Actors - The Piano

Home > Listing Index > Actors > The Piano

	Actors - The Piano

The Piano is a 1993 film about a mute woman pianist and her daughter, set during the mid-19th century in a rainy, muddy frontier New Zealand backwater. The film was written and directed by Jane Campion, and stars Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill and Anna Paquin. It features a score for the piano by Michael Nyman that became a bestselling soundtrack album. Hunter played her own piano pieces for the film, and also served as teacher for Paquin, earning herself three different screen credits.

Story

The Piano tells the story of a Scottish woman Ada McGrath (Hunter) whose father sells her in marriage to frontiersman Alistair Stewart (Neill), and is shipped off with her young, pre-adolescent daughter Flora (Paquin) to live with him in his native New Zealand. She has not spoken a word since she was six years old, substituting the music of the piano for her voice while her daughter serves as translator for her sign language communication. She has mastered the piano, and plays it obsessively.

Her new husband does not appreciate this fixation, however, and abandons the piano on the beach where she, her daughter and their belongings have been unceremoniously deposited by the ship which has transported them from Scotland. After her piano is sold to George Baines (Keitel); a neighbour and piano music enthusiast, Ada is asked to provide him piano lessons. Only as Ada gradually develops affection for Baines and the pair pursue an affair, is Ada rescued from her solemn life and redeemed by love.

Awards

The film won the 1993 Palme d'Or (Golden Palm, shared with Kaige Chen's Farewell My Concubine
) at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1994, the film won Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Holly Hunter), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Anna Paquin) and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. Anna Paquin was the second youngest person to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. It was nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Director, Best Film Editing and Best Picture.

Critical reaction was generally supportive as well.

Interpretations

Some regard The Piano as a feminist film about a woman trying to maintain control over her own life in an age when women were considered the property of their husbands. Others see this interpretation to be compromised by the heroine's capitulation to, and apparent enjoyment of, Baines's sexual blackmail.

Trivia

Former US President Bill Clinton is rumoured to have said, after viewing and obviously enjoying the film, "What was that all about?".

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Piano ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article The Piano; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay