Jane Campion and Jan Chapman
One of my longtime obsessions has been finding Australian films, especially those directed by women. It began almost 20 years ago when I first saw My Brilliant Career and I was blown away. Thinking back now seeing that movie was another one of my seminal movie moments and that began a deep love for all things Gillian Armstrong and Judy Davis.
One thing you will discover if you dig a little deeper on some of the most interesting flicks to have come out of Australia in the last 20 years is the recurrence of one name in particular producer, Jan Chapman.
This woman has produced some great films (lots by women directors) including The Last Days of Chez Nous, The Piano, Lantana, Sommersault and the current Jane Campion film Bright Star.
I had the privilege to speak with Jan recently and immediately I was struck (through the phone) with that same sense of calmness that I got from Jane Campion, her long time collaborator. (I guess there is something in the water in Australia.) As a producer Jan does everything from getting financing to budgeting (which she says she find to be very creative), to helping with casting, to being a sounding board and support structure for her directors.
I always find descriptions of what producers do to be very interesting. It’s one of those jobs that at times can be very, very thankless where you seem to do everything and not get any of the credit. Also, most producers are anonymous. You really don’t know who they are. They get none of the credit for success and lots of the blame for failure. You really need to have a certain personality to do it — and be successful– because there is no job description, and I bet the job changes with each director on every film.
One thing that Chapman stressed was collaboration. I feel that people don’t need to be pitted against each other and compete with each other and the only way that we will get more women at all levels of the business is for us to realize that the more women the better. Pitting women against each other is done to hold the numbers down. When asked about these persistent discussions about how women compete with each other she said “that hasn’t been my experience” and cited the women directors like Mira Nair, Julie Taymor and Sophia Copolla who came to the premiere of Bright Star to support Jane Campion and her work.
I also talked to Jan about the bugaboo about why we still have so few female directors and like most other people I posed the question to, she had no good answer (because there isn’t one.) To illustrate the issue even further she told the story of attending the 60th anniversary of Cannes with Jane Campion who won the Palme D’Or for The Piano in 1993 (which Chapman produced). All the Palme D’Or winners were posing for a picture and Jan said of the moment:
When I saw only one woman on the stage full of Palme D’Or winners at the 60th anniversary of Cannes I felt shocked at this physical representation of how few women proportionately are directors let alone award winners even now. It seemed that we hadn’t really progressed very far at all.
I asked about her biggest disappointment and she paused and said that it was her inability to raise the funding for a film called The Riders which was to be directed by Lantana director Ray Lawrence. The film never got made. “We were so close to financing. I wake up some nights with the words of that script in my head.”
Chapman’s latest producing effort, Bright Star is still playing across the US and recently opened in England. This film is in all the awards conversations and if you haven’t seen it and it is playing in your neighborhood you need to go. First, because it is great. Second, because you are supporting women and their visions. Third, we need to keep momentum for the film going through the awards conversations. It’s vital that the film still be playing when all the year end lists and awards start to happen.
I look forward to seeing many more of Chapman’s productions in the future.
FYI, Jane Campion is a New Zealander. Check out our site for my co-blogger Lou’s post on having recently heard Campion speak at the London Film Fest…
We are both Kiwis and big fans of your site ;)
“High Tide” is one of my absolute favorite films and a brilliant woman centric story. It really solidified my love of Australian movies and Judy Davis.
Found it interesting how you described both Jane Campion and Jan Chapman as ‘calm’. What are American directors and producers like in interviews over the phone? More excitable? Quick talking? I think it may be a cultural thing. I’m a Canadian living in Australia and I find Aussies and Kiwis very heavily influenced by the British culture. Much more so than North Americans. And educated Brits appear to be very good at keeping their emotions in check. Same with Aussies and Kiwis. North American’s are more ‘in your face’. Personally, I miss that.
One thing I absolutely love about the relationship between these two is that when introducing Bright Star at the London Film Fest gala screening, Jane said “My friend and producer Jan” and did the same for the British producer of the film – and you know that they really mean it when they say things like that. Another female producer/ female writer-director I’ve come across that has similar values in filmmaking is Niki Caro (another Kiwi!) and her American producer Laurie Parker (who has also worked with Jane C). With these buddy buddy guy teams that seem to be dominating the film landscape at the moment (the Seth Rogan crowd, the George Clooney crowd, etc), it’s so great to know that there are these strong teams of women continuing to make films their own way.
BTW, in case you’re wondering why we keep pushing the “Jane is a Kiwi” thing – it’s very important to me that people know there is more to the NZ film heritage than Lord of the Rings, and it fits into our country’s feminist roots to have such strong woman filmmakers, and of course she herself identifies as a Kiwi.
Sorry to al the kiwi’s who I offended. I know that Jane is a kiwi but she has lived in Australia for a long time- right?
Sometimes I think that here in the US we get caught up in being excited about nothing. We waste energy and get concerned about crap. I find myself a lot of the times just trying to chill. That’s what I felt from these women. A sense of calmness of being content with yourself.
Yes she has lived in Australia for a long-time :) But lived in NZ until her early-20s… which is enough to hard-wire anyone with a particular world outlook. I think she also lived in Britain for a while in her 20s.
I work with a mix of Americans and Brits (more Brits, being that I live in England), and find it to be extremely amusing in meetings watching the American outspokenness versus the British reserve – being a Kiwi I just sit back and enjoy it ;-P