Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Jungian theory, textual analysis and audience play
- 2 Archetypal images: signification and the psyche
- 3 Archetypal images: symbols and the cultural unconscious
- 4 The Piano, the animus and colonial experience
- 5 The pop star as icon
- 6 The quest of a female hero: The Silence of the Lambs
- 7 Television sport and the sacrificial hero
- 8 The polycentred self: The Passion of Darkly Noon
- 9 Haunted: searching for the whole self
- 10 Transforming the final ghost: the god within
- Conclusion
- Filmography
- Glossary of Jungian and related terms
- References
- Index
4 - The Piano, the animus and colonial experience
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Jungian theory, textual analysis and audience play
- 2 Archetypal images: signification and the psyche
- 3 Archetypal images: symbols and the cultural unconscious
- 4 The Piano, the animus and colonial experience
- 5 The pop star as icon
- 6 The quest of a female hero: The Silence of the Lambs
- 7 Television sport and the sacrificial hero
- 8 The polycentred self: The Passion of Darkly Noon
- 9 Haunted: searching for the whole self
- 10 Transforming the final ghost: the god within
- Conclusion
- Filmography
- Glossary of Jungian and related terms
- References
- Index
Summary
In Jules, the main protagonist of Diva, we identified a character whose principal task was to work through and come to terms with an anima complex. We turn now to a film the lead character in which is a woman who faces unresolved problems with an overpowering animus. Like Diva, The Piano (Jane Campion, 1993) is mainly concerned with both the collective and the cultural unconscious; it barely hints at disturbances in the personal unconscious.
The structure of Campion's film obliges the spectator to recognise that closed interpretations based mainly on analysis of its characters and the narrative are unreliable. The film can be anchored neither to straightforward readings based on its main character's story world, nor to the historical world of mid-Victorian colonialism – which is not to deny that both are presented with clarity. The film's themes are diffuse because its obvious symbolic riches coexist with a lack of hard information about the principal character. Neither the events of the plot nor the heroine's inner narration let us into the secrets of her past.
For this reason, interpretation of The Piano has to be augmented by other means, and this chapter rests on the presumption that the film allows us to see not only the exterior, but also the psyche of the main character, revealing in a single sweep how her social milieu touches her interior world. It provides an analysis of the main character in accordance with Jungian principles.
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- Myth, Mind and the ScreenUnderstanding the Heroes of our Time, pp. 57 - 78Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001