Quotes by Jane Campion

About Jane Campion:

Elizabeth Jane Campion is a New Zealand screenwriter, producer, and director. Campion is the second of four women ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and is also the first female filmmaker in history to receive the Palme d'Or, which she received for directing the acclaimed film The Piano (1993), for which she also won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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.

Jane Campion

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.

Jane Campion

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.

Jane Campion

I love it when actors come to you with a problem and you have to listen. You'd like them to just get on with it, but it often means that there's a problem with the script.

Jane Campion

If you read Keats's poems, they're often full of doubts and anxieties. They can be quite tough.

Jane Campion

For me, being a director is about watching, not about telling people what to do. Or maybe it's like being a mirror; if they didn't have me to look at, they wouldn't be able to put the make-up on.

Jane Campion

I can't imagine people telling me what to do - I just can't imagine it.

Jane Campion

Because there is that sort of feeling that people don't know what to do with gaps in their lives. It's a scary notion, but actually, if you can stand in space just for a little while, a new door will open, or you'll be able to see in the dark after a...

Jane Campion

There are some things that are real, that you can see, that you can observe, like the moon, and grass and things. But for ideas to become real, they have to be played on your senses.

Jane Campion

I think that three-act fundamentalism in film culture is a problem sometimes, because it's almost too obvious, or it's too expected. And it's not the only way to fill two hours, or to phrase things, or to order thoughts, or order ideas.

Jane Campion

I had this spooky psychological thing about 'The Piano' before it began, which was how everybody was going to go nuts on the set. Because a film tends to set up the way people are going to behave.

Jane Campion

Actual violence has no attraction for me at all.

Jane Campion

I think if it's interesting, it's interesting, and if it's not, it's not working.

Jane Campion

I'm someone who loves to play. I make films so I can have fun with the characters.

Jane Campion

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 ...

Jane Campion

'The Piano' ended up on television. Everything ends up there anyway.

Jane Campion

I'm a much better filmmaker than painter. But studying it did make me visually acute and taught me lessons like being economic: Say something once and you don't have to say it again.

Jane Campion

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.

Jane Campion

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.

Jane Campion

I think the whole tension about romanticism is the way it builds and builds, and the moment it's consummated, the tension's over.

Jane Campion

So many actors are not open in front of the camera - they have a persona.

Jane Campion

Author Bio

  • NameJane Campion
  • Descriptionscreenwriter, producer, and film director
  • BornApril 30, 1954
  • CountryNew Zealand
  • ProfessionScreenwriter; Film Director; Actor
  • AwardsAcademy Award For Best Writing (Original Screenplay); Writers Guild Of America Award