Hilary Radner, Alistair Fox and Irene Bessiere (eds), Jane Campion: Cinema, Nation, Identity (Contemporary Approaches to Film and Television Series). Detroit, IL: Wayne State University Press, 2009, 329 pp. Deb Verhoeven, Jane Campion (Routledge Film Guidebooks). London and New York, NY: Routledge, 2009, 273 pp.

Abstract

The field of 'Campion studies', as it has become known, has been reinvigorated by the release of Jane Campion's first feature film in six years, <i>Bright Star</i> (2009), and the timely publication of two new books: Deb Verhoeven's monograph, simply titled <i>Jane Campion</i>, and the edited collection, <i>Jane Campion: Cinema, Nation, Identity</i>. Together these books offer a detailed and thorough examination of not only Campion's films but her persona as an auteur, as a woman director and as an 'antipodean' filmmaker. As such they constitute an important intervention in current theorizing about the contemporary auteur (or the 'post-auteur'), as well as a substantial contribution to our understanding of Campion's cinema.