silver Fingered Fling", "Deep Sleep Playing" and "The Attraction of the Pedalling Ankle". This album is rated in the top 100 soundtrack albums of all time and Nyman's work is regarded as a key voice in the film, which has a mute lead character. The main musical score "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" is based on the traditional Scottish song "Gloomy Winter's Noo Awa'"[60][61]
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Home media
The film was released on VHS on May 25, 1994. Initial fears in leadup to its release were in relation to the films status as "arty" and "non-mainstream," however its nominations and success at the Academy Awards guaranteed it profitability in the home video market.[62] It finished in the top 30 video rentals of 1994 in the United States.[63] It was released on DVD in 1997 by Live Entertainment. It was released on Blu-ray and on Blu-ray in Australia in 2010, and in the United States by Lionsgate on 31 January 2012.[64]
The film was released on Ultra HD Blu-ray and a remastered Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection on January 25, 2022, as part of its first six-film slate of 4K releases.[65]
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See also
Notes
- Shared with Farewell My Concubine
- Shared with Rosie Perez for Fearless.
- Shared with Janusz Kamiński for Schindler's List.
References
Further reading
External links
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