Jane Campion and Sofia Coppola

07/07/2020

Jane Campion and Sofia Coppola: Trailblazing Auteurs

Jane Campion is considered to be one of the most acclaimed film makers from the Australia/ New Zealand region. some of her trademarks include strong female leads, striking and original visuals, and an ambiguous, non linear style of editing. many of her films have won a number of awards, these include both Peel (1982) and the Piano (1993) winning Palm d'Or at the Cannes film festival. The piano also got her nominated for Best Director at the Oscars and she won the Oscar for the best Original Screenplay. her other films include An Angel at My Table (1990), 

Campion was born in Wellington, New Zealand, and studied anthropology at Victoria University. She went on to travel Europe and Australia to study for a diploma in arts

Sofia Coppola was born in 1971, and is a renowned Director, screenwriter and producer. growing up she appeared as a child actor in her father, Francis Ford Copolla's films. She studied in California at the Institute of Arts and released her first film The Virgin Suicides in 1999. 
Her other films also include Lost in Translation (2003), Marie Antoinette (2006) and The Beguiled (2017). Her films are well known for her shared themes of criticism towards celebrity culture, And techniques including long takes, close ups and fluid camera movements. Coppola has won several awards for her films, including an Oscar for best Original Screenplay with the Virgin Suicides (1999)

We watched a portion of The piano (1993) in class. I really liked the cinematography and setting of the story, the landscape and area sold the time periods of the film. I also really liked the costume design of the film. However I felt the story was a bit slow and it didn't engage me that much with the characters within the story.

We also watched a snippet of the first episode of  Top of The lake (2012) in class. I felt the writing combined with the cinematography of the series gave the story a really cold and intriguing feeling to it. The colour palette had lots of cold blue tones, and combined with the snowy mountain landscape of Queenstown added to the eerie mysterious feeling of the story.