The most notable of the knighthoods announced in NZ's New Year Honours Awards, with its recently reintroduced British titles, was that given to Peter Jackson "for services to film". He is reported to have been even more thrilled with this than with the haul of Oscars he got in 2004 for the final movie in the Lords of the Rings trilogy.
It is rather ironic that someone whose work was initially shunned by the establishment (despite having made three movies at the time, he was omitted from Jonathon Dennis's state-subsidised book Film in New Zealand - but he was certainly included in our book Celluloid Dreams) is now embraced as part of the establishment. But of course, Peter Jackson's achievements (mostly achieved in Wellington, not in Hollywood) now can't be ignored.
Our policy is not to include "Sir" or "Dame" with people's names, and that won't change, but we naturally admire a virtuoso craftsman in our arts and culture scene.
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