I was struggling to decide what to show my students from the nineties — I was slightly tempted to skip that decade altogether, but reflected that this was rather unfair — it’s an era before they were born, they couldn’t all be expected to know it, and it’s deserving of representation. A Facebook post by my colleague and friend Sheldon Hall stated that he’d shown his lot Jane Campion’s THE PIANO, and they’d struggled with it a bit, so I thought “Interesting experiment!” and ran it. About time we had a film by a woman, and from Down Under.
They mostly disliked it. There seemed to be a lot of discomfort. I was asked afterwards if I could follow the Holly Hunter-Harvey Keitel relationship’s ins and outs — if it made sense. I thought I could and it did, but putting it into words took some effort. Here goes.
Keitel’s George Baines is attracted to Hunter’s Ada McGrath, and makes a scandalous proposition — she can win back her beloved piano, which her oafish husband Alisdair (Sam Neill) has given him, if she’ll let him “do things.” They’re to meet under cover of her giving him piano lessons. The sex/art/commerce but seems to be inspired by THE DRAUGHTSMAN’S CONTRACT, which also had music by Michael Nyman. Nyman should have won an Oscar for this but since his score used a folk tune as part of its source, he was disbarred from consideration — because the Oscars is a closed shop for composers (note how Nino Rota was forbidden a nom for THE GODFATHER because he recycled a bit of a previous score for the wedding scene [which I would argue is source music, not even part of the score] — and then Carmine Coppola won for PART TWO, which is all, or largely, Nino Rota’s music).
George discovers that his Louis CK fantasy isn’t nearly as much fun as he’d hoped — he’d thought he just wanted sexytime fun but realises that without Ada’s love or respect it’s just a miserable experience. So he gives her the piano and dismisses her.
But Ada, who has evidently been concentrating entirely on motherhood, has had her sex drive reawakened by the awesomely buff sex pest. Also, in calling off the arrangement, Baines has shown moral scruples and become worthy of some respect. Still, she’s entitled to punish him a bit for his behaviour, and she does. (Although Baines has, by the letter of the law, acquired Ada’s consent, he’s really compelled her to it by dangling the piano. We may feel that he doesn’t deserve our forgiveness, or Ada’s, but this may be slight case of presentism — looking at history through modern eyes.) She denies him any actual statement of affection, makes him think she’s only interested in his (muscular, bulging) body (both our stars have prepared for their roles by going to the gym more often than the dialect coach — the Scottish accents throughout are dreadful, and Sam Neill earns points by not even trying).
Neill’s character is probably the most inconsistent of the three (though with the best hat), but he can just about be made sense of. He hasn’t insisted on his conjugal rights, which actually makes him unusually considerate for a Victorian. I believe if of John Wayne in THE QUIET MAN, a 20th century American, but not of Alisdair 100 years earlier. Still, modern audiences would find the film even tougher if he hadn’t given Ada some space.
When he learns that she’s (sort of) cheating on him, he surprises us by excitedly spying on the couple, then he boards himself and Ada up. Frustrated, Ada at this point experiments with sexual activity with her husband, to see if it’s a viable solution to her new passion. But he’s unable to surrender to a passive role and it’s all very unsatisfactory. (Some of my male students seemed to have a lot of trouble looking at men’s bodies through a female eye, though it may also be that the film’s solemnity about sex is a problem for the younger generation. I was reminded also of Mark Cousins’ complaint that the film is humourless — it definitely isn’t, but it’s po-faced about sex and desire.)
Ada now sends a love letter — a note from her piano with an inscription on it — to George. It was pointed out at the time that, since Baines has told her he cannot read, the inscription is puzzling. But maybe she forgot that he was illiterate (but buff). Maybe, in searching for explanations, we’re guilty of the same mistake as the Maori people watching the stage production of Bluebeard (which seems to be the only activity the white folks pursue) — mistaking fiction for real life.
Alisdair. having extracted a promise from Ada not to betray him anymore (she smiles assent, so we know she’s lying — she NEVER smiles or ingratiates), freaks out and takes an axe to her fingertip (he’s a terrible husband but has uncanny aim). Then, either driven insane or developing telepathic communication of the kind Ada’s long-ago ex had, he hears her thoughts and returns her to George.
Clear enough, surely?
We can, of course, wonder about whether Ada dies at the end (she SAYS, in her voiceover, that her death is only a dream, but can you take a mute’s voiceover’s word for anything?), whether her relationship with her daughter (the amazing Anna Paquin — terrible accent, brilliant performance) will recover, and whether pianos, which are usually made of wood, can be expected to sink. But this all seems to me the same mistake those Maori playgoers were making. To ask for more detail would be to ask for the Book of the Film, which exists, and which looks like a Big Mistake.
What I like about the film is that every cut is a surprise, it has, Boormanlike, no fear of seeming ridiculous, and the people are as confusing as real ones but do open up a bit when examined. And it looks and sounds lovely. It does get a bit lost in the second act and, more damagingly, in the third — the axe incident is obviously the emotional climax and the film ought to accelerate to its poetic finish line afterwards, dawdling is dangerous. But when we get there it’s not what we might anticipate.
shadowplay 