The Piano **** (1993, Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, Anna Paquin, Kerry Walker) – Classic Movie Review 6387

Director Jane Campion’s triumphant 1993 romantic drama is probably her best, most famous, most successful movie. On a $7 million cost, it earned $40 million in the US alone. It won three Oscars, for Best Actress (Holly Hunter), Best Supporting Actress (Anna Paquin) and Best Original Screenplay (Jane Campion), as well as a Golden Globe and Bafta for Hunter. It is a fine looking movie. Andrew McAlpine won the Bafta for Best Production Design and Janet Patterson won the Bafta for Best Costume Design.

Holly Hunter stars in her best actress Oscar-winning performance as a mute Scottish woman called Ada who travels to remote mid-19th-century New Zealand with her nine-year-old daughter Flora (the Oscar-winning Anna Paquin) for an arranged marriage with wealthy landowner Stewart (Sam Neill).

However, the cruel new husband Stewart insists on leaving her prized piano behind on the beach. He makes a deal with his estate plantation manager George Baines (Harvey Keitel), who retrieves it. But, when Hunter gives Keitel lessons to earn back the piano, a sizzling sexual bond is forged between them.

Despite moments of extremely graphic sexuality, Campion’s startling film is perhaps surprisingly tasteful and straightforward, with nods to arthouse cinema, which helped it pick up the 1993 Cannes Palme d’Or (shared with Farewell My Concubine). It looks and sounds gorgeously lush in Stuart Dryburgh’s cinematography and Michael Nyman’s score, helping to give it the kudos of art work status.

But it is really the performances that make it so emotionally fulfilling. Hunter is remarkably expressive in her wordless Oscar and Cannes-winning best actress performance, and the two star actors, cast boldly against type, astonish with the range and depth of their power and emotions.

Kerry Walker plays Aunt Morag and Genevieve Lemon (who was the star of Campion’s first film Sweetie) plays Nessie.

It follows Sweetie (1989) and An Angel at My Table, and is followed by The Portrait of a Lady, Holy Smoke and In the Cut.

In 2017, Campion’s most recent movie was Bright Star (2009).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6387

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