The Power of Jane Campion

by Mark Brinkerhoff

What a wild week it has been, ancillarily, for a certain New Zealand filmmaker. The presumed—and deserved—frontrunner for Best Director at this month’s Academy Awards, Jane Campion had her latest masterpiece unexpectedly shut out at the SAG Awards and herself inexplicably drawn into a ridiculous imbroglio stirred by none other than an apparently sexist and homophobic Sam Elliott. (Bronco Henry could never, y’all.)  

But for those less keen on reading too much into Oscar-adjacent developments or unnecessary, boneheaded statements that go viral, we find ourselves at the glorious height of a hopeful culmination of a brilliant, one-of-a-kind director’s justly lauded year. So what makes Campion such an enduring, singular international filmmaking force?

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