THE PIANO 1993
by Jane Campion
Emille, Emily, Joyce, Lisa, Pova, Ruth, Wendy
Outline• Thesis –Pova Movie Background • Post-colonial Influences – Emily • Movie Plot -- Joyce • Themes – Ruth –Oppression of Women and Aborigines and their
Resistance/Survival• Character Analysis -- Lisa & Pova – Women’s Process of
Individuation• Colonizer (1): Stewart money-oriented, possessive• Mother-Daughter symbiosis • Baines as a Translator: marginalized, trading at first, but
recognizing her values • Flora vs. Ada – Pova – Flora’s gradual isolation and then
socialization (e.g. Emille -- Angel’s wings) • Symbols – Emille -- Piano as her means of self-expression piano
key as a gift Ada’s inner voice/will power can be heard by Stewart her throwing out the piano piano music with metal sounds (a new identity?)
• Aborigines (race and racism)• Conclusion• Works Cited
ThesisThe Piano is a narrative that critiques European patriarchy and societal norms during the 19th century through the presentation of different relationships within characters. It shows that rebellion against deeply embedded social structures is possible and necessary in order for the subaltern to grasp a voice and speak.
Movie Background• Time: mid-19 century• Location: New Zealand frontier• Colony background: 1840 Treaty of Waitangi
New Zealand became the colony of UK, and there were increasing numbers of European settlers to New Zealand particularly from the British Isles.
In The Piano, Steward and Baines are colonizers from European.
Post-colonialist Influences
• European men buying land very cheaply • Marriage as just an economic/ contractual
arrangement (Ada as a commodity)• Stewart (and Baines) as a symbol of repression
and the European colonizer• Maoris- cheated/ stripped of ancestral lands;
Baines using their language to manipulate/ bargin with them for the land (ironic)
• Interactions of gender and race--> discrimination and bad treatment
Plot
Themes • Patriarchal oppression of women and aborigines
• Construction of sexuality in 19th century colonial New Zealand within the power structures of the times • E.g. skirt and laces • E.g. women’s piano playing
• The Story of Blue Beard (Blue Beard vs. Steward)• Silence (Ada's silence and Maori's silence)
• Ada’s Self-Preservation and Domestication • Voice (Ada: Mind's voice vs piano• Music (before and after)• Her marriage and learning of language • the transformation of mother-daughter relationship
Character Analysis-Ada• ego/ self-concerned• (looks and kisses her reflection in the mirror)• strong willed (live vs. die/ fondles Steward...etc.)• innermost thoughts- her piano• expression to the world- Flora (interprets the sign
language)/ her writing pad• Ada-Stewart vs Ada-Baines • a gap between Ada and Stewart, the separarted
unknown past and disconnection as a married couple• Baines as an escape of Stewart • abandons her piano in the end and lives in the town-
sacrifice part of her identity/ Ada's change
Flora vs. Ada Analysis Flora • lonely, dogs and imagination as companion, tree
episode• made-up stories about her parents' story • change of affection from Ada-Stewart and then
back to Ada after the finger trauma
Flora- Ada• intimate in the beginning, but then grew apart
with Ada due to Ada's secret (Ada-Flora vs. Naomi-her mother, the Old Man Gower episode)
Stewart vs. Baines• Stewart (May not know himself, “civilized”, Egoistic, possessive, repressive,
dominant)• Baines (may be escaping from past events, avoiding the present like Ada who is
isolating herself, at the beginning objectifies Ada until giving the piano back to her-sign of respect, )
• Stewart vs Baines • Attitude Stewart Baines piano • Ignore, Important thing• Maori• Respect/tattoo land profitable• Ada Cherish her• Baines and Flora both act as intermediates• Stewart's castration and reversion to a childlike state
Symbols• Piano ( 圖 ) The losing of the piano at the end
symbolizes how she decides to open up and be silent no more (learns to speak, conforms to society…etc) and REBIRTH, the death of her reliance on the piano and the start of her new life
• Rope (link Ada and piano)• The metal finger (how it changed her music
playing, made Baines a part of her, )• Angels wings- child innocence/ cathartic
moment
PASSION/SENSUALITY
FREE WILL
A PART OF HER BODY
SOUL
COMPANIONSHIP
EMOTIONS
REACTION
BURDEN OF MEMORIES
VOICE
IDENTITY
Aborgines (Race and Racism)
• Civilization–European cultural values• The relationship between the colonized and
the colonizer (Stewart/sisters-Maori, Baines-Maori)• The Maori in the movie- ignorant,
innocent,imitating colonizer--> what effects this has on natives (they touched the piano/ the reaction when watching Blue Beard play....etc. )
• Does the director have any responsibility to make the true aborigine voice heard?
Aborigines subaltern cannot speak
• Maori's voice, can they speak?• do they really just serve as a
background? a character • what point(s) does campion want to say
about them in this film?• cultural differences? • how they are oppressed --> but the movie
shows them innocently happy??. this leads back to how they are a background
Conclusion
• The contrast between repression (voice of
silence) and oppression (brutal behavior); the contrast between civilized (or "apparent civilization") and uncivilized.
• Ada's discovery of her sexuality and her rebellion against Stewart's possessiveness suggests how her anger and voice could be expressed through actions.
• Ada's rebellion also shows how the European colonizers' quest for power and settling new lands was a transparent system that easily crumbled to show a hidden dark side of injustice, cruelty, and insecurity.
Works Cited• http://members.fortunecity.com/smashx14/pian
o.html• Professor Kate Liu April 22, 2010
Sound Track Ada’s music -- • It's as though I had to write the music of another composer
who happened to live in Scotland, then New Zealand in the mid-eighteenth fifties. Someone who was obviously not a professional composer or pianist, so there had to a modesty to it. Except that Holly Hunter played Ada playing the piano with enormous dedication and intensity. …
• Since Ada doesn't speak, the piano music … becomes a substitute for her voice. The sound of the piano becomes her character, her mood, her expressions, her unspoken dialogue, her body language.” (source)
Sound Track Ada’s music -- • "The Heart Asks Pleasure First/The Promise“/”The
Sacrifice” -- Ada theme
– [missing the piano] 23:40
– [playing the piano on the beach]
– [3rd lesson] [5th lesson lying by him Blue Beard]
– [running to Baines; attempted rape by Steward]
– [being punished by Stewart]
• “Deep Sleep Playing” – music played while asleep 1:21
– When knowing that Baines is leaving 1:25
Sound Track Ada’s music –
• Chopin’s music (Chopin Op. 7 no. 1 Mazurka in B flat major ) – [1st lesson] 2nd performance 36:49 –stopped by Baines
• “The Scent of Love”/ "Big My Secret“
– [The piano is moved to Baines’s] 32:57
– 2nd lesson --[when Flora is excluded] 40:06
– Ada with her piano back, lost 1:08
– The embrace and the sex scene1:12
• “The Mood That Passes Through You– [6th lesson]: the nude scene] 58:14
• 4th Lesson 47:50 her own music Chopin
• “From Here to There”
• The last piano lesson – Chopin again