JANE CAMPION: INTERVIEWS Edited by Virginia Wright Wexman University Press of Mississippi $45.00, cloth, ISBN 1-57806-082-6 $18.00, paper, ISBN 1-57806-083-4 Book News for Immediate Release New Zealand director Campion often leaves interviews to the actors Surely the director who brought to life such unusual and compelling women characters as Ada in THE PIANO and Isabel Archer in THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY would delight in interviews. But New Zealand director Jane Campion dislikes personal publicity. "It's all right for actors," Campion says. "They have to promote their images. But I'm just a maker of products." In her new book, JANE CAMPION: INTERVIEWS (University Press of Mississippi, $45 cloth, $18 paper), editor Virginia Wright Wexman says that's why interviews with Campion in English language film journals are so rare. From Australian and American newspapers, from French, German, and Australian film journals, Wexman has gathered 37 interviews spanning Campion's career. JANE CAMPION: INTERVIEWS is the first book in which the director speaks at length about her working methods and her award-winning films. "Most of Campion's interviews have been held in hotel rooms," Wexman says. "In most of these sessions Campion has impressed her questioners as open and unaffected; one or two, however, have found her shy." Interviewer Carrie Rickey describes Campion as "robust, broad-boned, and radiantly horsey." Other correspondents and critics are struck by the director's sense of humor especially in discussing her extraordinary success. "I can't work well if I get too serious," Campion says. "I don't want to be a child emotionally or in terms of responsibility, but I do think that playfulness can be very liberating." Campion won an Academy Award for Best Original Screen Play in 1993, and was the first woman director to receive the Palm d'Or at Cannes. In each interview, Campion strikes at the heart of what matters to her as an artist. She says, "I'm finding myself less and less interested in what you can do with shots and things .... I'm more after what sorts of sensations and feelings and subtleties you can get through your story and can bring out through performances ...." Virginia Wright Wexman, a professor of English and Associate Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs at the University of Illinois, Chicago, is the author of CREATING THE COUPLE, ROMAN POLANSKI, and LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN. # # # For more information contact Steven B. Yates, Promotions Manager, University Press of Mississippi, (601) 982-6459; fax (601) 982-6217; or email [log in to unmask] ---------------------- Donald Larsson Minnesota State U, Mankato [log in to unmask] ---- To sign off Screen-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF Screen-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]