With the phenomenal success of The Piano (1993), Jane Campion became revered by many as the leading female film director of the 1990s. In this book, Dana Polan examines the phenomenon of The Piano and how it develops from the early shorts and first features which evoke an often surreal and critical distanced style of looking at everyday issues. Looking at all of Campion's work before and since, including Holy Smoke (1999), which returned again to the battleground of gender politics, the author concludes his survey of the director's work by offering some hypotheses about the erotic thriller The Cut (2001) whilst asking what variety of approaches to the study of directors might now be fruitful.