The piano

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Movie
German title The piano
Original title The piano
Country of production Australia , New Zealand , France
original language English , Māori
Publishing year 1993
length 121 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Jane Campion
script Jane Campion
production Jan Chapman
music Michael Nyman
camera Stuart Dryburgh
cut Veronika Jenet
occupation

The Piano (original title The Piano ) is a drama film from 1993 by the director Jane Campion , who also wrote the screenplay. The main roles are played by Holly Hunter , Harvey Keitel and Sam Neill .

action

The silent widow Ada McGrath is a passionate piano player. It is said that she has not spoken since she was six years old and that no one knows why - not even herself. However, in one voice over the voice over , she says that she does not feel mute because she is herself can express through her piano . Her nine-year-old daughter Flora communicates with her using sign language and acts as an interpreter . In the middle of the 19th century, Ada left her home Scotland with Flora and the piano , as her father married her to the British Alistair Stewart, who lived in New Zealand . She never met Stewart and only knows that he supposedly doesn't mind her being silent.

After arriving in New Zealand - a British colony at the time - she and her daughter have to spend the first night on the beach, as no one has come to see them. The next morning she is picked up by her future husband Stewart and his friend George Baines, who is also accompanied by a group of local Māori . In contrast to Stewart, Baines has adapted to the locals, he speaks the Maori language and wears a traditional moko . At first glance, Stewart is disappointed by the sight of Ada, which does not meet his expectations. He tells Baines that she looks stunted, to which Baines replies that he thinks she just looks tired. The beloved piano has to stay behind on the beach against their will because it is too heavy to be taken straight away. Since Stewart sees no practical purpose in the instrument, he is also unwilling to have it fetched from the beach later, and so it stays there.

In her distress, Ada scratches the exact arrangement of the keys on a tabletop and imitates the piano accompaniment to Flora's singing. This causes Stewart to doubt her sanity. She evades his attempts to gain her affection and attention.

To see her piano again, Ada asks the neighboring Baines to take her and Flora to the beach. Only after a while does he agree, and Ada can play her piano on the beach. Apparently fascinated by Ada's devoted playing, Baines realizes how important the piano is to her, and a little later buys it from Stewart in exchange for a piece of land. He has it fetched from the beach, tuned it, and asks Stewart to give Ada piano lessons. At first she refuses because she considers Baines, who cannot read, to be stupid and uneducated. She complains angrily that the piano is actually hers. But her husband forces her to do so so that he does not miss the coveted piece of land. However, Baines does not want to play the piano himself, he just wants to listen and watch Ada to be close to her. He suggests an exchange deal: she can get her piano back for certain favors. For every visit she will symbolically acquire a key on her piano. She reluctantly agrees. From lesson to lesson, Baines now buys ever greater physical closeness, for which Ada negotiates more and more piano keys.

Meanwhile, preparations are underway in the local Christian mission station for an evening at the theater, which will include a version of the gruesome fairy tale of the Bluebeard . It includes a scene in which Bluebeard , in shadow play style, picks his young wife's hand with an ax after she has unlocked the chamber in which his previous wives, whom he murdered, lie despite his prohibition. During the evening at the theater, Baines wants to sit next to Ada on one of the audience seats, but she firmly refuses to do so and ignores him. Instead, she allows Stewart to hold her hand and Baines to watch it jealously. Baines leaves the room to Ada's triumph.

Soon after that evening, Baines gives Ada the piano back prematurely because he has a guilty conscience and doesn't want to turn her into a whore. He wants Ada to be fond of him and come to him voluntarily, but since she doesn't, he no longer wants to force his affection on her. Ada has her piano back now, but to her own amazement she still doesn't feel happy. She misses Baines and seeks him again. He tells her that he is suffering because of her. If she came with no feelings for him, she should go away again. Ada refuses to leave several times until Baines loses patience and angrily shows her outside. She slaps him, lets him understand that she also has feelings, and they sleep together. Stewart secretly observes the couple. Ada has never given herself to him before and he had hoped that over time she would become “more trusting”, as he calls it.

Stewart watches Ada on the way to Baines in the woods the next day, kisses her, pulls her to the ground and presses her harder and harder. When her daughter calls for her, however, he lets go of her again. As a result, he locks Ada in her room, bolted the door and nailed the windows. They hear from their neighbor, Aunt Morag, that Baines appears changed and is now planning to move away shortly. This news worries Ada.

Longing for Baines, Ada comes to Stewart's bedroom several times at night and pats him, who is now making himself hopeful. However, she never lets Stewart touch her, even though Stewart would like to touch her and finally pushes her hands aside. He says he has decided to trust her and is not locking her up any further. At his urging, she promises not to visit Baines again.

As soon as Stewart is back to work far away from the house in the wilderness, she takes a key from the piano and writes on it, “Dear George you have my heart”. The key packs them up and sends Flora to deliver these Baines. Flora knows they shouldn't visit Baines anymore and refuses. But Ada insists, so Flora reluctantly leaves. Out of sight, however, she rushes to Stewart, who returns in anger and first knocks a deep notch into the piano with his ax, then chops off Ada's right index finger. The disturbed Flora has to bring Ada's finger to Baines instead of the button and is supposed to tell him that Stewart will chop off Ada more fingers if Baines continues to meet with Ada.

While Ada is in feverish dreams and Stewart is nursing her, he tries to justify his act in front of her and claims to have merely "clipped her wings". When he airs her blankets to cool her hot body, the sight of her bare legs causes him to rape again. Since she happens to open her eyes at that moment and seems to be looking at him directly, he lets go of her again and immediately has the feeling of hearing her words. In a state of confusion, he enters Baines' house at night, holds a rifle to his head and tries to control the situation. He speaks of Ada's voice in his head asking him to let her and Baines go. He says he wants to be the man he was before and tells Baines to go away with Ada.

Ada, Baines and Flora leave the place by boat. The piano is on board. Ada surprisingly demands that it be thrown into the sea, since it is tainted. So it's pushed overboard. Ada puts her foot into the pulley on the floor to which the piano is attached; knowing full well that it will be pulled down into the depths as a result. She goes overboard and only at the last moment decides to live, frees herself from the rope and escapes to the surface of the water.

Baines, Ada and Flora now live together in Nelson on New Zealand's South Island. Ada works as a piano teacher and has a silver replacement finger made by Baines. Slowly she begins to learn to speak. At night she sometimes thinks of her piano at the bottom of the sea and sees herself, tied to the sunken piano, floating in complete silence in the ocean. She herself decided against silence and for life.

background

  • The film ends with a stanza from the poem Silence of Thomas Hood : "There is a silence where hath been no sound. There is a silence where no sound may be in the cold grave under the deep deep sea "( German " There is silence where there has never been a sound. There is silence where there is no sound, in the cold grave, in the deep, deep Sea").
  • As an accomplished piano player, actress Holly Hunter was able to play the pieces in the film herself.
  • The film music was recorded in Munich by members of the Munich Philharmonic under the direction of Michael Nyman .
  • Filming took place in New Zealand from May 1992 to July 1992. Production costs were estimated at around $ 7 million. The film grossed 40 million in theaters of the United States dollar one.
  • It was released in France on May 19, 1993, in Australia on August 5, 1993 and in Germany on August 12, 1993.

Reviews

  • Blickpunkt: Film : “With her third feature film, New Zealander Jane Campion achieved a poetic masterpiece that was rightly awarded two prizes in Cannes. In the deep jungle, bathed in dark blue and green tones, a complex erotic triangular game unfolds, which always remains subtle and fragile. "
  • film-dienst 16/1993: “In grandiose (meaning) pictures, a parable told about the self-liberation and self-discovery of a woman through a forbidden love affair. Above all, the excellent actors give the description of the process intensity, density and intimacy. "

Awards

literature

  • Caroline Eliacheff , Nathalie Heinich: Mothers and Daughters. A triangular relationship. Translated from the French by Horst Brühmann. Patmos, Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-530-42175-8 , pp. 95ff.
  • Jonathan Rosenbaum: The piano. The Piano (1993). In: Steven Jay Schneider (Ed.): 1001 films. Edition Olms, Zurich 2004, ISBN 3-283-00497-8 , p. 833
  • Mary Cantwell: Jane Campion's Lunatic Women . The New York Times Magazine , September 19, 1993

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Das Piano . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , May 2014 (PDF; test number: 69 938-b K).
  2. ↑ Jonathan Rosenbaum: The Piano. The Piano (1993). In: Steven Jay Schneider (Ed.): 1001 films. Edition Olms, Zurich 2004, p. 833.
  3. ↑ IMdB: Box office.
  4. ↑ IMdB: Release Info.