The Promise of Touch: Turns to Affect in Feminist Film Theory

In an essay on the critical reception of Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993), Barbara Klinger highlights the powerful affective impact expressed and discussed by many, even if not all, female viewers. ¹ The quote from Sue Gillett’s essay is illustrative: “T he P iano affected me very deeply. I was entranced, moved, dazed. I held my breath. I was reluctant to re-enter the everyday world after the film had finished. T he P iano shook, disturbed, and inhabited me. I felt that my own dreams had taken form, been revealed. I dreamed of Ada the night after I saw the film. These were thick, heavy and exhilarating feelings.” ² Anecdotal evidence and accounts of the film experience as an “emotional roller-coaster” were indeed commonplace in the critical reception. In his book on Jane Campion’s authorship, Dana Polan even argues that as a film about “a range of emotions and experiences associated with a feminine realm,” T he P iano evolved into a cultural symbol for the 1990s phenomenon of “chick flick” and “one of the supreme signposts of the art of feminine sensibility.” ³