sundance

Sundance Channel Signs on to Co-Produce Jane Campion’s TOP OF THE LAKE

Sundance Channel announced today it has signed with BBC Worldwide to co-produce Jane Campion’s TOP OF THE LAKE, an original scripted project. The seven part mini-series will be directed by Oscar® winner Jane Campion (The Piano, Portrait of a Lady) and Australian director Garth Davis, and written by Jane Campion and Gerard Lee (Sweetie). The project stars SAG® winner and three time Emmy® nominated actress Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men, On the Road). Holly Hunter, who won a Best Actress Oscar® for her performance in Campion’s The Piano, also stars alongside BAFTA® nominee Peter Mullan (War Horse, Trainspotting) and AFI Award winning actor David Wenham (The Lord of the Rings, Australia).

The announcement comes on the heels of two Emmy Award nominations and a Golden Globe Award for Sundance Channel’s first scripted drama CARLOS, as well as the recently announced scripted dramas RECTIFY and APPROPRIATE ADULT. Produced by Academy Award® winners Emile Sherman and Iain Canning (The King’s Speech, Shame) of See-Saw Films, and Philippa Campbell (Black Sheep) of Escapade Pictures, TOP OF THE LAKE is a powerful and haunting mystery about the search for happiness in a paradise where honest work is hard to find. Set in the remote mountains of New Zealand, the story follows the disappearance of a five months pregnant 12-year-old named Tui who was last seen standing chest deep in a frozen lake. In this classic mythic struggle, investigating detective, Robin Griffin (Moss), must lose herself in order to find the missing girl. During the investigation, she collides with Matt Mitcham (Mullan), Tui’s father, a local drug lord, and G.J (Hunter), a guru at a local women’s camp. Robin will find this the case that tests her limits and sends her on a journey of self-discovery.

JANE EYRE and shooting the classics

I loved Cary Fukunaga’s recent take on the classic JANE EYRE. (He’s pictured above with his Director of Photography Adriano Goldman.) And in addition to the deft direction, Moira Buffini’s adaptation is searingly concise and dramatic – it never feels like a stuffed-to-the-gills adaptation. But what I really want to talk about here is the cinematography, which is revelatory. The last two ‘classic’ films I’ve seen, this and Jane Campion’s BRIGHT STAR (not classic literature but based on Andrew Motion’s biography of John Keats) have both blown me away in terms of visual approach. (See my post from fall ’10 on BRIGHT STAR here.) Both eschew traditional coverage and framing in service of something more dynamic – a fluid, organic camera approach that plays mightily with depth of field, creative frames, and in short, ways of seeing. (Or, the DP and crew are not just there to document or illuminate the actors. The camera absolutely dances with performance – enhancing, contrasting, participating, rejecting — story.) The effect? Something that feels more modern, more present, more emotionally important – it’s not homework, it’s art.

Geeking on the center of the frame

Like my colleague Lisa, who wrote recently on this subject, I too saw Jane Campion’s BRIGHT STAR. What innovation … Campion truly takes luscious to a new level. One element far more subtle than butterflies and tree tops, though, that I noticed right away and has been on my mind since, is how Campion twists traditional portraiture and cinematography composition by using the center of the frame. The center of the frame? Who cares! Well, to some geeks out there, including me, it’s absolutely notable.

A BRIGHT STAR is back: Jane Campion

I confess that I’m a long term fan of film director/writer Jane Campion. Her work has staying power for me – everything from her short films PEEL and A GIRL’S OWN STORY, and their stylized but penetrating look at relationships, to her later more sophisticated and moving THE PIANO. However her last film IN THE CUT was disappointing. I say this reluctantly because I deeply appreciate how headlong and with what boldness Campion throws herself into every project, so when one of these experiments fail, I don’t take any pleasure in it. I just want to see her move on. And now that it’s been six years since that Meg Ryan debacle, I was a little concerned. Would she make another film and how would she get it financed in today’s climate? Would she have to compromise with a big name star who was just not quite right? Thus it’s with relief and pleasure that I saw BRIGHT STAR at its preview this week.

Cannes loves Campion

Australian director Jane Campion is back in the spotlight at the 62nd Annual Cannes Film Festival where her new film, BRIGHT STAR, premiered Friday. The film centers on the last two years of poet John Keats’s short life (he died of tuberculosis at the age of 25) as seen through the eyes of his young [...]