Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty
Jane Campion, who is currently up for three honors at the94th annual Academy Awards, is looking back at her last Oscars experience — and the personal grief that she was going through at the time.
The award-winning writer and director, 67, is nominated for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture for Netflix’s acclaimedThe Power of the Dogat this year’s ceremony — but she is no stranger tothe Oscars, having took home the Best Original Screenplay award for the Holly Hunter-starringThe Pianoin 1994.
She was also nominated that year for Best Director. With her directing nomination forPower of the Dog,Campion becomes thefirst female director to be nominated twicein that category.
In a cover story forVanity Fair,published online Monday, the New Zealand-born director opened up about her first Oscars. Ten months before she took home the coveted trophy, her son Jasper died at only 2 weeks old. And when she accepted the Oscar, she was pregnant with her daughter Alice, now 27 years old.
“It’s the most humanizing experience I’ve had,” Campion told the publication. “You feel solidarity with everybody else that’s expressing grief. You can never turn your head away from somebody who’s suffering because you really know that it’s a club.”
The filmmaker then reflected on her cinematic work and how her experience has informed it.
RELATED VIDEO: Kodi Smit-McPhee Admits to Sharing Some Laughs with Benedict Cumberbatch onPower of the DogSet
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“I think most of my work comes from that part of me, which is, I’m not really in control of emotion or anything else. It’s a sort of psyche truth,” she said.
According toThe New York Times, Campion gave birth to Jasper via an emergency Caesarean section in 1993, and was told almost immediately thereafter that he could not live outside an incubator. He died less than two weeks later.
Campion took some time away from her film work — her next project as a director was 1996’sPortrait of a LadywithNicole Kidman(Oscar-nominated for its costume design and for supporting actress Barbara Hershey), and her next screenplay was 1999’sHoly Smoke.
Campion was also the only female director to have won the Palme d’Or, up until last year, when Julia Ducournau won the award forTitane.
A directing win for Campion at this year’s Oscars would make her the third woman ever to nab the Oscar for Best Director, after Kathryn Bigelow in 2010 forThe Hurt LockerandChloé Zhaolast year forNomadland.
With her 2021 win, Zhao, 39, also became thefirst Asian woman to take home the prize.
The Power of the Dogis one of the frontrunners in this year’s Oscar race, with all four principal cast members nominated as well:Benedict Cumberbatch,Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee.
source: people.com
