The Piano Cross-over Cinema (3)

The film by Jane Campion The Piano (1993) indeed exemplified what international tradespeak calls "crossover film": that is, a low-budget film, often expressing a "personal vision" that moves from arthouse [film d'essai] openings to embrace much larger audiences than most arthouse films.

From the outset, Campion was concerned that The Piano be positioned as a "cross-over film". Simone Benzokein, the Cannes publicist of  the film, remarked : "Jane and I discussed the marketing. She wanted this to be not just an elite film but a popular film".

except from the book The Piano (eds. by Harriett Margolis)

The Piano  dips in and out of, and borrows from, myth, fairy tales, romantic and historical fiction from the past and present, regressive melodramatic nostalgia, colonial and post-colonial discourses, and an idiosyncratic but committed brand of feminism not compltetly contradicted by a deep ambivalence about the possibility of women's really being able to have it all.