7/26/2019 The Piano - Escano

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Escano, Kariz Charalane A.

ABMC-3A

The Piano

Jane Campion’s astounding film “The Piano” was about a mute Scottish Widow named Ada McGrath(Holly Hunter) and her daughter Flora (Ana Paquin) who was sent to New Zealand in the 1850’s to wed

Alisdair Stewart (Sam Neill), a wealthy land-grabber. Soon love blossoms from a mission to get her piano backfrom George Baines (Harvey Keitel) whom in exchange got it from Alisdair with the price of a land.

A female’s will in this patriarchal world is underrated. In the film industry, male gaze rules almost

everything, but on the contrary, this film debunks that the only possible gaze is the male gaze. The female gazewas on point when Ada opened the curtain and saw Baine naked. Ada was startled at first but does not avert her

attention nor close her eyes, the gaze we see in now female. Ada may seem weak because we do not hear herspeak. Nowadays, strength is equated with the strong will to speak. But what about the stronger will to not

speak, this can be considered as Ada’s opposition against the patriarchal society. The sex scene between Ada

and Baines is highly important. We see Alisdair looking through a peephole, clearly not completely resentingwhat he has seen but somewhat looking aroused, given that he has not brought his newly betrothed to bed.

Scopophilia is defined as obtaining sexual pleasure from looking at bare bodies. Alisdair here now shows the

male gaze. But on the other hand, two types of gazes are at play at this scene; the male and female gaze. Wemay not see on the camera how Ada looks at Baine but before the sex scene occurred she was the one who went

to his house and with the intent of making it known to him that she loves him. The way she looked at him pre-

coital was the female gaze; Campion intending to flip the patriarchal pattern in this film.

An overused quote states: Silence speaks louder than words. In this film, Ada does not speak a single

word, we hear the voice in her mind but not what she’s thinking about. Her sile nce can be a metaphor for how

she wants people to know her. When a person is silent, we do not know anything about that person, actions may

tell you something but when judging someone superficially we need dialogue to get through. Ada does not talk

to her husband because (1) he left her piano on the beach even though she brought it with her to New Zealandall the way from home and (2) I think she wanted him to really know her. If you can read a person and

understand if they are happy or sad, you know their soul. This quote means that if you can’t understand a person’s silence, you will never know them or their words.

The symbolisms I’ve noticed in the film were the piano, and the piano keys. The piano was used asAda’s tool (other than hand gestures) for communication and also could be a metaphor for her. She is seen

 playing the piano in the first few scenes and when their help comes in, she stopped. It reflects that the piano was

her private thing, how her true self comes out when she plays it. In the last part, she intentionally lets the weightof the piano drag her down because she feels that it is a part of her, but she chooses to live and not let the piano

 be “her”. The number of piano keys is a symbol for the height of eroticism in each scene; 2 keys for her jacket

then 10 keys for lying on the bed naked. This is a metaphor for how she is slowly giving in to her desire forBaine secretly, given that the piano was a symbolism for her.

Campion’s work is truly a masterpiece that destroys the patriarchal system around the film industry.

Feminism is greatly shown in this film. Feminism is about equality and trying to outldo men. This film showsthat men has power in society which is currently present but also depicting that women can also have equal

 power, but balancing Feminism and masculism is a two-way road that either party wants to trade lanes with and

that is the biggest problem.