Withholding and Revealing in AN ANGEL AT MY TABLE

Jane Campion came to international attention with her acclaimed sophomore feature AN ANGEL AT MY TABLE, a luminous adaptation of the memoirs of Janet Frame, tracing her journey from her childhood in New Zealand to her time in a mental hospital to her emergence as a renowned writer. In this episode of Observations on Film Art, Professor Kristin Thompson explores how Campion uses a strategy of concealment and carefully orchestrated reveals to create curiosity, tension, and surprise and to immerse the viewer in Frame’s unique subjectivity.