The Piano
With this sublimely stirring fable of desire and creativity, Jane Campion became the first woman to win a Palme d’Or at Cannes. Holly Hunter is achingly eloquent through silence in her Academy Award–winning performance as Ada, an electively mute Scottish woman who expresses her innermost feelings through her beloved piano.
When an arranged marriage brings Ada and her spirited daughter (Anna Paquin, in her Oscar-winning debut) to the wilderness of nineteenth-century New Zealand, she finds herself locked in a battle of wills with both her controlling husband (Sam Neill) and a rugged frontiersman (Harvey Keitel) to whom she develops a forbidden attraction. With its sensuously moody cinematography, dramatic coastal landscapes, and sweeping score, this uniquely timeless evocation of a woman’s awakening is an intoxicating sensory experience that burns with the twin fires of music and erotic passion.
In a nod to both the Coolidge's long track record of showcasing innovative, boundary-pushing works of film art as well as the start of construction on our expanded space, the theme of this year’s Big Screen Classics series will be Groundbreaking Films! We look forward to sharing more information about our expansion project throughout the year and hope you will join us for one or more of this year's Big Screen Classics the way they were meant to be seen -- on the big screen!
