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24 CINEMONTAGE / Q2 2018 THIS QUARTER IN FILM HISTORY the settler who has taken on Maori ways and is attracted to Ada, the filmmaker sought out Harvey Keitel for his "concentration, masculinity and gentleness." Another major character and dominant presence throughout the picture was the landscape of New Zealand itself. The mountainous ocean waves, the dense green bush rising out of thick mud, and the lush craggy hillsides all exist intimately in proximity to the human characters. Campion started consulting with production designer Andrew McAlpine back in 1989 to determine the physical atmosphere of the film. Together they scouted locations for two months during pre-production. For the black sand beach upon which Ada's piano is stranded early in the film, McAlpine told Variety that they chose "one of the favorite beaches of my childhood," just 45 minutes from Auckland. During production, the designer had his crew alter every landscape to enhance its feeling or mood. For the land surrounding Stewart's house, he "transplanted and charred dead trees to create the illusion of a muddy five acres of primary slash burn," he said in the January 1994 TCI: The Business of Entertainment Technology and Design magazine. "We didn't want to slavishly re-create some imagined reality, which is so often seen in period films… What I wanted to do was a film in mud and charcoal." To enhance period realism, McAlpine found furniture, fabrics and hand props in London markets and Australian auctions. Campion had envisioned an upright piano for the movie's star prop, but after she learned that uprights did not exist until about 10 years after the film's action, McAlpine found an 1835 grand piano in London for her. Hunter played this authentic original in scenes set in interiors, and replicas were built and used for location scenes and Foley work. The 12-week shoot ran from February into mid-May 1992 with director of photography Stuart Dryburgh, who had also shot Campion's An Angel at My Table and, later, her adaptation of Portrait of a Lady (1996). To evoke the period, he said in Cinema Papers, "We used a 19th century stills process — the autochrome — as an inspiration. That's why we tended to use strong color accents… the blue-green of the bush, amber-rich mud. 'Bottom of the fish tank' was the description we used to help define what we were looking for…working with natural light whenever possible." Another significant influence during production was the presence of Maori advisors helping the filmmaker with the indigenous characters' dialogue and interactions with the settlers. Campion affirmed, "The cross-cultural quality of it was one of the deeply moving aspects of being on the production for all of us, cast and crew." After two weeks on location, the shoot continued on sets that McAlpine had built in Auckland, with the house sets surrounded by cycloramas and tree trunks brought from their exterior locations. For three weeks just prior to production, Campion worked with Hunter and Keitel in an old wooden church in Auckland for six hours a day to rehearse their intimate scenes together. Almost three months later, during the last three weeks of the shoot, all of their interior scenes were shot in sequence. The director had wanted the actors to help her determine the specific actions of their erotic scenes, but it did not work out that way. As Campion told Cinema Papers' Bilbrough, "Holly and Harvey said, 'Whatever you wanna [sic] do, we'll try.' They said it was too intimate, that I had to decide what would happen." One thing the director wanted to happen was full frontal nudity — not to be displayed by Hunter but by Keitel, who willingly complied. Another aspect of Campion's directing style was CONTINUED ON PAGE 26 The Piano. Miramax/Photofest