Claiming Campion: The Question of Jane Campion’s Politics Revisited

Stephen Kuster’s chapter provides analysis of Campion’s early films through an ethnographic framework, considering the power dynamics at work. Kuster suggests documentary lays claim to the truth, and as such, like all knowledge-production, its verisimilitude is inextricably tied to power, whether that is colonialism, patriarchy, or racism, for example. In line with such discourses, Kuster’s chapter examines Campion’s early shorts, Passionless Moments and A Girl’s Own Story, and their relationships to truth and power through their parallels to documentary, suggesting Campion’s purpose is to subvert hegemonic truth assertions; the once-claimed singular objectivity that is tied to power structures does not, and cannot, exist in cinema.