Top of the Lake's Silver Through-Line

As you have undoubtedly heard since it was announced on the internet about 1,000 different times over the course of about six months (as if each meeting was the official official, 'no really official this time!' news, Nicole Kidman will co-star in Top of the Lake season 2 (with Elisabeth Moss returning to her leading role) . It's her first reunion with her Portrait of a Lady director Jane Campion from back before she was fully NICOLE KIDMAN but basically getting there if you know what I mean.

What we didn't know until now is that she will be sporting Jane Campion's favorite hair color just like Holly Hunter did in Season 1 way back in 2013...

Nicole Kidman in Top of the Lake (S2)Jane Campion and Holly Hunter on the set of Top of the Lake (S1)

Can this be a thing for each season? A gorgeous Oscar winning actress suddenly sporting grey hair even though she's only in her mid 40s to mid 50s? Why should men get all the silver fox action? 

Let's pray for Top of the Lake to be renewed in perpetuity (that first season was straight up amazing) and even though they're slow with them -- once every three years? weird, but okay -- might we suggest: 

Season 3 (2019) Juliette Binoche at 55
Season 4 (2022) Gwyneth Paltrow at 49
Season 5 (2025) Cate Blanchett at 56
Season 6 (2028) Anne Hathaway at 46 
Season 7 (2031) Anna Paquin at 49 (Piano reunion!)
Season 8 (2034) Kirsten Dunst at 52 (we'll just assume she's won the Oscar by then, shut up!)
Season 9 (2037) Alicia Vikander at 49
Season 10 (2040) Elle Fanning at 42 (see: Dunst reasoning)

Sorry. I'll stop now! 

Nicole Kidman Reuniting With Jane Campion

While we've been pounding the drum for our Emmy hopefuls in the past week, we got some new television casting news to obsess over: Nicole Kidman has signed on for the second season of Top of the Lake.

The previously rumored casting is most exciting for the reuniting of our beloved star with her The Portrait of a Lady director Jane Campion at long last! This coming season will jump forward in time with Elizabeth Moss's detective returning for a brand new case, so it's fair game on what role Kidman will play in the investigation. But a lack of details is the tiniest of complaints when you are reuniting a pair that collaborated on what is some of the most underrated work for them both.

Game of Thrones's Gwendoline Christie is also joining this season, but this won't be Kidman's first actress heavy dive into long form television. Next year, she also has HBO's Big Little Lies coming with both Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern. That's hours of Kidman to soak up, not to mention her upcoming films How to Talk to Girls at Parties and Lion (and Genius out now), so rejoice away!

This second season of Lake has been longing gestating since the miniseries first debuted in 2013, winning Moss a Golden Globe and becoming a Netflix staple. If you haven't caught up to it, now's the time for a binge watch before one of our favorites signs up.

Visual Index ~ Bright Star's 'Best Shots'

We're almost to the mid season finale of Hit Me With Your Best Shot. This week's episode looks at Jane Campion's sorely underseen Bright Star (2009). The romantic drama about the poet John Keats and his unconsummated love with the headstrong Fanny Brawne was lost in the 2009 shuffle, but is a true beauty and a worthy entry in Jane Campion's tremendous filmography. It introduced the film world to the then 34 year old DP Greig Frasier, who had previously made shorts and obscure features, before Campion's film provided his breakthrough. He went on to plum assignments like Foxcatcher, Zero Dark Thirty and Snow White and the Huntsman. Frasier has yet to be Oscar-nominated but he's already one of the best DPs in the business.

Even more impressive, given that Bright Star is such a successfully intimate portrait of new love, is that the movie introduced its star Ben Whishaw to its film composer Mark Bradshaw; they were married just three years later. 

Bright Star's Best Shots
11 images chosen by 13 participants
(in the order the articles came in this time)
Click on the pictures for their corresponding articles 

One of the prettiest things I've ever seen.
-Zitzelfilm

Bright Star is all about the subtle touches of skin..."
-A Fistful of Films 

...so many beautiful images that also happen to be encapsulations of the universal aspects of falling in love"
-Coco Hits NY

What is it that she spies beyond the boundaries of her domesticity, fenced off by windows and hidden behind opaque curtains?"
-Lam Chop Chop 

In a film with mostly subdued feelings, this particular scene is electric with emotions..."
-Sorta That Guy

The years have been kind to the film..."
-Film Actually

This is the first time i’ve done a HMWYBS where I was absolutely disinterested with a film..."
- I Want to Believe

Fanny, trapped and bleached of color, but already pushing against her confines with a creative act."
-Anne Marie, The Film Experience 

a film about four things: romance, Romanticism, being outside, and costuming..."
-Antagony & Ecstasy 

What is young love if not...
-Evan Stewart

I truly and deeply hope that more people will seek this film out."
-Movie Nut

 Unrequited love...
-Hey Norge

Campion has rightfully earned a reputation as a fiercely feminist filmmaker..."
-The Entertainment Junkie 

NEXT WEDNESDAY NIGHT IS THE MID-SEASON FINALE. YOU HAVE A CHOICE OF ONE OF THREE MOVIES FOR THE ORSON WELLES CENTENNIAL:  CITIZEN KANE, THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS or THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI. See something you've always meant to see and pick a shot. You won't regret it. 

Women's Pictures - Jane Campion's Bright Star

Have you participated in Hit Me With Your Best Shot? Visual index coming tonight! 

As an end to this month-long series on Jane Campion, Bright Star presents a perfect kind of artistic summation for the writer/director. This John Keats romance is part of a tradition of filmmakers and playwrights making art about art. Though presumably about the life of an artist, the  finished play or film acts as its creator’s thesis statement about sublime inspiration (Minnelli’s Lust for Life), beauty and pain (Julie Taymor’s Frida), the thin line between madness and creation (Scorsese's The Aviator), or the creative process (Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George). Inevitably, these films and plays are as much about their creators as they are about their subjects.

Jane Campion had already made one such thesis statement earlier with An Angel at my Table, a biopic designed to explore the relationship between otherness and originality. By telling the story of Romantic poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) from the perspective of his fiance Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish) in Bright Star, Campion explores not the creation of art, but rather art’s creative power. The audience sees Keats through Fanny’s eyes - Campion does love personal narratives - and so both Fanny and the film blossom into color. But first, we must be introduced to our young protagonist.

Campion's colorful thoughts on art and love after the jump...

Best Shot

"White. A blank canvas, or page."

Click to read more ...

Women's Pictures - Jane Campion's In the Cut

Anne Marie's Women's Pictures continues with her month-long look at the films of Jane Campion.

Before you look at me askance for choosing the 2003 film In the Cut for this week’s Jane Campion movie, let me share a smattering of the comments people have made at TFE and on Facebook about it:

“if you're going to cover 5 of her 7 films anyway, why not tackle the absolute worst of the lot?”

“fyi don't listen to anyone who says IN THE CUT is a bad movie. it's fantastic & worth finding.”

“I don't like In the Cut but as far as failures go, it's definitely one of the more interesting/intriguing ones.”

“IN THE CUT is one of my very very very very favorites of ever in everdom.”

With such wildly varied responses, my interest was piqued. And now, having watched In the Cut twice, I must say: everyone is right. It’s a terrible thriller. It’s also a fascinating meditation on the complicated, kinky relationship between sex and violence, told from a woman’s perspective. It is the simultaneously the most and least Campion-like film we’ve watched this month. In The Cut is a messy, ugly, beautiful contradiction.

It also has naked Mark Ruffalo. You're welcome.

Click to read more ...