Through Ada’s fingers
In Jane Campion’s The Piano, the audience looks through Ada’s hands before anyone asks what she has to say.
An image that belongs to someone
At first there is light, split into narrow bands by something close to the lens. Then Jane Campion lets us see Ada looking through her fingers. It takes a second to revise our first impression. Those shapes belonged to a hand, and the view between them belonged to a woman. For a moment we occupied her place without knowing whose place it was.
Holly Hunter’s Ada speaks to us in voice-over. Her husband will never hear her quite as we do. This early intimacy gives the spectator an odd responsibility. We know from the outset that Ada has things to say. When another character fails to understand her, we can watch the work he puts into misunderstanding.
What the piano weighs
On the New Zealand beach, Ada wants her piano taken inland with the rest of her belongings. Stewart orders it left behind. He can make his decision sound like a question of weight because other people must carry what he selects. From Ada’s side of the decision, the household is being assembled around a judgment about which of her activities it can afford to lose.
When Ada returns to the beach she plays until nightfall. The length of that afternoon matters. A few notes might have told us how much she missed her instrument. The hours tell us something more ordinary and harder to grant her. Left to herself, this is how she would choose to spend a day.
For discussion
How would the decision on the beach feel if the film had opened with Stewart’s arrival?