The Piano

Jane Campion’s Palme d’Or–winning breakthrough remains one of cinema’s great gothic romances. In the 19th century, Ada (Holly Hunter), a mute Scotswoman, and her young daughter Flora (Anna Paquin), both played in Oscar-winning performances, arrive on the storm-lashed coast of colonial New Zealand for Ada’s arranged marriage to the rigid Stewart (Sam Neill). When Stewart sells Ada’s beloved piano, the instrument through which she speaks, to his neighbor Baines (Harvey Keitel), Ada enters into a dangerous key-by-key bargain to reclaim it. A ravishingly physical work, with a Brontëan sense of turbulent passion carried by Michael Nyman’s indelible score, The Piano brought the psychological daring of Campion’s earlier work to the world stage and still feels startlingly alive. NYFF31 Closing Night selection. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

The new 4K UHD restoration was supervised and approved by Jane Campion and her director of photography, Stuart Dryburgh. This new 4K restoration was made in the United States in Dolby Vision HDR 16-bit 4K from the original 35mm image negative scanned on Arriscan at the Fixafilm lab in Australia. Color grading was supervised and approved by Jane Campion and Stuart Dryburgh, with a 35mm print from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences used as a reference. The original 5.1 audio mix was remastered from the original 24-track digital.