ABSTRACT

Jane Campion’s father, Richard, visiting the set of Holy Smoke, recounts a conversation he once had with his daughter when she was 5 years old:

In this one brief anecdote, Richard Campion reiterates many of the ways in which (even embryonic) auteurs are imagined; as preordained, prone to expressive repetition, on a singular course and, above all else, completely self-possessed and resistant to external (parental) influence;

influences that for an adult auteur are more likely to take the form of a perceived political, economic and industrial paternalism.