After The Brat Pack: Ally Sheedy in ‘High Art’

Although a few who had fallen under the brat pack sobriquet (like Demi Moore) continued in mainstream star-vehicles well into the 90s (and Rob Lowe, dismissed as another pretty face in the ’80s, was able to sustain a TV career into the present), most had faded from the public view by then, including Ally Sheedy (after starring in 1987’s ‘Maid to Order,’ her own ‘Weekend At Bernie’s’) –though earlier in her career she, of the whole “Pack,” received some of the best reviews for her work. Sheedy went on to reinvent herself–and make good on her earlier promise–in a series of meaty roles in independent films in the late 90s: the most well known one (for which she won several awards) was Lucy Berliner in writer-director Lisa Cholodenko’s 1998 feature debut ‘High Art.’

HighArtCover

This post by Ren Jender appears as part of our theme week on The Brat Pack.

I was already an adult when the term “Brat Pack” was coined to refer to 1980s young actresses and actors who, in spite of being slightly older than I was, usually came to prominence playing high school kids. As the ’80s petered out. most of these actors starred in progressively crappier movies (Weekend at Bernie’s is one notorious example) and audiences became clued in to how bad these films were–and stopped showing up for them.

Although a few who had fallen under the Brat Pack sobriquet (like Demi Moore) continued in mainstream star-vehicles well into the 90s (and Rob Lowe, dismissed as another pretty face in the ’80s, was able to sustain a TV career into the present) most had faded from the public view by then, including Ally Sheedy (after starring in 1987’s Maid to Order, her own Weekend At  Bernie’s) –though earlier in her career she, of the whole “Pack”, received some of the best reviews for her work. Sheedy went on to reinvent herself–and make good on her earlier promise–in a series of meaty roles in independent films in the late 90s: the most well known one (for which she won several awards) was Lucy Berliner in writer-director Lisa Cholodenko’s 1998 feature debut High Art.

Radha Mitchell’s Syd is the main character, a young, ambitious hard-worker at an arty NYC photography magazine. She tells the receptionist of her promotion (one of the many ways to tell this film was made in the 90s: she got her job after working at the magazine as an intern), “I’m not really assisting anyone. I’m an assistant editor,” but we see the male editor uses her as a glorified go-fer. Reading for work in the bath at home she feels water dripping on her from above and interrupts the constant (if subdued) 24-hour drug party going on in the apartment of her upstairs neighbor, Lucy (Sheedy) to find the source of the leak. Lucy lives with her strung-out German girlfriend Greta (Patricia Clarkson, hilariously out of it for much of the film, evoking the equally heroin-addled, famous blonde, Nico, even as she name-drops gay addict-director Rainer Werner Fassbinder). While Syd wraps duct tape around the leak she notices and compliments the framed photos all around the apartment, which are Lucy’s.

Although the style of these photos (and the ones Lucy takes later) look, to contemporary eyes, like the faux-realism of American Apparel and some Calvin Klein ads, in 1998 they seemed to reference the photographer Nan Goldin who also used elements of her own life (including drug addiction, the queer community and domestic violence) as documentary fodder for her work.

Lucy turns out to have been someone who was making a name for herself before she left town a decade before. The clueless male editor Syd reports to has no idea who she is, but his boss Dominique (Anh Duong) does, as does the hot, young male photographer of the moment working on the magazine’s upcoming cover. Through Syd  Dominique enlists Lucy to do their next cover instead, even though Lucy had insisted to Syd, “I don’t really do that anymore.”  Lucy makes Syd her editor.

Syd and Lucy
Syd and Lucy

Syd had, at first, tried to get close to Lucy for professional reasons, but she finds herself snorting heroin with Lucy, in the company of Greta and her drug friends, and, while her live-in boyfriend (Gabriel Mann) cools his heels at a party in Lucy’s living room, Syd makes out with Lucy in the bedroom. Greta rouses herself long enough to notice the attention Lucy is paying to Syd, dismissing her as a “psycho-phant.”

Sheedy herself famously had her own struggles with drugs and because of them had stopped working for a time. The monologue she has in which Lucy explains to Syd how she “fucked up” seems very real. Sheedy’s face is seemingly naked of not just of makeup but of flesh, the point of her chin and cheekbones stretching her pale skin, leaving circles under her eyes. She’s startlingly thin (not merely very slender, as she was in the mid to late 80s, which in turn was a slimming down from her more full-faced look in the early 80s) in the fashion of a lot of downtown types (and junkies): her shoulder blades under thin t-shirts and tank tops are so prominent they seem ready to sprout wings.

One of Lucy's photos of Syd
One of Lucy’s photos of Syd

Sheedy also has great chemistry not just with Mitchell (who was fresh from playing another queer woman in her native Australia in the light-to-the-point-of-complete-forgettability Love and Other Catastrophes) but also with Clarkson (in the film role where critics first took notice of her). In spite of Greta often being on the verge of nodding off, she is still luscious and playful in her black lingerie and long, blonde hair partially piled on her head, like a vintage Brigitte Bardot gone awry. The film’s treatment of women’s sexuality is a nice contrast to the lesbian-bed-death clichés (and anti-chemistry) of Julianne Moore and Annette Bening in Cholodenko’s more recent The Kids Are All Right.

Cholodenko made a couple of spot-on, very funny shorts about queer women before High Art, so I was disappointed with the “tragic lesbian” turn the film takes at the end–both when I first saw the film in 1998 and rewatching it now. In a way tragedy seems like an easy out–and rings less true than the gradual relationship burnout experienced by the main gay couple  also impacted by drug addiction) in Ira Sach’s excellent, autobiographical Keep The Lights On. Substance abuse in the queer community is perhaps a more pressing issue than we think it is: I wonder about the “coincidence” of two of the most closely observed, relatively recent films about drug addiction and art both made by openly queer writer-directors. But artist careers ebb and flow for reasons that are more complicated than a drug overdose: shortly after her run as the newly crowned queen of indie films, Sheedy played the lead, then walked out of an off-Broadway production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and though she’s still around (you can follow her on Twitter @allysheedy1) she hasn’t starred in many films since.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdRkafIrh_c”]

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Ren Jender is a queer writer-performer/producer putting a film together. Her writing. besides appearing every week on Bitch Flicks, has also been published in The Toast, RH Reality Check, xoJane and the Feminist Wire. You can follow her on Twitter @renjender

 

‘To Be Takei’: Ohhh Myyy

Jennifer M. Kroot’s documentary ‘To Be Takei’ centers around the life, career, and activism of George Takei, the much beloved ‘Star Trek’ original series veteran helmsman Sulu. The real meat of Takei’s story, though, is his youthful imprisonment in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II and his coming out as a gay man, followed by his gay rights activism.

To Be Takei Poster Horizontal

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.


Jennifer M. Kroot‘s documentary To Be Takei centers around the life, career, and activism of George Takei, the much beloved Star Trek original series veteran helmsman (turned Captain) Hiraku Sulu. The film has a lot for Trekkies in it with its cast interviews: Nichelle Nichols (Black communications officer Nyota Uhura), Walter Koenig (Pavel Chekov with his ridiculous Russian accent), and William Shatner (infamous ham Captain James T. Kirk). The real meat of Takei’s story, though, is his youthful imprisonment in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II and his coming out as a gay man, followed by his gay rights activism.

"The Naked Time": Takei's favorite Star Trek episode

“The Naked Time”: Takei’s all-time favorite Star Trek episode

A pioneer for Asian American representation on television, George Takei is best known for his 1966 role as Star Trek‘s Mr. Sulu aboard the USS Enterprise. Though Takei has had a prolific acting career since, he still attends conventions and speaks with fondness about his Star Trek days. Believing in the “multi-ethnic” cast and boundary-pushing themes of the classic sci-fi series, Takei even confesses that he suggested to show creator Gene Roddenberry that the cast be expanded to include a gay officer. Alas, that didn’t happen, but it’s some consolation that many years later, the Star Trek franchise dealt with questions surrounding sexuality and same-sex marriage and equality, most notably in Deep Space Nine with its character Jadzia Dax.

Mr. Sulu at the helm

To Be Takei payed a great deal of attention to the ongoing feud between George Takei and William Shatner, as I’m sure fans have always been curious about it. The film even suggests that Shatner may be homophobic but never outright says it. Despite the discord between captain and helmsman, we see that Takei has formed life-long friendships with fellow cast members Nichelle Nichols and Walter Koenig who even attend and participate in his wedding to long-time love Brad Altman (now Brad Takei).

The Takei wedding ceremony

The Takei wedding ceremony

Throughout his life, George Takei has always been an activist. Now he spends much of his time at speaking engagements where he educates audiences on his experiences as a Japanese American prisoner of the US internment camps, explaining the harsh conditions and the stripping of rights and humanity that went on at the camps. Takei spent four years of his childhood in internment camps. He’s spent many years fighting for recognition and reparation for survivors. He’s even collaborated on a musical Allegiance that he refers to as his “legacy project,” which details the lives of survivors and life-long trauma caused by internment.

A quote from George Takei's father about his family's internment

A quote from George Takei’s father about his family’s internment used in the play Allegiance

Decades after his most popular film and television role as Mr. Sulu ended, George Takei has managed to become a pop culture icon. He’s become a radio and internet sensation, best known for his wildly popular Facebook page, which at present has nearly 7.5 million fans. Takei wields his online fanbase and notoriety, building and communicating with an activist base, to promote with humor the issues about which he cares. Most notably, Takei is ever more present and vocal about the gay rights movement, in particular, same-sex marriage equality. However, Takei uses his infamous humor to humanize LGBTQI people who are bullied, persecuted, and discriminated against. In fact, one of his most hilarious and impactful uses of social media to spark anti-hate activism, was his “It’s OK to be Takei” campaign:

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRkIWB3HIEs”]

Um…So. Much. Awesome.

To Be Takei also reveals some less shining examples of George Takei’s life. Though director Jennifer M. Kroot refers to George and Brad’s marriage as “charmingly functional-dysfunctional,” it’s safe to say Takei’s marriage may not be the healthiest relationship in the Alpha Quadrant. Not only that, but we see Takei’s unforgiving weightism, wherein he tells fellow Star Trek actor Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher) that he’s got to lose that weight he put on. Takei then mocks his husband Brad’s weight gain over the years, despite Brad’s insistence that he feels “sensitive about it.”

I, like so many others, am still enamored of this ever-rising ex-Star Trek actor. With his deep voiced oh my‘s and his dedication to humor and social progress, it’s hard not to overlook Takei’s faults. In spite of his very human shortcomings, George Takei is an amazingly energetic human being, using his growing fame to create real change in the world.


Read also at Bitch Flicks:

Trill Gender and Sexuality Metaphors in Star Trek


Bitch Flicks writer and editor Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. Her short story “The Woman Who Fell in Love with a Mermaid” was published in Germ Magazine. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.


Seed & Spark: Perspective

As the writer, my voice defines each character. Just as male writers paint masculine (or, worse, stereotypical) versions of the female characters they create, my characters each have a decidedly feminine spin. These are not gun-toting, one-dimensional he-men, but rather strong, masculine, flawed characters with quirks and cracks in their armor. They have no need for the mask of locker-room grandstanding. And a woman is telling their story. Unlike other dark comedies/psychological thrillers, this is a character-based story told from a female perspective.

OWEN BY THE LAKE: Brazilian Wood's Owen Bryant portrayed by Bill Wetherill
OWEN BY THE LAKE: Brazilian Wood’s Owen Bryant portrayed by Bill Wetherill

 

This is a guest post by Kristin LaVanway.

Much has been debated about the limited role that women play in film. Many believe that women’s voices are fewer than their male counterparts because of the limited number of strong female roles that are offered.

I was recently invited to participate in a panel discussion entitled “Leading Ladies are People Too.” This title described several topics related to expanding women’s roles in front of and behind the camera. The initial focus was on creating rich, well-developed roles for women, the lack of which is a large concern for many, given Hollywood’s often shallow female representations.

Kristin LaVanway
Kristin LaVanway

 

But as the discussion continued, I suddenly felt pangs of guilt, the need to apologize—an overwhelming dread that I had sold out my sisterhood.

You see, I am making a decidedly male-centered feature film called Brazilian Wood.

All but one of the main characters is a dude. In my defense, the lone woman in the pack is an awesome bad guy. She is a murderous, conniving, delicious, determined woman who knows what she wants.  Surely that counts for something in the broad landscape of feminism?

I began assessing my mostly masculine cast to identify possible ways to support the sisterhood and bring a larger X-chromosome component into the fold. Happily, I began to realize that those components already existed. Not in the most obvious way —the gender of the characters— but in the manner in which the characters have been developed and in the way their story would be told: by a woman.

These Leading Ladies are the "People Too" Panel at the 2014 Jerome Indie Film & Music Festival
These Leading Ladies are the “People Too” Panel at the 2014 Jerome Indie Film & Music Festival

 

As the writer, my voice defines each character. Just as male writers paint masculine (or, worse, stereotypical) versions of the female characters they create, my characters each have a decidedly feminine spin. These are not gun-toting, one-dimensional he-men, but rather strong, masculine, flawed characters with quirks and cracks in their armor.  They have no need for the mask of locker-room grandstanding. And a woman is telling their story. Unlike other dark comedies/psychological thrillers, this is a character-based story told from a female perspective.

These Leading Ladies are the "People Too" Panel at the 2014 Jerome Indie Film & Music Festival
These Leading Ladies are the “People Too” Panel at the 2014 Jerome Indie Film & Music Festival

 

As a director, I can draw out this untold story. The actors portraying these characters know the back-story. They know the emotional arc these characters will be riding. They are ready to let their emotions show through the cracks, just as strong women do among their trusted friends.  In this way, we can explore the motivations that drive them. We will bring more layers, more depth, and at some level, more estrogen to the audience.

As the editor, I have perhaps the strongest voice of all. I can piece together this multi-layered collection of story, emotion, murder, and mayhem, focusing not on the big splashy action sequences, but on the quiet moments, the nuanced expressions —the “girly” stuff. As the last leg in the storytelling journey, editing has a tremendous impact on the final version of the film. It can completely change the tone, message, and even the plot. That this phase is in my control can have an enormous impact in the portrayal of the characters, bringing a richness to a story that is so often told by simply counting the dead bodies and bowing to the last man standing. Bringing that depth into the frame tells the story from a new perspective.

These Leading Ladies are the "People Too" Panel at the 2014 Jerome Indie Film & Music Festival
These Leading Ladies are the “People Too” Panel at the 2014 Jerome Indie Film & Music Festival

 

I don’t view myself as a feminist filmmaker. I am a chick telling stories. I’m telling the stories I want to tell, from my perspective as a woman. I love an intriguing plot with twists and turns, interesting and relatable characters, and yes, even the obligatory happy ending. Whether the characters are male or female, a great story told by talented actors within a well-produced film is much more interesting to me than a film that takes a stand. As an independent filmmaker, my story can be told my way. And the voice behind the camera, my voice, despite the volume of testosterone in front of the camera, is decidedly feminine.  No need to apologize for that.

 


Originally from the beaches of Southern California, Kristin LaVanway is a writer and director living in Mesa, AZ . She has produced numerous short films, including the award-winning  comedy, “Reply Hazy,” “Try Again” and the award-winning drama, Condundrum. In 2014, she joined forces with actor/filmmaker Bill Wetherill to form Resonant Films. She is currently in crowdfunding mode for Resonant Film’s  first feature, Brazilian Wood on Seed & Spark. She is also working with the AZ Audubon Society to develop a multiple film compilation called “Arizona River Stories.”  Kristin is @Rl8rGal on Twitter.

 

Working My Way Through Feminist Film History: Art and Intimacy in ‘I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing’

This post is inspired by Alison Nastasi’s “50 Essential Feminist Films,” an excellent survey of films that is a kind of resource guide for those of us interested in exploring feminist film history. Though not exhaustive, Nastasi’s list is an exciting place to extend the conversation about the ways that feminist questions and concerns have been depicted in films in and outside of Hollywood in the past several decades. What’s more, this list is also a site for discovering films I didn’t even know to look for.

This post is inspired by Alison Nastasi’s “50 Essential Feminist Films,” an excellent survey of films that is a kind of resource guide for those of us interested in exploring feminist film history.  Though not exhaustive, Nastasi’s list is an exciting place to extend  the conversation about the ways that feminist questions and concerns have been depicted in films in and outside of Hollywood in the past several decades. What’s more, this list is also a site for discovering films I didn’t even know to look for. I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing, which Natasi ranks at #45, is one I might not otherwise have found. I’m so glad that I did.

The Canadian director Patrica Rozema directed this quietly charming film, which stars Sheila McCarthy. McCarthy plays Polly, whose videotaped confession frames the story and immediately establishes our curiosity. What crime could this anxious and seemingly guileless woman have committed? Polly is in her early 30s and enjoys a solitary life filled with frequent bike rides to various spots around Toronto, which she eagerly absorbs in her photography. She develops the pictures in her darkroom, and we see her still images enlarged by her imagination into elaborate fantasies wherein she can fly like a bird, engage in erudite conversation about psychoanalysis, and conduct magnificent symphonies. Although there is something slightly melancholy about her, Polly appears content with the simplicity of her life.

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As she tells the video camera, “It all started” when she begins working as the “Girl Friday” for a curator, Gabrielle. Polly rapturously describes how taken she is with Gabrielle, who Polly exclusively refers to as “the curator.” Gabrielle is sophisticated, confident, and serious. Most of all, she is generous toward Polly, who falls under a spell of childlike adoration. Remarkably, their dynamic is one of mutual respect, even despite their differences. Gabrielle appreciates Polly, and offers her a permanent position. However, Polly is as innocent and naïve as Gabrielle is weary and cautious, and this contrast intensifies when Mary enters the scene. An artist and former lover of Gabrielle’s, Mary is young enough to make Gabrielle feel too old to be with her, and we soon learn that the curator has an inner life that is fraught with insecurity about both aging and art.

ive_heard_the_mermaids_still

On the latter, Polly feels a kinship with Gabrielle, who drunkenly confides to Polly that despite her accomplishments and status, she craves not to “die with her body.” Gabrielle tells Polly that she desires the immortality of creating a beautiful painting that will endure after she is gone.  Polly’s openness and curiosity is a marked contrast to Gabrielle’s self-centeredness, but the intimacy of this scene makes it hard not to sympathize with both characters. When Gabrielle expresses shame around have her paintings rejected for acceptance in a university art course, Polly lovingly asks if Gabrielle will show her a painting.  Gabrielle is flattered by her request, and opens the door to a room with a shining canvas that Polly finds enchanting. Even though Gabrielle and Mary are lovers, it is with Polly that Gabrielle can express her deep yearning to be known as an artist.

At the risk of spoiling this film any further, I’ll just say that what follows is an act that Polly commits with the most heartfelt of intentions but leads to a series of betrayals compelling her to document her account on video in the hopes of sharing the truth. Though not fundamental to enjoying nor understanding the film, it is interesting to revisit the poem from which the title of Rozema’s film is lifted: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Just like T.S. Eliot’s narrator, Polly dares to “disturb the universe.” In so doing, she illustrates the sacrifice inherent in sharing one’s art.

 

 

‘Lyle’ is a Lesbian Take on ‘Rosemary’s Baby’? Yes Please!

My sister and fellow Bitch Flicks contributor, Angelina Rodriguez, and I live tweeted our viewing of ‘Lyle.’ We loved actress Gaby Hoffman’s big, beautiful brows and the gap between her two front teeth (these two traits are strong in our own family). Leah often wears ratty, mismatched pajamas, and very few of the characters have styled hair. Overall, we appreciated how real and unmade-up the film’s stars were.

Lyle movie poster
Lyle movie poster

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.

I was excited to review female-directed (Stewart Thorndike‘s) Lyle, a FREE streaming independent film and a reboot of (pedophile) Roman Polanski’s classic film Rosemary’s Baby. Like Rosemary’s Baby, Lyle stars a pregnant woman who becomes more suspicious and more isolated every day, fearing a conspiracy to harm her unborn child. Unlike Rosemary’s Baby, Lyle‘s lead character Leah (Gaby Hoffman) is a lesbian, and her first-born daughter, Lyle, dies under mysterious circumstances. Though billed as a horror movie (and, in some inexplicable cases, a horror comedy), Lyle is more of a psychological thriller than anything, dissecting the ways in which Leah deals with grief, loss, pregnancy, and motherhood as well as paranoia, aggression, fear, and alienation.

My sister and fellow Bitch Flicks contributor, Angelina Rodriguez, and I live tweeted our viewing of Lyle, using the hashtag #LyleMovie. Aside from being really fun, it also helped us home in on the successes and shortcomings of the film. First of all, we loved actress Gaby Hoffman’s big, beautiful brows and the gap between her two front teeth (these two traits are strong in our own family). Leah often wears ratty, mismatched pajamas, and very few of the characters have styled hair. Overall, we appreciated how real and unmade-up the film’s stars were.

Gaby Hoffman and her furrowed big, beautiful brows.
Gaby Hoffman and her furrowed, glorious brows.

 

The cast of the film is almost entirely made-up of women. Only one primary character is male, and he’s a Black man. I can’t tell you how refreshing it is for this jaded feminist reviewer to see a cast comprised of groups that media traditionally under-represents!

The downside of a ratio like this, though, is that all Leah’s persecutors (real and imagined) are other women. Most notably, her partner, June, played by Ingrid Jungermann (the creator and star of the lesbian web series F to 7th). Leah and June mostly have a non-affection relationship with little to no physical contact. June is portrayed as an inconsiderate, perhaps murderous partner who may or may not be using Leah. If June is, in fact, using Leah and her baby-making abilities, is June even actually gay, or is that part of the ruse? I don’t like that I found myself questioning the veracity of a character’s sexuality, and it seemed that Lyle encouraged this suspicion.

June & Leah's fleeting intimacy
June and Leah’s fleeting moment of intimacy

 

The film also may have been advancing a weird, regressive perspective on motherhood, as even the poster declares, “A mother should protect her child.” Leah does little other than exist as a pregnant woman. Her identity outside of her status as “mother” is largely unknown to us. Lyle seemed to be seeking to normalize lesbianism through the notion of the nuclear family. For instance, the couple moves into a fancy apartment to accommodate their expanding family. Leah stays at home while June works late hours, and June is constantly gaslighting her pregnant partner. It’s all very traditional and falls within the existing heteronormative paradigm.

A pregnant Leah runs down the street, begging for help
A pregnant Leah runs down the street, begging for help

 

On the positive side, we have a self-advocating heroine who is intelligent, clever, and stands up for herself. She never gives into those who seek to erase her fears and her accusations of foul play. Leah is strong and self-preserving (while protecting her unborn child) until the end. Having a hugely pregnant heroine with bushy hair and eyebrows is a beautiful thing. Having the climactic final showdown take place in the birthing room is also seriously badass. Though I didn’t love the implications that could be read into some of the themes in Lyle, it’s moving in the right direction. This is a free, independent horror film starring lesbians that doesn’t seek to exploit their sexuality for the male gaze. It’s very existence is a triumph. Plus, it’s fun to watch.


Bitch Flicks writer and editor Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. Her short story “The Woman Who Fell in Love with a Mermaid” was published in Germ Magazine. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.

Turning Poison into Medicine: ‘On and Off the Res w/Charlie Hill’

Normally, I would now insert a trailer, but this small independent documentary from Upstream Productions has no trailer or clips to share. It has an IMDB listing, but there is barely any information on it. To find anything out about Oneida Nation member Charlie Hill or this documentary, you have to search. Not only that, you have to know in advance what you are searching for. That puts you, kind reader, at a serious disadvantage if you didn’t even know Native Americans still exist, much less participate in the stand-up comedy circuit.

Charlie Hill is the most well-known Native American stand-up comedian that you’ve never heard of because his mainstream appearances on The Tonight Show and Richard Pryor’s TV show happened back in the 70s and 80s. He was a ground-breaking comic, the first American Indian on The Tonight Show, and considered by many contemporary Native comics to be the “godfather” of Native stand-up. On and Off the Res w/Charlie Hill (1999) is a one-hour documentary that uses humor to challenge the racism about Native peoples that is so pervasive in America, while also sharing the biography and story of Hill’s life and rise as a stand-up comic.

Normally, I would now insert a trailer, but this small independent documentary from Upstream Productions has no trailer or clips to share. It has an IMDB listing, but there is barely any information on it. To find anything out about Oneida Nation member Charlie Hill or this documentary, you have to search. Not only that, you have to know in advance what you are searching for. That puts you, kind reader, at a serious disadvantage if you didn’t even know Native Americans still exist, much less participate in the stand-up comedy circuit. This absence of information, the silence about real, living, Native peoples perpetuated by the American entertainment industry is indicative not only of American mainstream racism, but also of our shared ignorance. We don’t know, so when we are confronted by such a comic as Charlie Hill, we don’t know how to react. Surely, not with laughter?

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=545t5SvcyDo”]

Hill’s accessible humor is on display in On and Off the Res, as well as his more serious commentary about stereotypical representations of Native Americans in mainstream American venues. The film includes interviews with his family, Dennis Banks, and Vine Deloria, who says early in the film, “Charlie’s valuable to the Indian community as a person out there on the edge, acting as a bridge between cultures.”

One moment included in this documentary is Hill’s presentation to the National Indian Education Convention in Tacoma, Wash. (1997) where he says,

“But America, it’s not really America, it’s Europe Junior when you really think about it. You know, when they start honoring the treaties and respecting the ladies in this nation, we get rid of sexism and racism, maybe we can call it America. But when you think about the history of this country, it never started ‘til 1492. We were here like billions of years like we was all on hold, like in freeze-frame or somethin’, like we weren’t movin’ (Hill freezes in place on stage), hup, it’s October 12, the white man’s here we better move (Hill starts a powwow chant).”

When Hill talks about his time in Catholic schools and being beaten by nuns, as he says they all were, he says, “We’re all reverberating from that. I learned to convert that into humor. I try to turn poison into medicine.”

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh6eCALFohY”]

As the film shows, many of HIll’s televised appearances were on Canadian TV, which is sad. Here we had this wonderful comic in our midst making us laugh at our own racist tendencies and he wasn’t a fixture on American television. Think about that.

One clip from a Hill set includes one of my favorite Hill jokes that turns racist assumption on its own head. He relates the story of a man who yells out, “I don’t want to hear that crap, Injun, I’m an Amuurican, why don’t you go back where you came from!” Hill pauses for a second and then says, “So I camped in his backyard.”

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOf-3TShBio”]

Vine Deloria explains, “What you do is a quick reverse of whatever the person says to you. You can find that in treaty records. Red Cloud at one point says, why don’t you put us on wheels? Then every time we make a treaty you can wheel us around. You get reports by treaty commissioners, you know these Indians know exactly what we’re after, we can’t deal with them. Gotta have someone else come in because they turned that thing quick. That’s a universal trait that you found all over the continent. Those people negotiating treaties had a sense of humor, a greater sense of irony, like some of the stand-ups, Rickles and others, just slice all day long. So you had that kind of humor Indian chiefs and diplomats used when they were negotiating.”

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK6TKLImrkg”]

Negotiating with the American government or the American people about Native peoples and their sovereignty and right to a non-stereotyped identity has been a challenge for these Nations since Europeans first arrived on these shores, and the challenge continues today. Unfortunately, Charlie Hill’s presence and voice exists now only in the record, for he walked on in Dec. 2013, a great loss to the comedy community and to us. Fortunately, we still have access to Hill’s sharp wit and comedic stylings through this documentary, on the American Indian Comedy Slam DVD, and on YouTube.

Deloria states toward the end of the documentary, “What I’ve tried to do, what Floyd and Charlie have tried to do, is kind of get the flavor of being an Indian in an Indian community out to a larger audience.”

For anyone interested in exploring other Native American stand-up comics, I encourage you to check out the following comedians and challenge your own assumptions through laughter.

Jim Ruel

Anjelah Johnson

JR Redwater

Howie Miller

Charlie Ballard

Marc Yaffee

Vaughn Eaglebear

Larry Omaha

Charlie Hill, Oneida, stand-up comic (1951-2013). You are missed.

 

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Dr. Amanda Morris is an Assistant Professor of Multiethnic Rhetorics at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania with a specialty in Indigenous Rhetorics.

‘Whale Rider’: Women And Children First

Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance, one of the few successful women musicians who made the transition to film composer (she won a Golden Globe for her work on ‘Gladiator’), wrote and performed the music for 2002’s ‘Whale Rider’–and she didn’t have to date writer-director Niki Caro to do so. Gerrard might seem an unlikely choice: when I briefly worked in a women’s sex shop in the 90s, the store owner told me not to play Dead Can Dance on the sound system because they scared away customers. But Gerrard’s score for ‘Rider’ does what the best movie music is supposed to do: reinforcing the drama of the film without calling unnecessary attention to itself.

WhaleRiderCeremony

This post by Ren Jender appears as part of our theme week on Movie Soundtracks.

When I listened to post-punk and New Wave bands as a teenager in the ’80s I never dreamed that members of some of those bands would someday write the scores for successful, mainstream films: Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo composed the music for many movies including Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. Danny Elfman of Oingo Boingo is the composer for Edward ScissorhandsGood Will Hunting and more.  These two men followed a path that Randy Newman–who was a great, satirical songwriter before he became the composer for films like Toy Story–and Henry Mancini, composer of the score for Breakfast at Tiffany’s and The Pink Panther, tread before them. This pipeline has not, historically, been open to women musicians, even though Kate Bush, for example, was popular at the same time Devo and Oingo Boingo were, and during that time put out music that could already pass for the soundtrack to a movie. Although Karen O of The Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs was nominated for an Oscar this year for her work on the movie Her, she also, at one time, dated the film’s director which shouldn’t be a prerequisite for a woman (or anyone else) getting the job.

Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance, one of the few successful women musicians who made the transition to film composer (she won a Golden Globe for her work on Gladiator), wrote and performed the music for 2002’s Whale Rider-and she didn’t have to date writer-director Niki Caro to do so. Gerrard might seem an unlikely choice: when I briefly worked in a women’s sex shop in the 90s, the store owner told me not to play Dead Can Dance on the sound system because they scared away customers. But Gerrard’s score for Rider does what the best movie music is supposed to do: reinforcing the drama of the film without calling unnecessary attention to itself.

Pai and her grandfather
Pai and her grandfather

Whale Rider is an adaptation of the book of the same name by Māori author Witi Ihimaera about an 11-year-old girl (played by Keisha Castle-Hughes with the same confidence and solemnity Quvenzhané Wallis brought to Beasts of The Southern Wild; both girls received well-deserved Oscar nominations) who believes she is destined to become chief of the Māori living in the small community of Whangara, New Zealand, and her conflict with her grandfather, the aging chief, who believes only men can lead.

Pai’s grandfather (Rawiri Paratene) is often cold toward her, seeming to blame her for the death of her twin brother at birth, whom he believed was destined to be the community’s leader. Pai says, “(He) wished in his heart that I’d never been born, but he changed his mind.” In spite of himself, the grandfather sometimes shows great affection for and great pride in his granddaughter, letting her ride with him on his bicycle and telling her the legend about an ancestor (for whom Pai is named) migrating to New Zealand on top of a whale.

whaleriderGrandma
Pai’s grandmother

Although sexism seems entrenched in their traditions (as they are in so many Western ones) the Māori women (played, as all of the nonwhite characters are, by people who are actually Māori) in the film are hardly doormats. When the grandfather is so upset at the loss of his newborn grandson that he barely acknowledges his granddaughter, the grandmother (Vicky Haughton) ignores her husband and coos to the baby girl, “Just say the word and I’ll get a divorce.”

The grandmother’s friends aren’t above teasing and laughing at Pai and are bawdy when they talk to each other. When Pai tells these older women to stop smoking because it will interfere with their reproductive capabilities, the women raise their eyebrows and after she leaves, one retorts, “You’d have to be smoking in a pretty funny place to wreck your childbearing properties.”

Pai is given the chance to stay with her father, a successful artist in Germany, who says of his father (the grandfather) and his hopes that a young male leader will rid the community of the poverty and malaise we see, including casual drug and alcohol abuse, “He’s just looking for something that doesn’t exist anymore.”

Pai agrees to go live with her father, and the shiny, new SUV they ride in as they leave the grandfather’s modest house is a world away from the bicycle the grandfather uses to get around. But when they pass the ocean we hear Gerrard’s distinctive vocals, akin both to whale “singing” and to the traditional Māori chants we hear in the film. Pai, feeling like the whales are calling to her, opts to stay.

Pai passes her grandfather's test
Pai passes her grandfather’s test

While her grandfather starts to train the ragtag group of “first-born sons” in the ancient ways. Pai, with encouragement from her grandmother and some coaching from her uncle, masters songs, dances and weapon training–without letting her grandfather know she is doing so–too. The grandfather throws his carved whale tooth pendant into the ocean from his boat and waits for one of the boys who accompany him to bring it back, but he takes to his bed when none of the boys can pass this final “sword in the stone” test. Pai, later on a boat with her uncle, his drinking buddies and girlfriend, dives to the bottom and retrieves both the pendant and a lobster at the same time.

Gerrard’s ethereal vocal style combined with electronic flourishes make for an unusual soundtrack, but one that meshes with the film’s bracing mixture of mysticism and realism set against the strange and beautiful New Zealand landscape with its high grey cliffs and bright green hills (which audiences might recognize from The Lord of the Rings movies) better than a more traditional soundtrack from John Williams (or Randy Newman) would. When Pai pushes her forehead into the skin of a beached whale, then climbs the clusters of barnacles on its side to steer the animal into the water, the sound of the waves melds with the music and we feel like we are taking off with her.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtZC5OOxoAQ”]

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Ren Jender is a queer writer-performer/producer putting a film together. Her writing. besides appearing every week on Bitch Flicks, has also been published in The Toast, RH Reality Check, xoJane and the Feminist Wire. You can follow her on Twitter @renjender.

Running Away With ‘The Runaways’: Sex, Rock ‘n Roll, and the Female Experience

The music throughout the film deals with the lost and rebellious feelings during coming of age for young women. The movie tells the story of these two individuals and how their lives were affected by fame, but underneath that is the coming of age experience for young girls realizing their power and sexuality within a culture that seeks to suppress them.

The Runaways movie poster
The Runaways movie poster

 

This guest post by Angelina Rodriguez appears as part of our theme week on Movie Soundtracks.

The Runaways, based on Cherie Currie’s autobiography Neon Angel: The Memoir of a Runaway, starring Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart, takes us on an adventure through the early lives of rock legends Joan Jett and Cherie Currie.

The actors bring the characters to life right down to their mannerisms.
The actors bring the characters to life, right down to their mannerisms.

 

The actresses go as far as pretending to be left handed when they are both right handed, playing and performing the songs themselves. These women really gave lively and compelling performances. The Runaways encapsulates life for women during the 1970s. It addresses the overt sexism that the all-girl-rock-band experiences, and the loud rock and roll statement they made by harnessing their sexuality and their aggression. These two tough, street smart kids from broken homes helped to pave the path for female rockers of our time. This film does justice to the music the band made in the best way– with an incredible soundtrack.

The film opens with the young Cherie Currie dripping menstrual blood on the sidewalk to the musical stylings of their idol, Suzi Quatro, with “Wild One.” This sets the tone for the film. She is going to be unapologetic, in your face, and confessional about being a girl. Later, the song “Cherry Bomb,” The Runaways’ most famous hit, talks about Cherie’s blossoming sexuality. Women are often sexualized in the media and within their day-to-day lives, but women actually choosing to be sexual and to enjoy their sexuality is a relatively new and radical notion. The song encourages young women to tap into their own power, angst, and sexuality, regardless of what authority figures have to say about it.

“Hello Daddy, hello Mom
I’m your ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb
Hello world I’m your wild girl
I’m your ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb”

The introduction scenes for each character parallel in an interesting way. We get to know our Cherie as she lip syncs “Lady Grinning Soul.”

Badass. Just sayin.
Badass. Just sayin’.

 

She mimics the movements of this androgynous, iconic male star with precision. She is essentially in drag during this scene. Then we see something similar, as the young Joan Jett lurks around a leather store until she finally buys a jacket. “I want what he’s wearing,” she says and dons what would later become her signature look.

Joan Jett is just not Joan Jett without that leather jacket.
Joan Jett is just not Joan Jett without that leather jacket.

 

The characters are shown, subverting the gender norms in a very obvious way in the start of the film. They are rebels who simply don’t want to play by the rules of their time. “My brother says guys like girls who are soft and flirty,” Joan’s friend explains to her. “That’s because he’s a pussy.” This statement, although the word “pussy” itself is far less than progressive, explains that Joan feels that men that don’t support female empowerment are simply intimidated. “I Wanna Be Where the Boys Are” is the musical embodiment of this feeling. Both of these girls are desperate for the liberty to express their aggression, their rebellion, and their sexuality like their male peers. There are several songs on the soundtrack that deal with gender, among them “Rebel Rebel” by David Bowie and “It’s A Man’s Man’s World” by MC5.

It’s kinda weird how infatuated fans are about two 15-year-olds kissing.
It’s kinda weird how infatuated fans are about two 15-year-olds kissing.

 

During the infamous roller rink kissing scene between Joan and Cherie, the mood is set by one of the sexiest songs on the soundtrack; “I Wanna Be Your Dog” performed by The Stooges is heavy with mood and has the kind of bass line you can feel below the belt. Although this scene was likely added for shock value, it’s empowering to see our characters expressing their sexuality in nontraditional, non-monogamos ways. The characters kiss boys and girls, without any need to really speculate on what that means or what their “true identities” are. Seeing the girls behaving outside the confines of labels and societal expectations is liberating. A lot of the other songs seek to sexually empower women, such as “You Drive Me Wild,” “Queens of Noise,” and “Cherry Bomb.”

However, the result of these young stars and their early rock ‘n’ roll careers was a somewhat downward spiral involving drug use and several underplayed abuses. The rock ‘n’ roll engineer, Kim Fowley (played by Michael Shannon), essentially created the band from thin air.

“That Frankenstein looking motherfucker did it.”
“That Frankenstein-looking motherfucker did it.”

 

There’s an almost meta dynamic inside the film as we observe one of the most important all-girl rock bands being brought together and greatly influenced by a man. His gaze and his expectations directed the music, the dress, and the attitudes of the band. Of course, some of this came naturally. As Cherie explains in one interview,“We didn’t have to push the envelope, we just had to show up and be ourselves.” The film touches on this when Fowley makes Cherie pose for a scandalous photo shoot even though she doesn’t want to, and gains more media attention than the rest of the band.

As the film ends we are shown the beginning of Joan Jett’s extremely successful solo career with her songs, “I Love Rock n Roll,”“Bad Reputation,” and “Crimson and Clover.” The music throughout the film deals with the lost and rebellious feelings during coming of age for young women. The movie tells the story of these two individuals and how their lives were affected by fame, but underneath that is the coming of age experience for young girls realizing their power and sexuality within a culture that seeks to suppress them. This is close to the hearts of many viewers because we have so much progress to make in the world of arts and entertainment for women. As Joan Jett states in an interview for NYDailyNews, “I don’t think much has changed, to tell you the truth. The media says that equality for women has arrived, but if you look around, you still don’t see girls playing guitars and having success with it.”

 


Angelina Rodriguez grew up in West Virginia. She will be attending Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio this fall. She spends her time making art and interning with Literacy Volunteers of Harrison County. 

 

 

Seed & Spark: Inviting Global Celebration of Films #DirectedbyWomen

We are living in an age where there is an explosion of films #DirectedbyWomen. That’s cause for celebration, but an enormous number of women filmmakers are working below the radar or on the fringes of awareness in the global film community. The result? Many film lovers are being left in the dark. They’re missing out on a rich vein of film treasures. Let’s draw films #DirectedbyWomen up into the light, so we can explore and appreciate them. Let’s help the world fall madly in love with and wildly celebrate women filmmakers and their films.

invite 3 option2

This is a guest post by Barbara Ann O’Leary.

We are living in an age where there is an explosion of films #DirectedbyWomen. That’s cause for celebration, but an enormous number of women filmmakers are working below the radar or on the fringes of awareness in the global film community. The result?  Many film lovers are being left in the dark.  They’re missing out on a rich vein of film treasures.  Let’s draw films #DirectedbyWomen up into the light, so we can explore and appreciate them. Let’s help the world fall madly in love with and wildly celebrate women filmmakers and their films.

Go ahead… fall in love!  No need to wait. Any moment is a perfect moment to relish films #DirectedbyWomen, but we want to concentrate that love by bringing the global film community together for a powerful 15-day worldwide film viewing party next year: September 1-15, 2015.  During this intense and exuberant celebration, film lovers will gather together in their communities around the world for film screenings, guest filmmaker visits and other celebrations, focusing attention on and offering appreciation for women filmmakers and their work.

We want to be sure to give everyone plenty of time to plan, so we’re launching this initiative with over a year to prepare. Film lovers/makers – women and men – everywhere are invited to create #DirectedbyWomen film viewing parties in every corner of the world.

There’s so much beautiful work unfolding and so much more ready and eager to burst forth. Let’s embrace films ‪#‎DirectedbyWomen with open arms. Let’s stand ready to receive them. Let’s say YES to the films women are creating. Let’s say “I WANT TO SEE FILMS #DIRECTEDBYWOMEN!” Let’s bring the films into our lives… into our communities… proactively. Let’s watch the films with attention and appreciation. Let’s share our responses to these films with the makers and with each other passionately. Let’s say “THANK YOU!” to the makers. Let’s say, “MORE please!” Let’s open greater opportunities for women filmmakers to create and share their work through the power of celebration and appreciation. Let’s step up to repeat this process.

FOR VIMEO banner 3 option4

I think it’s time for a worldwide film viewing party.  I’m sending out this invitation to you and to every film lover on the planet. Everyone’s invited to co-create a global celebration next year. The only thing required in order for us each to gather with friends next year in September to watch films ‪#‎DirectedbyWomen is our intention to do so, BUT if we want to be able to create a celebration that raises awareness about women filmmakers and their work on a global scale, we need resources to reach as many people as possible, extend invitations, brainstorm event celebration ideas, share information about films #DirectedbyWomen and how to arrange screening rights, coordinate event and venue information, create podcasts, generate Wayfinder Tributes to honor the individuals and groups who pour their energy into supporting women filmmakers, and other actions that will help the celebration flourish everywhere.

We’re thrilled to be offering our crowdfunding campaign on Seed & Spark. Their invitation to include this project on their Independent Film Championing platform signals that major perceptual shifts within the film community are happening now and will continue to unfold rapidly as more filmmakers and film lovers stop up to embrace films #DirectedbyWomen.  Seed & Spark’s innovative approach to crowdfunding, which includes opportunities for supporters to back financially or to provide in kind contributions, makes it a tremendous place to build community and come together to bring this global celebration into being.

It’s exciting to be part of this adventure into deep appreciation and wild celebration of films #DirectedbyWomen. Let’s celebrate!

 


BA-shades

Barbara Ann O’Leary, Indiana University Cinema’s Outreach Specialist, loves to help people engage authentically. Recent projects include: #DirectedbyWomen, a worldwide film viewing part; Every Everything: The Music, Life & Times of Grant Hart (Executive Producer); Indy Film Festival (World Cinema Jury [2014] & Screening Committee [2013]); Indiana Filmmakers Network Made in Bloomington Film Series (Programmer); Bloomington Screenwriting Community (Founder/Facilitator). She’s available to work one to one with people who would like support in making the perceptual shifts that will align them more deeply with their authentic creative core.

 

‘One Cut, One Life’: Love, Death, and Jealousy

First person documentary filmmakers Ed Pincus and Lucia Small are no strangers to letting an audience in on their family “secrets”: Small in ‘My Father, The Genius,’ a film about her own father and their ambivalent relationship, and Pincus in ‘Diaries,’ in which he filmed both his girlfriend and wife in 1970s Cambridge, the latter–in one scene that seems to sum up the post-hippie atmosphere of the time and place–nude and playing a flute.

OneCutLuciaDiner

Artists who use their own lives as the subject matter for their art always have to make a decision about how much revelation is too much. David Rakoff, whom many know from his work on This American Life, wrote frankly and transcendentally about his declining health (including an inability in his last years to use one of his arms) after he was diagnosed with the cancer that would eventually kill him. But Rakoff  didn’t have to worry that his revelations would hurt those closest to him: he lived alone, without a partner or children.

When they reveal “everything,” those artists who are in relationships aren’t just exposing their own lives to the public–they can’t help also exposing intimate details about their loved ones. Author Ayelet Waldman has received criticism for revelations about both about her husband (author Michael Chabon) and her kids in her work. Sex writer and essayist Susie Bright swore off using her personal life as fodder for her work years ago and though she seems to be in a successful decades-long relationship (and sometimes collaborates with her now adult daughter), her writing doesn’t have the same spark as it did earlier in her career.

First person documentary filmmakers Ed Pincus and Lucia Small are no strangers to letting an audience in on their family “secrets”: Small in My Father, The Genius, a film about her own father and their ambivalent relationship, and Pincus in Diaries,  in which he filmed both his girlfriend and wife in 1970s Cambridge, the latter–in one scene that seems to sum up the post-hippie atmosphere of the time and place–nude and playing a flute.

Near the beginning of their excellent documentary One Cut, One Life (which will be shown as part of the Woods Hole Film Festival July 28), Small and Pincus, each seeming to take a turn behind the camera, discuss plans to collaborate on their final film together (they had previously worked on the post-Katrina documentary The Axe In The Attic). Ed has been diagnosed with a fatal disease which would eventually turn into leukemia. Lucia is working through her grief over the deaths of two of her close friends, one from a hit-and-run driver, the other murdered by an ex-boyfriend.

Ed and Lucia
Ed and Lucia

Ed, who is over 70, has other health issues (he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s some years before and speaks slowly and carefully), but they agree that they can probably work around them. The problem is Ed’s wife, Jane, who is adamant that she doesn’t want them to film what might be the last months of his life. We’re so used to wives being a drag on “great” men in film (Pauline Kael referred to this role as the “‘please don’t go up to break the sound barrier tonight, dear’ type”) that we’re ready to think of Jane as the villain until she tells us, “I have enough to deal with in my life right now. My husband has received a death sentence, and I don’t see why I have to give him over to anybody else.”

Jane, who was filmed over five years in Diaries, is familiar with the intrusion a camera is in one’s day-to-day life and has no desire to relive it. She’s also insecure about Ed’s feelings for Lucia.

Ed documented his and Jane’s open marriage in the 70s, but after Diaries was completed they moved to Vermont to run a flower farm. When they made an appearance at a screening of Diaries in the 90s, with matching glasses and grey hair, their arms around each other, they seemed to have become a more conventional couple.

In the 2000s, Ed’s introduction to Lucia reignited his interest in filmmaking (though he still kept the farm). Lucia tells us that she became close to both Ed and Jane (who was a member of the feminist health collective that wrote the original Our Bodies Ourselves) during the making of Axe, but then they, by mutual agreement, distanced themselves when the film was finished. Lucia tells us that aside from a few “flings” she hasn’t been in a relationship in years and that working together for as many hours as a film takes, mixes up her feelings of love and intimacy, though she clarifies that her relationship with Ed is platonic.

Ed Pincus
Ed Pincus

Ed seems less intent on keeping boundaries clear. He tells Lucia he loves her and at one point Jane catches them alone in a situation that sets off alarm bells for her–and like photographers in a war zone, Ed and Lucia immediately pick up their cameras and start shooting the conflict. Whenever we see Lucia talking to the camera, she looks drained; the elements in her life that might distract her from her grief instead serve as reminders. Her big, black dog originally belonged to the woman who was murdered. Her cute New York apartment was the one she shared with the woman who was killed in the hit-and-run. But when Jane looks at Lucia she sees a blonde 25 years younger than she is, whom her husband seems to adore.

Mixed up in all of this drama is Ed’s worsening health. Receiving bad news on camera he simply says, ” Well, that’s sobering.” In stunning cinematography we see the seasons at the farm: fall, winter, spring, summer and then spring again, when a newly cue-ball-bald Ed tells the camera that the doctor had said he probably wouldn’t live past March, so he’s grateful. Ed lived two seasons longer and died this past November. When I saw the film in April as part of the Independent Film Festival of Boston, Small did a poignant Q & A after the screening. One of the first things she told us was Jane had chosen not to attend.

One Cut, One Life Trailer from Lucia Small on Vimeo.

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Ren Jender is a queer writer-performer/producer putting a film together. Her writing besides appearing every week on Bitch Flicks has appeared in The Toast, xoJane and the Feminist Wire. You can follow her on Twitter @renjender.

Facing Down the Devil in ‘The Lesser Blessed’

Dreamlike images of a body immersed in bathwater intermingle with images of fire and shadowy figures running. The camera settles clearly on the deeply scarred back of the young man in the tub as the opening sequence to ‘The Lesser Blessed’ comes to a close and the camera travels across a remote landscape split by a single road.

Dreamlike images of a body immersed in bathwater intermingle with images of fire and shadowy figures running. The camera settles clearly on the deeply scarred back of the young man in the tub as the opening sequence to The Lesser Blessed comes to a close and the camera travels across a remote landscape split by a single road. The narrator, also the protagonist, tells us we are in Fort Simmer, Northwest Territories where “there’s not much to do if you’re not into booze or sports.” Hero and protagonist Larry Sole (Joel Evans), a kid from the Dagrib (Tlicho) First Nation in Canada, “has to face down the devil right in the eyeball before he can set free his romantic heart,” according to director Anita Doran.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdQhOFAxpAQ”]

Based on Richard Van Camp’s (Tlicho) novel of the same name, the dramatic film tells the story of a kid who runs when threatened by a bully, who dreams of a girl who doesn’t love him back, and who quietly lives with his past and his stories until Johnny Beck (Kiowa Gordon) comes to town and suddenly Larry’s past explodes into his present. When Larry tells Jed the story of his tapeworm with complete deadpan delivery, Jed chuckles and says, “Larry Sole, the most interesting thing in this shit town.”

Joel Evans is Larry Sole in The Lesser Blessed

Soon after, Larry’s dream girl, Juliet (Chloe Rose) pays $200 for Jed at a charity slave auction that is raising money for the school dance. Larry closes his eyes and thinks, “I bet she would have paid more.”

Chloe Rose plays Juliet Hope in The Lesser Blessed

 

The devil that Larry must face is the story of why he burned his dad. After Larry punches his tormenter, Darcy McManus (Adam Butcher), at a party, Darcy tells everyone at school that Larry set his father on fire. The entire school shuns him and Larry must face his past, his truth, his story. No matter how painful, Larry must confront his truth. When his mother’s boyfriend, Jed (Benjamin Bratt) finds him in the wilderness, Larry says, “We both burned to death that night. Except I’m still alive.”

Benjamin Bratt plays Jed in The Lesser Blessed

This story is as much about compassion for self as it is for reconciling the past. Larry’s journey is moving and relatable for anyone who has suffered a traumatic experience, especially sexual abuse, and found a way to survive it. On the surface, the friendship and love triangle of three teenagers is as serious and angst-filled as any teen movie, but The Lesser Blessed offers something more. It offers the viewer a glimpse at redemption on a very human level.

The Canadian Film Review spotlighted this film in 2013, interviewing the cast and Richard Van Camp, and providing some insights about the making of the picture:

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNtgsT5JjPk”]

Winner of the Best Picture and Best Lead Actor at the Red Nation Film Festival, winner of the Best Supporting Actor at the American Indian Film Festival, and an Official Selection for the Native Cinema Showcase at the National Museum of the American Indian, The Lesser Blessed would be an excellent addition to any classroom discussing film, contemporary Native peoples, sexual abuse, or teenage experiences. The film handles its serious subject matter with honesty and lyricism; it is poignant and a joy to watch.

The Lesser Blessed is available to stream on Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, and Vudu.

 

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Dr. Amanda Morris is an Assistant Professor of Multiethnic Rhetorics at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania with a specialty in Indigenous Rhetorics.

 

 

 

Seed & Spark: What Is a Woman’s Story, Anyway?

Nothing has made me more appreciative of my upbringing than the Verizon spot that’s gone viral in the past few weeks, about all the little micro-aggressions that bully women into a societally accepted mold, away from the common interests that all kids share like building and dinosaurs. The spot made me wonder about other ways this belittling behavior has affected women, especially in the way it affects the kind of films women want to watch—and make.

This is a guest post by Elle Schneider.

Blade Runner has been my favorite film since a sleepover in sixth grade, and I have 200 Star Wars figures and thousands of Marvel cards stashed away in in my childhood closet (in protective cases, obviously, what kind of barbarian do you take me for?).

Source: my closet
Source: my closet

 

It was Wes Craven’s Nightmare on Elm Street that made me realize I could make a film by splattering blood on some friends, and James Bond became my directing aspiration. And as far as I knew, this made me just like any other girl growing up in the 80s and 90s.

Nothing has made me more appreciative of my upbringing than the Verizon spot that’s gone viral in the past few weeks, about all the little micro-aggressions that bully women into a societally accepted mold, away from the common interests that all kids share like building and dinosaurs. The spot made me wonder about other ways this belittling behavior has affected women, especially in the way it affects the kind of films women want to watch—and make.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/XP3cyRRAfX0″]

What if you grew up hearing, “Isn’t this movie a little too scary for girls?”

We worry rightly about girls having heroes to look up to and there is an undeniable need for gender parity in onscreen protagonists. But why must we designate girl heroes for girls, and boy heroes for boys? What’s wrong with a character like Indiana Jones being a hero for both boys and girls? Because it teaches girls to be adventurous? And why, as an industry, are we so massively afraid of letting a woman make a film like Raiders of the Lost Ark?

We tell boys that they should tell any story they want—whether it’s their own struggle or Indiana Jones’ struggle. We laud men who adapt Austen, or make a great biopic about a female heroine like Hawaiian Princess Ka’iulani, as my friend Marc Forby fought for nearly ten years to do. At Cannes 2012, when no women appeared in Competition, filmmakers like Michael Haneke and Jacques Audiard were praised for making great films about “powerful” female characters. The question was raised: does it really matter how many women are represented as directors so long as stories about women are being told?

Sharon Waxman of The Wrap held court at a panel at the American Pavilion that year to discuss the issue of gender at Cannes, and I raised my own question: how can we help the women who want to work in genre films? Her response was one I’ve often heard from women disinterested in genre: “Women shouldn’t feel like they have to make the movies that men make.”

But what if that’s what I want to make? And why is that a bad thing? What if I want to make the same kind of film that excited me as a child, just like Gareth Edwards, Ryan Coogler, Rian Johnson, or any other male filmmaker has had the opportunity to do?

My first film, made in summer 2001. It was a ripoff of EVIL DEAD about kids getting mixed up with the supernatural after finding a tarot card deck in a shack in the woods, and starred Margaret Thomas, Josh Fairchild, Jaya Saxena, Lily Harden, and a young Matt McGorry, who has gotten a better agent in the last 13 years.
My first film, made in summer 2001. It was a ripoff of EVIL DEAD about kids getting mixed up with the supernatural after finding a tarot card deck in a shack in the woods, and starred Margaret Thomas, Josh Fairchild, Jaya Saxena, Lily Harden, and a young Matt McGorry, who has gotten a better agent in the last 13 years.

 

When women filmmakers get that rare chance to make a film, we’re usually encouraged to use the opportunity to focus on a “woman’s story” with a “strong female protagonist,” as if a female filmmaker’s first duty is to social issues rather than storytelling or forging a career. But what the hell is a woman’s story, anyway?

Try as society might, women are not one homogenous group; women are not a hive-minded audience solely interested in stories that reflect a single shared experience. Ticket sales show that women make up 50 percent of the theatrical box office, despite the low number of female protagonists on screen, and that’s because women are not myopic viewers. On the contrary, women see men and women as people; men see men as people and women as women. Unlike male viewers, a woman’s story really could be anybody’s story, if only we were encouraged to tell anybody’s story.

I recently had a conversation with a group of women filmmakers who were insistent that men and women are just different kinds of storytellers—women are just naturally more “grounded” and “realistic” in their characters and settings, and that’s why women can’t get work in the testosterone-driven studio system. Studio films are male-power fantasies anyway; one participant mentioned that average white guys are constantly writing action movies, imaging themselves as Ethan Hunt, when they look nothing like Ethan Hunt. Women don’t project fantasies like that; we write what’s real.

Except that’s not true. As the National Science Foundation study cited in the Verizon spot, 66 percent of fourth grade girls express an interest in science. Many young girls I knew growing up were writing amateur versions of Lord of the Rings, as George Lucas and James Cameron did on their path to making Star Wars and Avatar. These were personal fantasies, stories where we played out our day-to-day dramas, angst, and adolescent ideas about the world through the avatars of fictional characters and settings. As a 12-year-old, this was natural. But as a 28-eight year-old? Why bother writing what you know you can’t afford?

As Lexi Alexander succinctly put it: “What do we say to a 12-year-old girl who watches Star Trek for the first time and says: ‘I want to make movies like that.’ Do we say: ‘Yeah, try to reduce your vision to something that’s crowdfundable, you’re a girl after all’?”

The reality is we do say that, as a society, if not in so many words. Women’s stories do tend to be “small” and “personal” because we’re taught to pare down from the get go, to trim our own wings before we can fly. Women are taught to expect limited resources, to envision the world through the scope of our often purposely sheltered life experience. Women are not taught to ask for more, and worse, are not taught that asking is even an option. Women’s stories are the stories of those without a voice.

It’s a myth that women are inherently unable to envision or execute large scope or genre-driven projects, a myth that too many women buy into themselves. That myth is what keeps women from being studio contenders, as Indiewire blog The Playlist recently illustrated in their article 10 Indie Directors Who Might Be The Next Generation Of Blockbuster Filmmakers.” The article features 10 eligible white, male heirs to the throne of Hollywood—because the (male) writers at Playlist can’t envision even someone as accomplished as Debra Granik—whose Winter’s Bone launched the career of blockbuster and Reddit darling Jennifer Lawrence, and whose Vietnam vet doc Stray Dog just won the LA Film Festival—successfully helming a big-budget feature.

The Playlist’s top pics for the future of Hollywood. Such white. Many scruff. Wow.
The Playlist’s top pics for the future of Hollywood. Such white. Many scruff. Wow.

 

Granik has more than proved her chops as a storyteller, and she’s done it by with compelling, award-winning portraits about strong men and women. Brit Marling, Lexi Alexander, and countless others have done the same. When do we get to see their takes on Star Wars, whose best installment was written by a woman, Leigh Bracket, back in in 1979? That’s the kind of woman’s story I want to see.

 


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Elle Schneider is a writer and director of the genre persuasion. Award-winning graduate of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, she was the cinematographer of SXSW Film Festival selections I AM DIVINE and THAT GUY DICK MILLER, and is a co-developer of the Digital Bolex cinema camera. She is raising production funds for her action comedy HEADSHOTS this month on Seed&Spark. You can find her on the twitters @elleschneider, and she is deeply sorry to have exceeded 1,000 words.