Kick ass female directors

[b]The Savages [/b](written & directed by Tamara Jenkins) was fantastic. Also [b]Me and You and Everyone We Know [/b](written & directed by Miranda July), [b]Blue Car [/b](written & directed by Karen Moncrieff), [b]Lost in Translation [/b](directed by Sofia Coppola), [b]Water [/b]or even better,[b]Earth [/b](both by Deepa Mehta), [b]The Jane Austen Book Club [/b](directed by Robin Swicord), [b]Away From Her[/b] (directed by Sarah Polley). [b]August Rush[/b] (directed by Kirsten Sheridan) might be too wholesome-sweet for some people but I really enjoyed that too. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]

[ 05 February 2008: Message edited by: Camryn ]

Is anyone else here a fan of Dutch film-meistress [b]Marleen Gorris[/b]? Antonia's Line is hands down the best film I have ever seen (Oscar for Foreign Film in 1995), but I also grokked the too-little known A Question of Silence (1982) and Broken Mirrors (1984). All about ordinary women breaking through constraints and not providing explanations.

Thanks for that excellent rundown of movies, Camryn, and welcome to babble.

mary123, I agree, Sherr Klein is excellent. She also did another film documentary about disability, called "The Art of Disability". It's funny, and thoroughly engaging.

Hey Camyrn welcome to the forum!

Did you know that another Canadian feminist and journalist Michelle Landsberg (who is married to Stephen Lewis - Stephen Lewis is the son of former Federal NDP Leader David Lewis - has a journalist son - Avi Lewis who is married to Bonnie Klein's daughter Naomi ... whew!!!!

Imagine their terrific dinner conversations during the holidays!

Hey Michelle I've have heard about the documentary on disability by Bonnie Klein but haven't seen it yet.... but I will.

[ 06 February 2008: Message edited by: mary123 ]

At TIFF last year I saw [url=http://www.pingpongplaya.com]Ping Pong Playa[/url] directed by Jessica Yu. It doesn't have major distribution, and from the website, it's screening at some festivals in the US this month and next month. Highly recommended.

Try Suspect on Markham or Queen St. Video, which has a second store on Bloor near Suspect. Don't know if losing the Queen St. store to a fire really hammered Suspect's collection or not.

Queen St. is a bit undiscriminating.

Quote:

Name all the female movie directors you can in one minute, right now. No Google. I’ll wait.

Are you done? Now, let me make some predictions here, tell me if I’m wrong. You probably mentioned Sophia Coppola. You probably got Kathryn Bigelow, or more likely, you said “The Hurt Locker lady.” Depending on how film-savvy you are, you may have said Norah Ephron, Amy Heckerling, or if you’re a history buff, Leni Riefenstahl. More than likely, you struggled after three or four names. If you got more than ten, we’ll send you a T-shirt. (Note: No, we won’t.)

The truth is, there’s no actual shortage of female film directors. What is in short supply, however, is opportunity for these women to gain exposure to a massive mainstream audience. We all know there’s a gender disparity in Hollywood. It’s 2012, time to start talking about it.

Somewhere along the line, a myth started that Hollywood is liberal and progressive. No one quite knows why, maybe it’s because film studios don’t hate gay people enough. In any case, this is a falsehood, because all major film production companies are held captive by the same determining factor: The ticket-buying audience. The first factor in the Hollywood gender battle is the fear of losing the demographic that makes a major tentpole release the most money- males ages 18-35. There’s a fear in the entire entertainment industry that men won’t consume works coming to them by female authors. This is nothing new. It’s the reason the Harry Potter books were written by J.K. Rowling and not Joanna Rowling. It’s worth noting that for some reason, male directors are afforded the privilege of appeasing multiple audiences, but women are not. Rob Reiner and Garry Marshall have made their entire careers out of making movies for women, but it’s highly unlikely to see a woman directing a Batman movie, for example.

Quote:

[T]he problem lies in getting those precious “breakthrough” jobs which take a director from independent films into the mainstream. Bigelow and Coppola got them, and all they had to do was respectively marry and be fathered by an already-established director. But by far the most egregious and ridiculous example of the “cootie fear” that producers seem to have comes from Catherine Hardwicke and her work on the first Twilight movie. Hardwicke is the most commercially successful female director of all time, and she should be a perfect example of what should be happening. She made a well-recognized independent film (Thirteen), had a few notable misses, then was offered what should have been a no-brainer. Twilight is aimed at young girls, and Hardwicke had already established she knew that audience. However, here’s the key point. When Hardwicke was hired, no one had any idea how huge Twilight was going to be. The rights were picked up by Summit on the cheap when Paramount lost them because they didn’t do anything with them. It was a starter movie for a new company, and when they bought it, they were purchasing a script where Edward fought FBI agents. So when Summit studios began to realize what a cash cow they had, they began to pull away, and ultimately fired Hardwicke from the sequels. (For the record, Hardwicke still claims it was her choice, for the record.) However speculative it may be, it seems suspicious at the very least that the one time a female director was given a high-level project, albeit accidentally, she was rejected in favor of safer, more dependable men when it came down to making actual money.

Alanis Obamsawin directed some stuff for the NFB that is really amazing!  Her film Kanehsatake:270 years of resistance about the Oka standoff is one of the best movies i've ever seen!

Germaine Dulac: La Souriante Madame Beudet (1922)

The post that has you offended was made 4 years ago by a babbler who - to the best of my knowledge - hasn't participated in this message board in almost a year.

The thread title is "Kick ass female directors"; not people whose politics are unimpeachable. I think it's entirely possible - perhaps even probable - that most people who watched and appreciated that film have never heard or read an interview with its director. I know I certainly wouldn't want anyone to interpret my saying I like a particular piece of art as endorsing and condoning everything that artist has ever said or done. I have more free time than a lot of folks I know, but even I'd say there's simply not enough hours in a day to do a thorough political background check on anyone I might mention favourably on a message board.

Freedom 55 wrote:

The post that has you offended was made 4 years ago by a babbler who - to the best of my knowledge - hasn't participated in this message board in almost a year.

The thread title is "Kick ass female directors"; not people whose politics are unimpeachable. I think it's entirely possible - perhaps even probable - that most people who watched and appreciated that film have never heard or read an interview with its director. I know I certainly wouldn't want anyone to interpret my saying I like a particular piece of art as endorsing and condoning everything that artist has ever said or done. I have more free time than a lot of folks I know, but even I'd say there's simply not enough hours in a day to do a thorough political background check on anyone I might mention favourably on a message board.

Yeah... and it's been, as you say, four years, and nobody sees this? Pierce is plastered all over This Film is Not Yet Rated and nobody sees this?

It's not the mention, it's the silence. The silence is deafening and as I said, it's too much to be the only person on this board who actually pays any attention whatsoever to trans issues. Women like me are not even an afterthought to the left, save the occasional ally like Bill Siskay. (oh and they burned him from the cuffs up, notice that?)

Red Tory Tea Girl wrote:

"Boys Don't Cry - Kimberly Pierce"

Director degenders her subject, a man, in interview after interview.

Despite constant attempts to reach you people, nobody wants to listen.

You are the smug, unthinking, unmovable, inert faux-'allies' whose supposed support for trans rights comes right after every other pet cause, including worshipping misogynists masquerading as feminists, that I didn't want to think you were.

Have fun pretending that trans women don't exist or aren't relevant to feminism, etc. If Ms. Magazine won't stop you, I sure as hell can't.

I am now officially done.

I hope you are not going to leave because of a post I made 4 years ago. I am very sorry this has upset you and I would really like to know the background here. If I had any idea the director was a nasty piece of work I would have said so. i did not. I sincerely hope you do not bolt because of a post from 4 years ago.

BTW, this is my first post in over a year

Stargazer, you're pretty awesome. Catchfire is right. I'm angry not that you didn't know she was cissexist. I'm angry... actually, more frustrated, that nobody else knew or even suspected that a film made by cis people about a trans person was cissexist, as they almost always are, though Better Than Chocolate was okay, save the casting choice for Judy.

Sorry to take out my rage on you. There are other people who actually deserve it.

Quote:

Director degenders her subject, a man, in interview after interview.

Could you please explain/expand on that?  I'm not sure I completely understand.

It's my understanding that the film was based on a true story and that the director took great pains to be sensitive to the gender issues and to be true to Brandon Teena's story in so far as it's possible within the construct of a film narrative.  In terms of the film being well-made, it certainly was that. 

You're ignoring that, after being attracted to the idea of the film because she felt it reflected the experiences of people she knew, she then spent 5 and a half years working on learning about transgender issues and Brandon Teena's life in particular.

The essentialist argument that a filmmaker can't make films outside her own experience is the same argument that is used to keep action film, for example, exclusive to male directors.  Filmmakers make films on subjects outside their own experience all the time.  Sometimes having an inside perspective is a good thing, sometimes it isn't and sometimes it's utterly neutral.  Should Ang Lee, who is straight, not have made Brokeback Mountain?  What about the original author of the story the screenplay was based on, Annie Proulx?  Should that story only ever have been told by gay men?  Was the story not good enough?

Should I never write a character that isn't a straight white female?  Is my friend, a kickass female Metis director, only ever tell Metis stories? 

I think my question to you was based less in the definition of the director's identity and more in line with the work itself.  Where did it fall down?  What, specifically, was the failing in the telling of this particular story? 

Whoa on the accusations.  #1 - I don't defend filmmakers because I like them.  I know filmmakers who've made problematic films and have debated them on the merits of the work.  I don't think I should have to defend that to you, especially since I did not intimate doing anything of the sort, so kindly dial it back a bit.

#2 - I understand appropriation.  It's something that I take seriously and take great pains to avoid.  However, some people feel that appropriation occurs whenever someone outside a certain identity even touches an issue or character, and this is something I heartily disagree with.

I read the article you linked.  I take issue with both the papers he's used as reference/support material in terms of reading and conclusions.  You're latching onto one thing the director said, and as I pointed out in my previous post, seem to be ignoring everything else about the work Pierce did.  Also, the article seems to want Pierce to have told a different story, regardless of having certain restrictions in basing the film on a true story and going with events that actually happened.  As happens often in film studies, no one reading and deconstruction is the single true reading.  I saw more of a critique of the sexism and hate of the people around BT than I did sexism directed toward BT.  This is not a dismissal of your opinion, btw - I just don't 100% agree with you.  I don't think there is one uniformly correct reading of any film.

And I am, and remain, unspeakably cool.  ;-)

I am not dismissing anything.  I am disagreeing with you on the basis of the information that is available.

Pierce said that this is what *initially* attracted her to the subject matter and in interviews has pointed out that this was a shallow understanding of BT's experience.  She has also said that she grew into a much greater understanding and that she made the effort to learn from others as she went through the next 5 and a half years developing the film.  So you're looking at a very thin slice of the information at hand and declaring "case closed".  I happen to disagree with that assessment. 

I also haven't suggested that there should be "uncomplicated praise" of the film.  Complicate away.  But if you hinge your criticism on one statement about the initial appeal of the idea and not the work itself, expect to be challenged. 

I've also never claimed that sexism condemns any work entirely.  Nor does racism or any other ism, necessarily.  Smith mentioned Leni Riefenstahl in a post above - yes, her propaganda films were horrifying in their ethos, but she was a damn good filmmaker.  She knew how to work the medium, her films were shot beautifully, which makes them even a little more horrifying when you look at them in their historical context.  There are films that are sexist at their base that are still well-made films, works of art, even.  Art in general is a difficult thing that way. 

I also don't think that Pierce's work was hateful to trans men.  She had a character based on a real person whose thoughts and motives were ambiguous.  She tried to be sensitive to the issues that character was dealing with and to be as true to life in regard to BT as she could.  Did she do it perfectly?  Probably not.  But I did not get in any sense that any of it came from a place of hatred or disapproval, so I don't see how the comparison to Rich or Daly works at all. 

I think the film was darkly critical of the environment that BT was struggling to live in and to be true to himself in and that ultimately destroyed him.  It was not the director of the film that attempted to push BT into one gender or the other, it was the ignorance and fear and xenophobia of the people who surrounded him.  That's my reading of the film, in overly simplified terms.  So I simply disagree with your assessment of the work itself.  Beyond the work, I'm only marginally interested in the identity of the director and what she may have said or not said in any case.

Wow. I did not know that about her.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Lupino

Great list Bärlüer!