Movie-ginas!
March 14, 2010
Finally!!! A woman won an Academy Award for Best Directing at last Sunday’s Oscars! Woohoo! Big ups to Kathryn Bigelow and her movie The Hurt Locker! Here’s why it’s a significant win for film-making women:
She was the fourth woman to be nominated in the directing category, after Lina Wertmüller, Jane Campion, and Sofia Coppola. This is in an industry where 83% of all directors, writers, and producers on the top 100 grossing films last year were male, where, of the 600 movies reviewed in The New York Times last year, only ten percent were directed by women. So it matters.
So, only 4 female directors ever nominated for an Oscar? Well, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doesn’t always recognize everything good and everything they recognize is not always good. Also, read up on how women often end up on the under-valued side of artistic and aesthetic binaries: Art (men) vs. Craft (women), Genius (men) vs. Muse (women), Culture (men) vs. Nature (women), blah, blah, blah…
Anyway, here’s a list of movies by women. The movies on this list will get you started, and I promise they’re not crappy:
1-3. The Piano by Jane Campion, Holy Smoke by JC (calling all Kate Winslet fans; she pees on herself while walking!), and An Angel at My Table (my very favorite JC movie).
4. Whale Rider by Niki Caro.
5. Boys Don’t Cry by Kimberly Peirce (which I think is just as good as the big film of 2000, American Beauty. It should have at least been nominated for Best Picture; I mean The Sixth Sense was nominated for cryin’ out loud!).
6. Savages written and directed by Tamara Jenkins.
7. Persepolis co-written and co-directed by Marjane Satrapi.
8. Whip-It directed by Drew Barrymore. Get your heads out of a$$es, film snobs! This is an awesome movie!
9. The Virgin Suicides by Sofia Coppola.
10. High Art by Lisa Cholodenko. If you feel like revisiting the 90s…
11. Frida by Julie Teymour.
♥
Movies made by women that I want to see, that look good in my humble opinion:
1. The Hurt Locker (shut up! it’s on the Netflix queue!)
2. Coco Before Chanel, directed by Anne Fontaine.
3. Bright Star, directed by Jane Campion.
4. Seven Beauties, directed by Lina Weretmüller. In 1977, she became the first female director to be nominated for an Oscar.
5. Frozen River, directed by Courtney Hunt.
Any thoughts about any of these movies, my smarty friends? Anything I should add to the lists immediately, like howthehell did I leave it off?
Yay movie-ginas!
Spring
March 16, 2010 at 3:44 pm
I heart so many of the movies on your list. There was a month in undergrad when I watch Campion’s The Piano twice day for three and half weeks. No lie. That’s what serious depression and Lacanian psychoanalytic theory will do to you. I’m so happy that a female directed finally won, I can’t wait to see the day when we recognize more films made by women for important awards.
March 16, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Taymor’s other movie, Across the Universe is quite amazing. I know it’s a Beatles tribute/musical genre film, but it is a great movie nonetheless. Also, Marie Antoinette or Lost in Translation….Sophia Coppola is amazing, and I love her films. I can’t wait to see more of what she has in her.
More that I would consider:
Amelia by Mira Nair
Waitress by Adrienne Shelly
Lovely and Amazing by Nicole Holofcener
Thirteen by Catherine Hardwicke
A League of Their Own by Penny Marshall
PS – I just read that Katheryn Bigelow directed Point Break. Wow!
March 17, 2010 at 9:32 pm
Michael, I didn’t realize that she directed Point Break. Wow, indeed! Waitress was really good. And so was A League of their own. I DO want to officially add Amelia (I can’t believe I haven’t seen it yet) to the TO SEE list. And Lovely and Amazing. And Marie Antoinette. Thanks for the reminders!
March 18, 2010 at 11:02 am
No problem. Part of me thinks I should have done a film studies program. But perhaps that might have ruined my love of film. Not sure?
March 18, 2010 at 7:23 pm
While I’m gonna have to go against the grain and say that Sofia Coppola really doesn’t do it for me (I can’t help but wonder what would happen if her dad was, say, Uwe Boll?), let me throw a couple other award nominees into the mix:
“Monster”, directed by Patty Jenkins (Charlize Theron won Best Actress)
“Titus” directed by Julie Taymor (I think this was highly underrated, and possibly better that “Frida”)
plus a few examples of epic kickassery that happen to come from women:
“Fast Times at Ridgemont High” — The original (and funniest) high school comedy, complete with dick humor and gratuitous breasts, was directed by Amy Heckerling.
“American Psycho” — This one gained notoriety for its misogynous sex and graphic violence against women, and was directed by Mary Harron. (She also did “The Notorious Betty Page”.)
and this one makes me grin,
“Punisher: War Zone” — While it was a total bomb (and will be bitched about endlessly by my fellow comic book geeks, I felt it was an accurate, effective, and fun portrayal of the Marvel anti-hero. Director Lexi Alexander did one helluva job capturing the dark, gritty, violent world of a man someone who snaps after witnessing his family’s murder. The Punisher comics are all about gratuitous violence, and Alexander directed the scenes of bloody rampage perfectly.
March 18, 2010 at 8:08 pm
I did think Titus was amazing. I know that Taymor directed it, but I guess I have more of an affinity for the Beatles than I do to Shakespeare.
March 19, 2010 at 2:58 pm
Oooh, Daniel- I did like Monster! A lot! Didn’t know the director was female- ha! Okay, and now I have to add Titus to the TO SEE list.
Michael- I’m inclined to believe that studying film may have indeed ruined your love for it. But maybe not, who knows? I’m sure your love of film informs your study of written stories, eh?