Dancing with Hollywood by Lindsay Shelton

Author:Lindsay Shelton
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781927249000
Publisher: Awa Press
Published: 2015-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

Although Desperate Remedies was the focus of our marketing drive at Cannes in 1993, New Zealand’s biggest success of the festival would be The Piano. Jane Campion’s film had been selected for official competition, and pre-sold for French distribution to a company run by Jean Labadie, who had scheduled his release to begin as soon as the festival was over. Driving from Nice airport to Cannes, I heard his radio commercials for the film on almost every station on the dial.

Produced by Australian Jan Chapman, The Piano had been fully financed by a French investor called Francis Bouygues. Bouygues had made a fortune in the construction business, building numerous notable structures, including the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the European Parliament building in Strasbourg and Riyadh University in Saudi Arabia – at the time the world’s largest building project. At the age of 68 he had embarked on a new career of feature film production, establishing a company he named Ciby 2000. Pierre Rissient was one of the advisers who helped him choose directors whose films he would finance. As well as Jane Campion, they included David Lynch and Pedro Almodovar.

The Cannes jury, chaired by Louis Malle, decided The Piano would be co-winner of the Palme d’Or with the China–Hong Kong co-production Farewell My Concubine. This made for two records: Jane became the first woman director to win the festival’s top award, and Chen Kaige’s film the first Chinese production.

Because The Piano was made by a Sydney production company, its official nationality was Australian. Nevertheless, everyone referred to it as a New Zealand film and I encouraged this, giving on-the-record comments at Cannes to all the journalists who wanted to write about it.

When the media interviewed Sue Murray, my opposite number at the Australian Film Commission, she disagreed with my patriotism, and headlines about the conflict appeared in the trade papers. It was a phony war. Both Sue and I were pleased to get the extra attention for the film. And after Cannes, Sydney’s Telegraph Mirror saw the light, writing: ‘The Piano is as much a part of New Zealand as the kiwi or the haka.’

Jane Campion, who was pregnant, returned home before the festival ended. The organisers refused to allow producer Jan Chapman to go on stage to receive the award, telling her they wanted Sam Neill, not only because he was a New Zealander but also because of his popularity with festival audiences. Flown to France at the last minute, Sam pronounced the film ‘a sort of miracle wrought by the superb Jane Campion’.

The New Zealand press, which seldom showed interest in New Zealand’s successes at Cannes, had sent no reporters. When international news agencies reported that a New Zealand-made film had won the Palme d’Or, our office phones started to ring and we became unofficial correspondents for New Zealand newspapers and radio stations which hadn’t bothered to do any advance planning. The media were better organised the following year when The Piano won three Academy Awards: television coverage of child star Anna Paquin’s victory speech was endlessly replayed.

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