The subversive style of the woman who has become one of the world’s greatest film directors
From Jane Campion’s early award-winning short films on through international sensation The Piano and beyond, Kathleen McHugh traces the director’s distinctive visual style as well as her commitment to consistently renovating the conventions of “ women’s films.” By refusing to position her female protagonists as victims, McHugh argues, Campion scrupulously avoids the moral structures of melodrama, and though she often works with the narratives, mise-en-scè ne, and visual tropes typical of that genre, her films instead invite a distanced or even amused engagement.
A volume in the series Contemporary Film Directors, edited by James R. Naremore