Drama – Page 2 – Bitch Flicks

Stanley Tucci’s ‘Final Portrait’: What about the Women?

‘Final Portrait’ is entertaining, fun in parts, silly, and a bit melancholy. It is also deeply, inescapably misogynist, so lost in being impressed with male genius that it forgets that women are even human. Giacometti, it is suggested, hates women. And yet, by never properly addressing his hatred and his fear, so, it seems, does this film.

Guest post written by Laura Witz.

The Guardian gives writer/director Stanley Tucci’s Final Portrait four stars, missing out on the fifth simply due to a lack of action. The Hollywood Reporter dubs it “a narrative with little consistent forward momentum and an anticlimactic ending, though the film remains agreeable thanks largely to Rush’s flavorful performance.” Little White Lies considers it too “French” for some, but notes that “while hardly a masterpiece itself, Final Portrait is exceptionally warm company.”

Yet, as I sat in the UK premiere of Final Portrait at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, I have to admit that it was not warmth I felt, but anger. There is no doubt, as all of these reviews note, that Geoffrey Rush is wonderful and Armie Hammer, while a little less so, is still quite good. But it is the film’s dismissal of women as either silly, dowdy, or dangerous, that allows it to slowly sink in that Final Portrait’s creators have seemingly internalized the misogyny of its subjects.

The film is a chamber piece about the artist Alberto Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush). It revolves around his creation of his “final portrait” — a title that rather gives away the ending. The portrait is of young writer, James Lord (Armie Hammer); the film is an adaptation of Lord’s memoir. Lord is originally told the portrait will take just one afternoon, but this stretches out for weeks as Giacometti misses the deadline and Lord delays multiple flights due to an awkward combination of politeness and vanity.

The set up for the film is a nice one and it creates a good basis for comedy, and indeed, it is in the comedy that Final Portrait does itself proud. However, what left me with a chill was the way the narrative turned the moment it included a woman. Giacometti has a wife and he frequents a sex worker, the latter of whom he makes no secret of.

The female characters are primarily kept out of the comedy and saved for the moments when the film takes a darker turn. Annette, the wife, played sympathetically by Sylvie Testud, provides the only relatively rounded woman/female character in the narrative. Annette is interesting, but not well enough drawn for us to understand her motivations for staying with a man who is borderline abusive. The scene in which it is implied that she is indulging in consolatory extramarital sex sits uncomfortably, a kind of narrative attempt to let Giacometti off the hook for his behavior. There is little reasoning for this and no further mention. Quite simply, the narrative, like Giacometti, is not interested in Annette.

Caroline (Clémence Poésy), a sex worker, is a nerd boy’s wet dream. She is sweet, girly and energetic to the point of irritating; she dances on screen and covers Giacometti’s eyes, calling him, cutely, “the old gray one,” and willfully dismissing Lord from the modeling chair. But, importantly, she is a sex worker, so Caroline’s entire job is presumably designed to make smug, aging, insecure men feel good about themselves. Yet by never showing us past this persona, the film itself buys into it, indulging in the non-threat of this child-like woman. At one point Caroline goes missing, and we wonder if we might be about to see more to her character, but then she turns up rained on and cute; her return to Giacometti is played like the end of a rom-com.

Amidst all of this, there is a baffling scene, played for laughs, where the wealthy Giacometti (who will give his wife no money) gives Caroline’s pimps more money than they ask for. In this, we are to forget that this is four men bargaining over the body of a woman and simply enjoy the concept of paying too much to greedy men. This is one of a number of scenes dropped in, seeming out of joint with the film at large. Another more disturbing scene involves Giacometti drunkenly searching the town for a replacement for Caroline. The camera shakily presents Giacometti’s perspective of the sex workers: cold, unforgiving and, most damningly, not Caroline. In this, they are the aggressors, and the drunken man looking to pay for a night of comfort is their victim.

Finally, following this scene, back in the studio Giacometti asks a baffled Lord if he has ever fantasized about raping and murdering two women. Lord looks surprised, and a little amused. Giacometti comments that when he was a child he found such fantasies comforting. And this scene, passed by without a second glance or any additional commentary, sums up the careless misogyny of the film.

Final Portrait is entertaining, fun in parts, silly, and a bit melancholy. It is also deeply, inescapably misogynist, so lost in being impressed with male genius that it forgets that women are even human. Giacometti, it is suggested, hates women. And yet, by never properly addressing his hatred and his fear, so, it seems, does this film.

Laura Witz is an editor and writer of plays and stories living and working in the UK. She has written plays that have performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Jane Austen Festival in Bath and her articles and stories have been published in a number of institutions and publications, a few of which can be found on her blog. Witz hopes to one day become an aerial clown. You can follow her on Twitter @Charlotte_Prod.

Post-Feminist Rom-Coms and the Existing Female in ‘Trainwreck’ and ‘Legally Blonde’

In the post-feminist romantic comedy, female characters transition from being non-existent objects, into existing, as subjects, in the course of love. … In ‘Trainwreck,’ Amy begins the film as a subject, but ends as an object. Amy’s opposition becomes submission to male desires, for a man, which erases her. In ‘Legally Blonde,’ Elle begins as object, but ends the film as subject. Initially, the gaze of the camera and the characters objectify Elle’s body. But eventually, Elle demonstrates her worth and success outside of male desires and ultimately finds love.

This guest post is written by Claire White.

In cinema, female characters do not exist (as subjects), especially in the course of finding love. Looking at the origins of feminist film theory, it is easy to establish why the idea of the non-existent female in cinema is present. However, when female heroines are the main protagonist, the female oscillates between existing and being erased. I will convey this oscillation of existence through the analysis of two post-feminist romantic comedies, Trainwreck and Legally Blonde, in which the female protagonist ultimately finds love.

In the case of Trainwreck (directed by Judd Apatow, 2015), the lead character, Amy (Amy Schumer), exists as love subject at the beginning of the film. However, by the film’s end, Amy erases herself by submitting to male desires, becoming the love object, in order to ultimately find love. On the other hand, in Legally Blonde (directed by Robert Luketic, 2001), Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) does not exist at the beginning of the film, due to her characterization as a typical dumb, rich, and spoiled blonde who is portrayed as object. Nonetheless, it is how her character develops and reacts to male criticism which legitimizes her, and in the end she finds, proving that in the post-feminist romantic comedy, the female can exist and find love.

The concept of the non-existent female character in cinema has been prevalent as far back as the 1970s, as highlighted in the works of key feminist film theorists Claire Johnston and Laura Mulvey. In her 1974 essay “Myths of Women in the Cinema,” Johnston contends in cinema, “woman as woman is largely absent” (Johnston 1974, 410). Johnston examines the sexist ideology of the male-dominated cinema, and discusses the woman as a myth (1974, 410). Women in cinema exist under fixed iconography, only ever as erotic myth or stereotype, with no variety, whereas men play various different roles (Johnston 1974, 408). Laura Mulvey’s 1975 essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” discusses the “male gaze,” which remains a prominent concept in contemporary film criticism. The Male Gaze is understood as men in the cinema being the active holders of the gaze, which is imposed onto the women as passive bearers of “the look” (Mulvey 1975, 418). The Male Gaze “projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly” (Mulvey 1975, 418). These critiques arise out of the recognition of the cinema being male-dominated, meaning male directors were the ones portraying women as object, and inflicting their gaze.

Claire Mortimer recognizes, while the romantic comedy is thought of as a woman’s genre, “the romantic comedy heroine is almost always the construct resulting from the work of men, due to the patriarchal nature of the film industry” (Mortimer 2010, 20). Applying Johnston and Mulvey’s theory in the cinematic love story, the woman does not exist outside of a sexualized and erotic or love object, not love subject. Over twenty years after Mulvey’s essay, Jane M. Ussher discusses the Male Gaze in film and art, and describes the woman appearing “as a creature to be worshiped or an object to be denigrated; her very essence is irrevocably linked to sexuality in all its myriad forms” (Ussher 1997, 84). This is a testament to the weight of Mulvey’s argument, and demonstrates over time that women as object in cinema endures.

I assert that Trainwreck and Legally Blonde fall under the term of “post-feminist.” Yvonne Tasker and Diane Negra, in the introduction of their edited book Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture, describe post-feminism as an ideology which “broadly encompasses a set of assumptions, widely disseminated within popular media forms, having to do with the ‘pastness’ of feminism, whether that supposed pastness is merely noted, mourned, or celebrated” (Tasker & Negra 2007, 2). Post-feminism acknowledges the work of feminism as over, and exists through the idea of gender equality having been achieved, allowing young women to feel empowered through sexual acts and consumption.

The post-feminist romantic comedy presents what Negra and Tasker describe as “a limited vision of gender equality as both achieved and yet still unsatisfying” (Tasker & Negra 2007, 2). Trainwreck and Legally Blonde both portray empowered and successful women, living in post-feminist success, yet also highlight the gaps and unsatisfactory nature of the post-feminist society. The two concerns post-feminist culture emphasizes, which are most relevant to these films, are the “educational and professional opportunities for women” and “physical and particularly sexual empowerment” (Tasker & Negra 2007, 2).

In the contemporary romantic comedy, Mortimer describes the female heroines as those who “work hard and play hard, seemingly living the post-feminist dream” (Mortimer 2010, 30). This is the site of the female character’s existence, through empowerment and agency. However, as Mortimer further explains, in the romantic comedy love story, “at a decisive point in the narrative, [the female heroine’s] values are overturned and they can no longer find happiness in their former lifestyle” (Mortimer 2010, 30). The contemporary romantic comedy heroine will make “significant sacrifices for a traditional heterosexual partnership; she embraces the romantic dream and is whisked off her feet by the right guy, having realised that love conquers all” (Mortimer 2010, 30). This is what happens to Amy in Trainwreck, which ultimately erases her as a character of existence.

Trainwreck tells the story of party girl and journalist Amy Townsend (Amy Schumer, who also wrote the screenplay). She lives in New York City, and is assigned to write an article on sports surgeon Dr. Aaron Conners (Bill Hader). The two pursue a relationship, the main tensions of the relationship coming from Aaron’s eventual unacceptance of Amy’s wild, weed-smoking, excessive drinking, and emotionally distant ways.

In an introductory voice-over, Amy describes her life with her “great job,” “sick” apartment, and “awesome” friends and family, all while the audience are shown images of Amy sleeping with various men. Amy is a successful protagonist without being tied down to one monogamous relationship; she embodies Angela McRobbie’s description of the new, young post-feminist woman who “brazenly enjoy their sexuality without fear of the sexual double standards” (McRobbie 2007, 38). Even when Amy enters her relationship with Aaron, she remains existing while finding love by sticking to her own principles, regardless of male desire. This is seen predominantly in the scene where Amy first sees the Knicks City Dancers perform.

In the scene where Amy and Aaron attend a basketball event together, editing and framing positions Amy as a female character who exists. This is due to her obvious opposition to the male desire Aaron and the male characters around her exhibit during a performance by the cheerleading group, the Knicks City Dancers. After the camera reveals the scantily-clad dancers beginning their routine in a long shot, the film cuts to a medium shot of Amy and Aaron in the crowd, watching. The camera frames both of the characters into a two shot and positions them in the center of the frame. Due to the two shot, the difference in opinion on the dancers are given emphasis. Amy looks on with a disgusted expression on her face, while Aaron cheers in support and claps. In the background, male extras dance in enjoyment to the performance, while Amy remains stationary and opposed. She gives a slight shake of the head in disapproval, and the camera cuts back to the performance.

Amy’s refusal to accept the image of woman as erotic spectacle is what validates her as a female character which exists as subject. However, in a post-feminist culture, “whilst it is clear that women are active in resisting the narrow restrictions of the feminine masquerade,” women still do not have the “freedom to decide what being a ‘woman’ means to us” (Ussher 1997, 131). While Amy’s opposition to male desire may be the effect of Schumer’s writing, Apatow, as director, still maintains control over Amy’s character. In discussing how female desire is portrayed by male directors, Geetha Ramanathan stipulates “female desire … is underwritten by a male desire which conflates the image of woman with desire itself” (Ramanathan 2006, 141). This underwriting is apparent in the final sequence of the film.

In the final scene of the film, and in an effort to truly find love, Amy erases herself by performing as a cheerleader for Aaron. Trainwreck follows Roberta Garrett’s description of the new romantic comedy tradition, in which “the [female] central protagonists modify their behaviour in accordance with the desires of the [male] other” (Garrett 2007, 101). As Amy dances with the Knicks City Dancers, she is dressed in the same revealing costume as the dancers in a short skirt and plunging neckline, which is not unusual for Amy’s character. However, by wearing a cheerleader costume and not her usual clothes, and dancing in the center of the performance, Amy has shifted in character from flaunting her sexuality for her own empowerment, to submitting to male (Aaron’s) desires. A medium shot cut to Aaron as he watches the performance positions him in the center of the frame, surrounded by empty chairs. This performance is for him, and him alone, and his obvious enjoyment is indicated by the astonished expression and smile on his face. This performance is regressive from Amy’s earlier opposition to the dancers, and represents what Garrett describes as the “patriarchal desire to return to pre-feminist conceptions of sexual difference” (Garrett 2007, 99). In the course of finding love for the post-feminist, their “pursuit of ‘personal’ happiness [is] understood in relation to men,” as their professional success and financial stability is no longer enough (Garret 2007, 94). As shown in the diegesis, Amy has changed significantly since she last spoke to Aaron, while he has not changed at all. To finally achieve love, as cemented by the kiss which ends the film, Amy has had to completely change herself to fit male desire, and, as a result, erases herself into the love object.

In Legally Blonde, the shift from real to not real in the pursuit of love for the female protagonist works in reverse. The film tells the story of Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon), a Californian Sorority President who goes to study at Harvard Law School to chase her college boyfriend, Warner Huntington III (Matthew Davis) after what she thought would be a proposal resulted in Warner dumping her for being too “blond.”

In the first half of the film, Elle is a female character who does not exist, as she embodies ditzy blonde stereotypes and, as a result, most characters expect little of her outside of being a trophy wife. Where Trainwreck‘s Amy flaunts her sexuality for personal empowerment, Elle uses it specifically to appeal to men. Indeed, Carol M. Dole describes Elle’s Harvard admissions tape as her “employing her sexuality … featuring herself in a bikini” (2008, 62). Elle is a character who is “unashamed to employ the spectacle of her adorned body to gain her ends,” which is common for post-feminists (Dole 2008, 67). Legally Blonde begins in the classical romantic comedy tradition, “[exhibiting] a structural drive towards marriage and coupledom” (Garret, 2007, 96). For the first half of the film, Elle’s main character drive is to be proposed to. However, as a romantic comedy made in the post-feminist society, when Elle’s attitudes shift, the limits of post-feminism is critiqued.

The scene where Elle is misled into believing a Harvard party is a costume party by Vivian (Selma Blair), pinpoints the moment in which the character of Elle switches from non-existent to existing. The scene begins with a close-up on Elle’s high-heeled shoes which pans slowly up her body, revealing her tight, pink bunny costume. The camera remains behind Elle as she walks up to the door of the party, allowing the emphasis to remain on her body and behind, which is situated in the center of the frame. As Elle walks into the party and realizes Vivian lied to her about the costumes, the camera remains in a medium shot. This use of camera ensures Elle’s body and tight, sexualized costume of silky corset and tights is always in frame. Elle is positioned as another ditzy, sexualized blonde, evident in her easily being manipulated and her choice of costume. However, when she talks to Warner, who suddenly pays attention to her and reaches out to grab her hips, despite having ignored her up until now within the diegesis, a shift in framing and camera angles occur. When Warner insult’s Elle’s intelligence, she steps back and the camera cuts to a close-up, which zooms slowly towards her face. This camera movement removes the objectifying gaze, and emphasizes her outraged expression as she realizes Warner and her fellow classmates will never take her seriously, despite being smart enough to get accepted into Harvard Law School, just like anyone else.

It is in this way Legally Blonde points out the limits of post-feminism. Post-feminism purports feminism’s work is done, and espouses empowerment through sexualization. However, what Legally Blonde does here is “[warn] women viewers that extremes of femininity” that is, flaunting her sexualized body, “can be socially unacceptable” and damaging (Dole 2008, 68). Elle realizes she is more than the beauty she has been conditioned to believe is the most important part about her. It is from this point onward that Elle’s character is validated and becomes a real person, and becomes subject, outside of erotic spectacle.

The final scene of Legally Blonde proves female characters can exist and find love in the cinema, as Elle does. This scene is set “two years later” after Elle wins her first big murder trial, indicated by a title card at the bottom of the screen. Elle has been announced as class speaker at her graduation from law school, having earned the love and respect from her fellow students. Eleanor Hersey pays particular attention to the role the public speech plays in contemporary romantic comedies. She argues a public speech “reminds women that they are not going to find all their fulfilment in men” (Hersey 2007, 152). Elle’s anger from Warner is channeled into her studying, and upon graduation, she has succeeded. Legally Blonde shifts post-feminist empowerment from sexuality to education (Hersey 2007, 156).

During Elle’s speech, the camera cuts to high angle shots of the ensemble characters in the audience, watching her. As the camera views Vivian, who was originally Elle’s opposition due to being Warner’s fiancée, she now smiles up at Elle and a caption along the bottom of the screen reveals Vivian “dumped” Warner and is now best friends with Elle. Similarly, when the camera cuts to the character Emmett (Luke Wilson), captions reveal he and Elle have been dating for two years, and he is going to propose to Elle that night. Elle has been able to find and attain love, not only in the form of a proposal but also in friendship. Elle’s love story has come full circle from the proposal-that-never-was with Warner, to Emmett, who loves Elle for her mind (Hersey 2007, 156). She was able to prove herself outside of stereotypes, and ultimately find love, despite her existence as subject.

In the post-feminist romantic comedy, female characters transition from being non-existent objects, into existing, as subjects, in the course of love. However, as argued, this transition can go either way. In Trainwreck, Amy begins the film as a subject, but ends as an object. Amy’s opposition becomes submission to male desires, for a man, which erases her. Legally Blonde, however, works opposite: Elle begins as object, but ends the film as subject. Initially, the gaze of the camera and the characters objectify Elle’s body. But eventually, Elle demonstrates her worth and success outside of male desires and ultimately finds love.

Bibliography:

Dole, C M 2008, ‘The Return of Pink: Legally Blonde, third-wave feminism, and having it all’, in Ferris, S, Young, M (eds.), Chick Flicks: Contemporary Women at the Movies, Routledge, London and New York, pp 58-78

Garret, R 2007, ‘Romantic Comedy and Female Spectatorship’, Postmodern Chick Flicks: the return of the women’s film’, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, pp 92-125

Hersey, E 2007, ‘Love and Microphones: Romantic Comedy Heroines as Public Speakers’, Journal of Popular Film and Television, vol. 34, no. 4, pp 149-158

Johnston, C 1974, ‘Myths of Women in the Cinema’ as printed in Kay, K and Peary, G (eds.) 1977, Women and the Cinema: A Critical Anthology, E. P Dutton, New York, pp 407-411

McRobbie, A 2007, ‘Postfeminism and Popular Culture: Bridget Jones and the New Gender Regime’ in Negra, D, Tasker, Y (eds.) Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture, Duke University Press, USA, pp 27-39

Mortimer, C 2010, ‘The Heroine of the Romantic Comedy’, Romantic Comedy, Taylor and Francis, Hoboken, pp 20-44

Mulvey, L 1975, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ as printed in Kay, K and Peary, G (eds.), 1977, Women and the Cinema: A Critical Anthology, E. P Dutton, New York, pp 412-428

Negra, D, Tasker, Y 2007, ‘Introduction: Feminist Politics and Postfeminist Culture’ in Negra, D, Tasker, Y (eds.), Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture, Duke University Press, USA, pp 1-26

Ramanathan, G 2006, ‘Desire and Female Subjectivity’, Feminist Auteurs: Reading Women’s Films, Wallflower Press, London, pp 141-167

Ussher, J M 1997, ‘The Masculine Gaze: Framing ‘Woman’ in Art and Film,’ Fantasies of Femininity: Reframing the Boundaries of Sex’, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, pp 84-142

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Trainwreck‘s Unexpected Dose of the Feels

Raunchy and Unfiltered, Amy Schumer Talks about Trainwreck at the Apple Store

The Feminist’s Box Office Call of Duty

Watch Me Shine: Legally Blonde and My Path to Girl Power

Claire White is a Screen & Cultural Studies and Media & Communications graduate, bookseller, and production intern based in Melbourne, Australia. She is founder and writer of the all-female stage and screen blog Cause a Cine. You can follow her on Twitter @clairencew.

Concerning the Confusingly Named ‘Love & Friendship’ (Jane Austen’s ‘Lady Susan’)

Whit Stillman’s adaptation celebrates this power. Taking the text off the page necessarily removes it from the female form in which it is written and therefore extends the realm of female power. … Jane Austen is one of the most, if not the most, famous female authors in the world. Yet, over the course of a series of progressively shittier adaptations… a great comedian and social satirist has been pigeonholed as a romance writer.

This guest post written by Laura Witz is an edited version of an article that originally appeared at Witzster. It is cross-posted with permission.

Whit Stillman’s Love & Friendship follows the narrative of Jane Austen’s novella Lady Susan rather neatly and although many reviews seem to be, often ignorantly, telling us that this is Austen with teeth or some such, what I don’t think they realize is that Austen already has teeth. The film is great, but it is great because it is so faithful to tone.

Austen probably wrote Lady Susan when she was about eighteen (although it wasn’t published until long after her death in 1871), already aware that her hyper intelligence may not stand her in good stead as a woman, but long before the much sadder points in her life, when she was also to fantasize about being able to intellectually and physically subject herself to the whim of the man intended to be her superior (Mansfield Park).

Where in Mansfield Park the Lady Susan character (Mary Crawford) is sidelined and punished, in Lady Susan, she is celebrated. I once read that Lady Susan is a fantasy of female power in a world where, legally speaking, women had none. This power is in the most part manifested in the original text by the fact that the story is told through letters, a medium really only upper class women engaged in, and since the women control the letter form, they do in fact control the boundaries of this reality. Whenever men get involved, their letters are short and stilted and ineffective. I would argue that, to a degree, this reality is also an idealized version of a very real subculture that did exist.

Stillman’s adaptation celebrates this power. Taking the text off the page necessarily removes it from the female form in which it is written and therefore extends the realm of female power. The men in the film are useless and defunct, from the wonderfully silly Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett) (my new crush), to the priggish and apparently clever Reginald DeCourcy (Xavier Samuel) and in particular to the “very handsome” Mr. Manwaring (Lochlann O’Mearáin) who, although he appears in several scenes, has no lines, not one.

As in the original text, this is a battle between two women, Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale) and her sister-in-law Catherine Vernon (Emma Greenwell). Catherine has her mother (Jemma Redgrave) in her court and Lady Susan has her friend Alicia (Chloë Sevigny) in hers. Throughout the film, these two vie for power, over Catherine’s brother, Reginald, over Lady Susan’s daughter, Frederica (Morfydd Clark), and arguably over a position as matriarch of the family.

The film is great and so are the actors. Tom Bennett as Sir James Martin made me cry with laughter. And the ending, in particular, is very interesting. The original text finishes with Austen getting slightly bored and making fun of her own narrative form. Stillman’s adaptation sticks very closely to the spirit of the text, ignoring the potentially problematic tone of the final passage, which is arguably written in the voice of Catherine Vernon anyway. And most importantly, this film has steered clear of any attempt to romanticize the story.

As most people who know me know, I have an ax to grind where it comes to Jane Austen and I’ve been grinding it for the better part of the last seven years. Jane Austen is one of the most, if not the most, famous female authors in the world. Yet, over the course of a series of progressively shittier adaptations made by people who in some cases don’t even seem to have read the source text (Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice), a great comedian and social satirist has been pigeonholed as a romance writer. Now there’s nothing wrong with romance, I very much enjoy a good rom-com (and quite frequently a very crap one). But the fact is that this genre has been sidelined as one that is trivial and silly ever since Austen herself wrote and idle upper class young women got kicks from reading saucy French novels.

Of course if you actually look at Austen’s works, only Pride and Prejudice can reasonably be described as a romance and that romance is running alongside a lot of social commentary and out and out comedy. In particular, look at Sense and Sensibility, where Elinor marries Edward the bland (a far cry from Hugh Grant / Dan Stevens) and Marianne gets Brandon the old. As a rom-com alone, Sense and Sensibility fails since the major love affair of the text remains unfulfilled.

Dickens wrote romances into every book, but nobody refers to him as a romance writer. The name Allan Woodcourt – or I suppose Woodcourt – hasn’t been adopted as a catch-all for everything women desire and everything that is irritating about the romance genre (Bleak House, in case you’re wondering). Because Dickens doesn’t represent a threat because he is a man and therefore it’s okay for him to be a writer and we don’t need to undermine and diminish him.

So what if we make Austen adaptations that don’t conform to that stereotype? What if we write fan fiction that doesn’t include shit fantasies about pseudo-romances with a misunderstanding of Mr. Darcy? What if someone decides to adapt texts Austen wrote that do not conform to this? What kind of writer do we call her then? And that’s where Love & Friendship comes in. It might not seem groundbreaking that there is yet another period drama out there getting some attention and some critical acclaim, but trust me, this film is rocking my fucking world.

And Whit, if you’re reading this, I have an adaptation of the actual Love & Friendship that we can start work on any day. Although the title might be a problem.

‘The Girl Down Loch Änzi’ and Our Slippery Relationship with Ghosts

‘The Girl Down Loch Änzi,’ which had its North American premiere at the 2017 Hot Docs film festival, is a ghost story. Laura lives on a Swiss farm that borders the fabled Änziloch – a deep ravine that, legend has it, is home to the ghost of a woman cast out from the village several centuries before, and either left to die or imprisoned below. …An unusually stylish documentary, with beautifully-composed shots and scenes that play out with a feature film’s attention to blocking…

Written by Katherine Murray.

The Girl Down Loch Änzi, which had its North American premiere at the 2017 Hot Docs film festival, is a ghost story. The film’s central character, Laura, lives on a Swiss farm that borders the fabled Änziloch – a deep ravine that, legend has it, is home to the ghost of a woman cast out from the village several centuries before, and either left to die or imprisoned below. As the film goes on though, there is a gathering sense that its real subject is the women who disappear, or leave, or are cast out in general for reasons that can’t be spoken.

Most of the film’s action focuses on a summer that Laura spends on the farm and one week in particular that she spends with a village boy, Thom. Their conversation often turns to the ghost of the Änziloch; they speculate about what this woman did to deserve being trapped in the ravine. In the version of the legend Laura is familiar with, the woman got into a fight with her father and accidentally killed him, at which point she either jumped, or was thrown by a storm or by God, into the ravine. Some of the neighbors speculate that the woman was pregnant as well but, as Laura says, everyone has their own version of the story, and it’s hard to say what is the truth.

The farm itself is a site of conflicting narratives, some of which are unsettling. The buildings have fallen into disrepair and the animals live in what used to be Laura’s family home, meaning that, when she takes Thom on a tour, they walk down a hallway and open what looks like a bedroom door to a room full of birds who are viciously trying to mate with each other. The flapping and screeching that follows is either funny or disquieting or, maybe more accurately, both. Similarly, there’s a very long sequence near the start of the film – gruesome enough that Hot Docs posted a warning for incoming viewers – where one of the rabbits that lives on the farm, whom Laura was petting a few minutes before, is killed and butchered in front of her. Her request to keep the rabbit’s fur begins a very conflicted subplot about the small pleasures she’s able to find and protect for herself.

That’s not to say that Laura seems unhappy on the farm – just that the overall depiction of farm-life isn’t especially light-hearted. There is a darkness to the lens writer/director Alice Schmid turns on this story that often hovers around the edges, unspoken and just out of sight.

The same oblique sense of darkness came out in the Q&A after the screening I attended, in which Schmid explained that another character in the film, an elderly nun who was rumored to have gone into the Änziloch before joining the convent, wouldn’t say on camera why she’d left. In a similar vein, Schmid, who left Switzerland as a young woman and didn’t return until she was an accomplished filmmaker in her 60s, described her homecoming by saying, “I was surprised. Everyone was glad to see me. No one asked why I left. You don’t talk about these things.”

There is a persistent sense in The Girl Down Loch Änzi that the ghost of the Änziloch is made of these very same things.

The other interesting tension in the film, which also came up during the Q&A, is its complex relationship with factuality. Every documentary has to make some kind of peace with the idea that it isn’t possible to show the world exactly as it is. By filming a thing, by observing it, by cutting the footage together to tell a story, you’re always imposing a perspective on the events and, usually, you influence what happens. The filmmakers working on The Girl Down Loch Änzi influenced events a lot.

One of the most important details is that Thom, the boy who comes to work on the farm for a week, has come mostly in response to a casting call. As Schmid – who readily and openly describes the film as partly fiction – explained during the Q&A, she was looking for a character who could serve as a surrogate for the audience, as an outsider, and also offer up a worldview that was different from Laura’s, so that Laura would have someone interesting to talk to. Although there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that approach, it’s worth noting that the film, by itself, makes it appear that Thom is there just by coincidence. It also develops a narrative that’s slightly unflattering to Thom, in which he and Laura have a budding romance that he then abandons. It’s hard to know whether he or Laura would have been interested in each other at all if they weren’t making a movie.

Similarly, it’s hard to know whether Laura’s parents would have let her trek into the Änziloch alone – which she eventually does – if she hadn’t had a film crew watching over her.

The Girl Down Loch Änzi is an unusually stylish documentary, with beautifully-composed shots and scenes that play out with a feature film’s attention to blocking and, as soon as you start to reverse-engineer how it was made, you realize that it involves a lot of staging. That’s not good or bad, but it does mean that, on the spectrum between objective observation and straight-up fiction that all documentaries occupy, the film occupies a space close to reality TV shows. It’s not fake, and there’s certainly some element of truth that gives us insight into human behavior – but it’s also not a reflection of how the characters would have behaved if there wasn’t a camera crew following them.

It might be best to view the film as a collaboration between Schmid and Laura – who became friends after filming a previous documentary together – in which they craft a story that’s meaningful to both of them, but isn’t what literally happened. Kind of like the legend of the ghost.

Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies, TV and video games on her blog.

‘The Fits’ and the Complicated Choreography of Adolescence

Director Anna Rose Holmer… described her film as portraying “adolescence as choreography.” I personally cannot think of a more apt way to describe the delicate movements one takes throughout the teenage years. One yearns to step into the spotlight and embrace one’s individuality while also fearing the consequences of doing so. It’s a delicate balancing act, wanting to be your own person while also wanting to fit in with everyone else.

This guest post written by Lee Jutton originally appeared at Medium and appears here as part of our theme week on Women Directors. It is cross-posted with permission.

I saw The Fits at a screening at the Museum of Modern Art that was followed by a Q&A with director Anna Rose Holmer, who described her film as portraying “adolescence as choreography.” I personally cannot think of a more apt way to describe the delicate movements one takes throughout the teenage years. One yearns to step into the spotlight and embrace one’s individuality while also fearing the consequences of doing so. It’s a delicate balancing act, wanting to be your own person while also wanting to fit in with everyone else. Just one misstep can ripple throughout one’s adolescence, leading to bullying and ostracizing. Once you’re an adult, you can look back and almost laugh at these things, many of which, in hindsight, seem so little as to barely be memorable; but at the time, these decisions are so massive that they can occupy your entire mind.

The Fits chronicles one girl’s journey to find herself both as an individual and as a part of a group. It’s a unique take on a timeless story, infusing the usual coming-of-age drama with a hearty splash of magical realism. Here, the choreography of adolescence is both figurative and literal. Eleven-year-old Toni, played by newcomer Royalty Hightower, is a quintessential tomboy who spends most of her time at a Cincinnati community center training as a boxer alongside her supportive older brother, Jermaine. One day, Toni finds herself drawn to the award-winning drill dance team that practices in the same building. The team, known as the Lionesses, are a tight-knit clique who barely notice Toni lugging her gym bag as they stream by her in the hall, giggling and glittering. After Jermaine catches Toni dancing around on her own, he encourages her to try out for the team, and despite a hilariously awkward first attempt at the team’s signature clap back call choreography, Toni is accepted as one of the newest Lionesses. However, it becomes clear it will take more than memorizing a few steps for Toni to fit in.

At one of her first rehearsals, Toni witnesses one of the Lionesses’ captains collapse with what appears to be a bout of seizures. Not too long afterward, a similar attack strikes down the team’s other captain. Soon, these episodes of hysteria, dubbed “the fits,” take the girls by storm. They start with the older, more experienced girls, but they gradually make their way down the hierarchy to the youngest and newest recruits. The community’s inability to explain why the episodes keep happening, compounded with the unpredictable way they occur, builds tension in the way of the best horror movies; after all, how can one not be terrified when it appears one doesn’t have control over one’s own body? Yet eventually the fits start to be seen less like a scary sickness and more like a desirable way to mark one’s progression into womanhood. Once one has had the fits, one has something to relate to the rest of the girls about; one truly feels like part of the team.

Having the fits bears a striking similarity to how so many girls feel about starting to menstruate; you’re afraid of it happening, this mysterious and morbid signifier of womanhood, but once it starts happening to everyone else, you can’t help but wonder when it will be your turn. (And, when it still doesn’t happen, if there’s something wrong with you.) At first, Toni is grateful to be spared from the fits, finding them frightening, but eventually, she starts to grow anxious about not having experienced this strange rite of passage. Already a girl of few words, Toni silently listens to her newfound friends gossip together about their own unique experiences with the fits — each attack different and yet somehow the same — while she is deemed unworthy of inclusion in the conversation. As one friend snaps at Toni, “You don’t know anything about it.” Toni grows increasingly distant from her old world of the boxing gym as she devotes more and more hours to perfecting the Lionesses’ choreography, yet because she has not experienced the fits, she remains on the outside of her new world looking in, a face peeking out from behind the backstage curtain. She’s stuck in the middle, with no clear place to belong.

In the absence of the fits, Toni tries to fit in in other ways, incorporating more feminine details into her appearance. However, in the end these are all uncomfortably rejected by her. When a friend applies a temporary tattoo to Toni’s arm, she peels it off; when her nails are painted with gold glitter polish, she picks away at it until the flecks litter the floor of the boxing gym. She even goes as far as to pierce her own ears in the community center bathroom, but eventually removes the sparkling studs, citing infection. In these small ways, Toni maintains some small part of her individuality in a world that values the team over the individual; she’s trying to fit in, but her willingness to do so will only go so far.

Hightower carries The Fits on her remarkably muscular shoulders. Reliant almost entirely on movement and expression, as opposed to dialogue, her performance is remarkably natural and her struggle to fit in relatable. When one learns that Hightower is in fact an experienced dancer who has been a member of the team portraying the Lionesses since she was small, as Holmer told us during the Q&A session, one is even more in awe of the evolution she manages to portray onscreen. I was someone who was incapable of sticking to the choreography growing up, both in my childhood dances classes and in my actual life. In some ways, I was proud of my ability to march to my own oddball tune, but in many others, I longed to know what it was like to be just one of the smiling girls in the line, never missing a beat. Watching Toni walk this tightrope in The Fits hit home for me in a way that very few movies about girlhood ever do.

Lee Jutton has directed short films starring a killer toaster, a killer Christmas tree, and a not-killer leopard. She previously reviewed new DVD and theatrical releases as a staff writer for Just Press Play and currently reviews television shows as a staff writer for TV Fanatic. You can follow her on Medium for more film reviews and on Twitter for an excessive amount of opinions on German soccer.

Women-Directed Films at the Asian American Showcase

The lineup included The Tiger Hunter, (directed by Lena Khan)… Light (directed by Lenora Lee and Tatsu Aoki), and Finding Kukan (directed by Robin Lung). … Depictions of stories that are absent from an experience that is generally thought to be collective is definitely the point of film festivals like the Asian American Showcase. The film offerings this year illuminated the immigrant experience as an American one. At the same time, the breadth of the experiences represented, while hardly a cohesive or even complete picture, offered nuanced views of stories never heard in textbook discussions…

This guest post written by Josephine Maria Yanasak-Leszczynski appears as part of our theme week on Women Directors.

The Asian American Showcase is a series of films by Asian Americans or about the Asian American experience alongside an art exhibition. It features a wide variety of films from many viewpoints. Sponsored by the Foundation for Asian American Independent Media (FAAIM), this year’s Showcase, which took place March 31st to April 12th in Chicago, featured mostly women-directed films, plus the Sundance Film Festival audience favorite, Gook, and the timely documentary on Japanese internment camps in the U.S., Resistance at Tule Lake. The lineup included The Tiger Hunter, (directed by Lena Khan), Motherland (directed by Ramona S. Diaz), Wexford Plaza (directed by Joyce Wong), Light (directed by Lenora Lee and Tatsu Aoki), and Finding Kukan (directed by Robin Lung).

Light is an artistic interpretation of the beginning of immigrant Bessie M. Lee’s life in America. It melds dance interpretations, poetry, re-enactments, and historical documentation against the backdrop of Aoki’s innovative sound and musical design. While laboring under her master’s oppressive demands, Bessie is told girls like her are a “dime a dozen.” It was an insult that rang true; something too many women have been told, especially while labor was being extorted from them. In this case, an immigrant seemingly without connections in a new country, Bessie, like so many women before her, was working hard while being told she was worthless, as if she should be grateful for her abusive circumstances.

Lenora Lee has created several works about Chinese migrant women and their lives after coming to the United States. In other films, she uses choreography, filmography, and setting to explore the stories of women who were trafficked from China and other women’s lives. Through a combination of projection, fully produced cinema, and live dance performance that references Tai Chi, she expresses narrative emotions as well as historical occurrences. Ultimately, her work elevates and personalizes stories that in a textbook may be a footnote meant to represent the experience of a larger population of people.

Depictions of stories that are absent from an experience that is generally thought to be collective is definitely the point of film festivals like the Asian American Showcase. The film offerings this year illuminated the immigrant experience as an American one. At the same time, the breadth of the experiences represented, while hardly a cohesive or even complete picture, offered nuanced views of stories never heard in textbook discussions of the American experience.

Robin Lung chases in the footsteps of erased Hollywood innovator Li Ling-Ai in Finding Kukan. In 1941, during a war that still in many ways defines the U.S. today, a film produced and funded by an Asian American woman won an Academy Award. Li never received credit for the documentary Kukan, but Lung attempts to discover a copy of the missing story and the full extent of her involvement with the film. Along the way, Lung also attempts to revive interest in the film after a heavily damaged copy is discovered in a basement.

There are several road bumps along the way, and some brick walls. Lung expresses discontent at being unable to prove her theories throughout the documentary. The film becomes as much about her perceptions of what makes a woman a hero, as what made Li a hero. To Lung, she wants to bring to life an active, fearless woman who traveled to China during a war to bravely capture what no one else was showing. At one point, Lung expresses her desire to see Li doing the work alongside the men as an “American” perspective. Yet the film Li has produced shows the women in China supporting the country alongside the men in the way Lung longed for. Adversely, Li lives a cosmopolitan life in New York, tirelessly supporting the film at social events and garnering connections and possible supporters in any way that she can. By the end of the film, Li has taken on the role of a more traditional American producer giving life to a project more meaningful than most in Hollywood could hope for.

Lung is ultimately unsuccessful in garnering American interest in a recovered Kukan. However, after discovering a letter of frustration Li authored to one of her best friends about what would become her book on the lives of her parents, she is reinvigorated and tries a new tact. Traveling to China, Lung brings a videotape of Kukan for a special viewing to a group of historians.

This American film that once inspired interest in a horrifying conflict across the world from the U.S., takes on new importance in the People’s Republic of China. While it depicts a Nationalist China, the film contains views of attacks made by Japan from the ground, something these historians had never before seen. Ultimately, while it seems it will be years before Li receives her full due in American cinematic history, her work has taken on new importance in an unexpected way.

Stories told about the general perception of the American Dream all include some tie to our collective immigrant past (aside from Indigenous peoples). Rarely does a film tell that story while holding onto that past as part of the protagonist’s future. While it struggles with straddling at least two comedic audiences, The Tiger Hunter successfully presents a story about coming to the U.S. without distancing itself from its characters’ cultural background.

After years of chasing the fantasy of his father’s hyper-masculinized role in the lives of his village, Sami (Danny Pudi) attempts to impress the father of Ruby (Karen David), his childhood sweetheart. The intimidating General Iqbal (Iqbal Theba) has decided he will only arrange his daughter in marriage to someone who has become successful in the U.S. Director/co-writer Lena Khan presents a classic romantic comedy with Indian American and Indian Canadian leads. It is a hilarious look at the lengths a man will go to marry the woman of his dreams.

While the film focuses on earning the right to marry a woman, she is conspicuously absent from most of the film. At first this appears to be an oversight, or playing into so many classically male-centered heterosexual romance narratives. Pleasingly, Khan eventually turns this on its head.

After forming farcical friendships with other outcasts who fail at being “professional Americans,” Sami sets up a fake home in his boss’ abode to impress Iqbal, and by extension his daughter, who travels with him. It is when the truth comes to light (due to Sami’s inability to keep up the lie for moral reasons) that the object of his desire hits the audience with the element they may or may not have noticed was missing. “It is me you have to marry,” Ruby points out, in light of the many lies he has told to impress her father. While her father has final say, ultimately Sami and Ruby have to share a marital trust that would last them a lifetime. In the end, it is her opinion that truly matters.

The film leaves a lot of questions about the arrangement unanswered, and while the end of the film is endearing, its ambiguity leaves a lot to be desired as far as clear moral heading. Yet it is undeniable that the final confrontation between Sami and Ruby becomes a twist for the role of women in this particular narrative, whether intentional by its creators or not.

There are many more tales to be told and heard by audiences that are sorely in need of them, whether they’re aware of it or not. This year’s Asian American Showcase offered many impressive narratives told and directed by women.

Josephine Maria Yanasak-Leszczynski is a museum educator by day (and often night), and a freelance writer every other time she manages to make a deadline. She can be found on Twitter @JMYaLes.

Courage, Death, and Love in Dorothy Arzner’s ‘Christopher Strong’

In spite of the ending or what the trailer suggests, ‘Christopher Strong’ doesn’t demonize Cynthia for her ambition and her desires; instead, the film sheds a sympathetic light on her story even as it depicts her pursuit of independence and love as an impossible one within the context of the world she occupies. The story of such a pursuit and the societal pressures attached likely felt familiar to director Dorothy Arzner, writer Zoë Akins, and star Katharine Hepburn — each of whom occupied positions of creative control in the film’s production and led successful careers in an industry still notorious for undervaluing women today.

This guest post written by Taylor Kenkel appears as part of our theme week on Women Directors. | Spoilers ahead.

When Christopher Strong first hit theaters in 1933, the RKO trailer marketed the 12th film directed by Dorothy Arzner as the tale of “…an alluring young modern who feared her own emotions… a woman of the world, bound by love and shame… a society girl defiant of scandal,” and enticed viewers with a call to “See Katharine Hepburn tackle a man’s job — to escape her emotions!”

The trailer is almost laughable, and it does the heroine a disservice by warping her story into one of salaciousness and disgrace. And far from “run[ning] away from the fires within her,” as other promotional materials suggest, the woman at the center of the film shows a unique, if flawed, sort of courage in her pursuit of independence and love — even as society tells her that she simply cannot have both.

That woman is Cynthia Darrington, played by Katharine Hepburn, in her second screen appearance— and she’s an aviatrix who enjoys independence, lives for adventure, and feels no need for romance until she meets Sir Christopher Strong (Colin Clive), a politician and a well-to-do society man who prides himself on his fidelity to his wife and dedication to his family.

The affair ends badly for Cynthia, and on the surface, the film almost reads just as the trailer spins it. But there’s more at play in this story of a woman who dares to reach for far more than what society will allow her to have; a careful reading of Christopher Strong reveals that — in spite of the film’s unsatisfying end — the criticism it levies is not directed at Cynthia herself, but at the world that simply isn’t ready for a woman of her ambition.

Christopher Strong opens on a scavenger hunt party, where the event’s hostess presents rowdy attendees with a new challenge: a woman must bring back a man who has been married for more than five years and has always been faithful to his wife, and a man must find an attractive woman over 21 who can swear she’s never had a love affair. Harry (Ralph Forbes) and Monica (Helen Chandler) both want to win, but neither of them fit the respective requirements — as Monica is younger than 21 and currently engaged in an affair with Harry, who is married to another woman.

Monica notes with delight that her father, Sir Christopher Strong, has never cheated on her mother. As Monica drives off to fetch him back to the party, Harry finds himself in something of an accidental road race as a woman speeds alongside his motorcycle in her automobile. Both narrowly avoid hitting an oncoming truck. When the woman runs over to see if she can help after Harry is thrown from the motorcycle, he laughs and declares, “Not unless you’re over 21 and can raise your right hand and swear you’ve never had a love affair!” She looks at him with raised eyebrows and quips that she can swear to it, then agrees to accompany him back to the party. Once there, everyone’s delighted to find that the woman is none other than the well-known, record-smashing aviatrix Cynthia Darrington. It is then that Christopher and Cynthia meet, and the whole event unintentionally sets in motion their doomed affair.

Cynthia and Christopher’s relationship stays platonic until an evening several weeks later, when he stops by her home to ask for advice on consoling a heartbroken Monica. Cynthia, on her way to a costume party, emerges from her bedroom to greet him while clad in a silver, form-fitting gown meant to evoke the figure of a moth. In spite of attempts to redirect the discussion, their light flirtations grow serious and they acknowledge their growing attraction to one another.

The affair picks up speed from there — and after an air show in Paris, Cynthia meets the Strong family in Cannes. There’s a sexually charged tango, a confessional boat ride, and an attempt to break off the illicit relationship even as the two admit they love each other. Cynthia abandons Strong in order to enter an around-the-world flying contest, but a stroke of fate brings the two together again shortly after she lands in New York City and wins the race. They spend the night together, and Cynthia decides to give up flying and focus her attention on the affair and on Christopher. She soon grows restless and unsatisfied — but just as she decides to return to the air once more, Cynthia finds out she’s pregnant. After being confronted in very different ways by the now married-and-expecting Monica and by Lady Elaine Strong (Billie Burke), Cynthia decides she doesn’t want to break up the Strong family or tarnish her own reputation with the scandal her pregnancy would cause. She chooses instead to commit suicide by ripping off her oxygen mask while breaking the long-sought-after 33,000 feet altitude record, after which her plane plummets to the earth and explodes as it hits the ground.

The film and its tragedy are very much products of the pre-code era, that brief period of time between the advent of talkies in 1929 and the strict enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code in 1934. It’s unlikely the film would have received the green light for production even just two years after it was made — given its depictions of “independent” women, infidelity, divorce, and out-of-wedlock pregnancy — even it if does seem to sufficiently “punish” Hepburn’s character for her actions in the end.

In spite of the ending or what the trailer suggests, Christopher Strong doesn’t demonize Cynthia for her ambition and her desires; instead, the film sheds a sympathetic light on her story even as it depicts her pursuit of independence and love as an impossible one within the context of the world she occupies.

The story of such a pursuit and the societal pressures attached likely felt familiar to Dorothy Arzner, writer Zoë Akins, and Katharine Hepburn — each of whom occupied positions of creative control in the film’s production and led successful careers in an industry still notorious for undervaluing women today. Arzner’s film industry career spanned 1919 to 1943, she was openly lesbian, and the only woman at a major studio to make the directorial jump from silent films to the talkies; Akins was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who wrote everything from plays to poetry to literary criticism; and Hepburn’s image is inextricable from the sort of headstrong characters she played throughout her prolific stage and film career.

That’s not to say the trio’s involvement made Christopher Strong problem-free, or that result isn’t informed and shaped by their respective biases and by the studio system within which they operated. But it is worth noting that, in spite of whatever personal views they might have held, Arzner, Akins, and Hepburn could only continue to find work in Hollywood if their films received studio approval and turned a profit. So much of the subversiveness in this film and others often plays out subtly, in a sort of tug-of-war between the daring and the conventional.

Cynthia Darrington’s initial success and later failure both exemplifies this back-and-forth and mirrors real-world attempts to navigate traditionally male fields while maintaining a sense of power. This is clear from the very beginning, and it’s no accident that the first frames of the film present the title card atop an image of “Boadicea and her Daughters” in the foreground with Big Ben looming behind. On a baser level, it establishes the setting and scene, but, more subtly, it visually and thematically links Cynthia to another woman who sought and gained power in a male-dominated space before meeting a terrible end.

Before she meets that end, Cynthia asserts her independence in the way relatively wealthy, educated, and white women could in the 1930s. She lives alone, enjoys intellectual hobbies, moves effortlessly from jodhpurs and trousers to shimmering costumes and flower-trimmed gowns — and, of course, she pushes both her snazzy roadster and her airplane as fast and far as they’ll go, personifying a sort of recklessness that puts most of the men around her on edge. It’s a recklessness that’s tangled up in her approach to the affair with Strong and to other objects of her desire, and the film reinforces Cynthia’s pursuit of things she can’t have through less-than-subtle visual metaphors: while clad in her moth costume, she is unable to pull her eyes away from the match she struck to light Christopher’s cigarette, and the statue built to commemorate Cynthia after her death is a twin to the figure of Icarus flying too close to the sun.

Women and their desires play a key part in Christopher Strong. Each woman in the film is unique, complicated, and resistant to stereotypes, and their relationships with one another and with the world around them change in unexpected ways. At the beginning of the film, Monica and Elaine exist as opposites: Monica is a “modern” party girl, and Elaine is the self-described “traditionalist” who disapproves of her daughter’s late nights out and of her affair with a married man. When this creates an estrangement between Elaine and her daughter, Monica finds a replacement in her relationship with Cynthia. Their friendship only ends near the end of the film, after Monica finds out about her father’s affair with the pilot she once admired. Now married and pregnant, Monica is more aligned with her mother’s “traditional” values; she sees Cynthia as a threat to familial security, even though her own relationship is the byproduct of an affair not unlike Cynthia’s own.

The deterioration of Monica and Cynthia’s friendship is a near-inversion of the peculiar evolution of the relationship between Elaine and Cynthia. Lady Strong at first views Cynthia with wariness and jealousy, but in the film’s last minutes, she sincerely thanks the woman for her influence on both her husband and her daughter. Elaine speaks in a sort of code indicating that she not only knows about the affair, but that she feels it indirectly caused Christopher to change his attitude about Monica marrying a divorced man — helping the pair avoid “wrecking” their only daughter’s life with disapproval and distance.

While Cynthia and Christopher’s affair indirectly bring the Strong family together, it evolves into a source of tension for Cynthia as she attempts to reconcile her romantic desires with her own sense of independence. And as much as Christopher is drawn to Cynthia for her courage and modernity, he does nearly everything he can along the way to stifle both — and Cynthia spends much of the film resisting his repeated attempts to assert possession and mold their relationship into one that mimics the structure of marriage, usually exemplified in his appeals to her to quit flying. After Christopher begs her to drop out of an around-the-world race, Cynthia fiercely replies, “Oh no, certainly not!” When he asks her to “never take such risks again” during their reunion afterward, Cynthia says, in a line that foreshadows events to come, “I must, and you must let me. Promise you’ll always let me do what I want to do, or we’ll both be terribly unhappy.”

This all changes just minutes later, after their first night together and during one of the film’s more “scandalous” scenes. Cynthia’s arm enters the frame as she reaches to switch on a bedside light, her wrist adorned with a jeweled bracelet Christopher has just given her. “I love my beautiful bracelet, and I’ve never given a button for jewels before,” she says, arm still stretched across the screen, “Now, I’m shackled.” Christopher once again asks her to give up flying, and it’s only after she’s “shackled” in this way that she consents — effectively clipping her own wings in an attempt to fit the structural box of their relationship. She is, at this point, unable to reconcile her feelings and their affair with her sense of independence, and so she decides to commit to the former.

But there’s another piece of jewelry at play in the “shackling” scene: a ring Cynthia wears throughout the film, the meaning of which is diametrically opposed to that of the bracelet. When Christopher takes notice of the ring, Cynthia explains that it’s her family’s crest and motto: “Virtus mortem vincit.” He promptly translates for the viewer: “Courage conquers death”, and Cynthia replies near-instantaneously that while courage conquers death, she does not believe it can conquer love. Curiously enough, “virtus,” the Latin word for “courage” in the motto, also translates to “power.” This seems to indicate that courage and power are inextricable, and combined they conquer death — and that Cynthia believes her “power” can’t conquer love because the two are fundamentally incompatible within the context of their relationship structure.

The “shackling” scene is one of many moments in the film that criticizes marriage or marriage-esque relationships and the gendered assumptions often attached. Such cynicism is a hallmark of Arzner’s work, and it’s apparent throughout Christopher Strong. The film shows us that the treasure hunt rests on a series of harmful assumptions — that convention dictates men always cheat and it’s only the rare one that’s faithful; that women will inevitably desire a “love affair” or marriage even if those institutions offer limited security while stifling their freedom; and those who don’t fit in either box are anomalies to be exhibited. At a party midway through the film, Monica’s aunt (Irene Brown) seems to comment directly on one result of accepting those assumptions when she notes that, “If every wife would only keep her misgivings to herself and her fingers crossed, marriage might sometimes be a success.” In other words: a woman must sacrifice her own agency and independence for a patriarchal conceptualization of marriage, and implicitly love, to “work.”

It’s an idea the film hints at again later on, while Cynthia waits for Christopher in an out-of-the-way restaurant. A man in the lobby recognizes and approaches Cynthia to ask about her flying career, but she tells him she’s given it all up. He laments her decision: “You had the instincts of a pioneer. And you gave all of us courage.” Cynthia dryly replies that she seems to have lost her own courage, in an indication that she equates it to power and to her former independence, and feels her relationship with Christopher required its sacrifice.

Cynthia clearly grapples with the realization that a relationship alone, if defined in those terms, will not fully satisfy her — and, moments after speaking with her admirer in the restaurant, she expresses that dissatisfaction in a powerful monologue:

“I’ve nothing to do all day but wait for you or your telephone calls or your telegrams saying you can’t come,” she tells Christopher, “I only know I want to go up again. I want to break records. I want to train hard and not eat or drink all the time. I want to get up at dawn, I want to smell the field in the morning air, not mind getting oil in my hair and on my hands, and I want to talk to the boys I’ve flown with again.”

But the realization and the attempt to re-claim her independence come too late — as just after her declaration, when she’s at the doctor to receive the all-clear to take to the skies again, she finds out she’s pregnant. When Cynthia later presents the situation to Christopher as a hypothetical one, she’s unsettled by his reply that it would be his duty to marry her if she were pregnant; and while he admits he’s not averse to the idea, he would hate hurting his wife and daughter in the process. When Cynthia says she could manage a life and a child without him, even if doing so would tarnish her reputation, Christopher replies, “Well, I wouldn’t let you.”

The outcomes aren’t ones Cynthia can accept. Abortion is unavailable to her in the context of the film, and a pregnancy out of wedlock would cause a scandal and tarnish her legacy. Even if she did consent to marry Christopher, she doesn’t want to break up the Strong family just when they’ve managed to reconcile — and after the failed attempt to make herself fit the mold of a “traditional” relationship, Cynthia also knows she wouldn’t feel fulfilled by a life defined in those terms. She’s surrounded by undesirable choices, and so she escapes from them the only way she knows how.

Cynthia’s inability to resolve her situation in any way other than permanently removing herself from it reads at first, as the trailer suggests, like an indictment of the character and her actions: she was too recklessly independent in life and in love, and her pursuit of the impossible does not come without consequence. But the last moments of the film aren’t just about Cynthia Darrington, and the spectacle of her death forces the viewer to focus on factors that lead her there. As she pushes her plane higher and higher, the film’s pivotal moments flash in a montage over the altimeter — and we realize the film is not a critique of an ambitious woman herself or of her desires, but of the society that prevents her from obtaining fulfillment and leads her to conclude she has no other option but to tear the oxygen mask from her face and let her plane crash to the ground.

The ending is a far cry from the one that Cynthia deserves, especially since the film suggests her choice is driven by the pressure to prioritize the Strong family’s conventional happiness over her own desires. And while she declares, “Courage can conquer even love,” in her final note to Christopher, the sentiment leaves us with the unsatisfying idea that she has to choose one or the other, and that the expression of her power leads her to such a drastic end.

But as imperfect and disappointing as it is, there is a tragic sort of reasoning behind the self-sacrifice. In Cynthia’s eyes, the decision to end it all while breaking an altitude record everyone thought impossible to break is an not only assertion of power, but one that allows the idea of her courage as an aviatrix to live on after her death.

It’s a faint yet important silver lining, as Cynthia’s ability to inspire the people around her with that courage is clear throughout the film. Monica gushes with admiration the first time she meets Cynthia; the city gives the aviatrix a ticker-tape parade upon her successful flight around the world; a woman asks for Cynthia’s autograph and praises her as a heroine who gave everyone at her school “courage for everything.”

As her plane falls from the sky, we are left with the smallest consolation that Cynthia Darrington will continue to live on as a symbol to others — a beacon of courage and a reminder to keep trying, climbing, flying, even if the sun threatens to burn the feathers from your arms.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Great Kate: A Woman for All Ages

Quote of the Day: Judith Mayne on Dorothy Arzner

Taylor Kenkel is an ex-copy editor who broke up with the newspaper industry after it found out about her affair with the Oxford comma. She’s now a librarian, and spends too much time thinking about 1930s-1940s film, feminism, comics, queer culture, and too many fandoms to even list. You can find her on Twitter @treegeekay, where she tweets about all of those things (and many more) when she should probably be writing instead.

Too Feminine, Too Pretty, and the Gendered Bias in the Critique of Sofia Coppola’s Films

When it comes to the critique of Sofia Coppola, her filmic style is too often described along the lines of being too pretty, too feminine, or as style over substance. … Male directors, however, who exhibit the same attention to style and aesthetics, are not held to this same ideal. … There is a double standard in the way prettiness is regarded in cinema. “Pretty” is for female directors, but for male directors, prettiness isn’t ever uttered, and reverence is received in its place.

This guest post written by Claire White appears as part of our theme week on Women Directors.

It seems somewhat expected to have an article on Sofia Coppola during Women Directors Week. To some, it may even seem unfair, especially since there are so many amazingly talented female directors who do not receive nearly as much, nor enough, recognition. Having not released a film since 2013’s based-on-a-true-story teen crime film The Bing Ring, the fact that she lingers in our minds is a true testament to her artistry and impact as a director. However, while being one of the most discussed women directors, it is hard to think of a female director who is under as much scrutiny as Sofia Coppola. This is especially true when it comes to her signature pretty and feminine filmic style.

When it comes to the critique of Coppola, her filmic style is too often described along the lines of being too pretty, too feminine, or as style over substance. Peter Travers from Rolling Stone enjoys her films yet felt the need to justify why he might enjoy such a feminine film: “With one critic calling it ‘frippery’ and the Internet buzz saying it’s only “for girls and gays,” Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette makes it challenging for a guy to do her a solid.” William Morris writes at The Boston Globe, “As art, the movie [Marie Antoinette] is neither shallow nor profound, just inconsequential.” For The Bling Ring, Ty Burr describes the film as “a beautiful zoo” with characters “beautiful to look at” but feels the film lacks sympathy. Amy Woolsey’s address of this supposed emptiness, published at Bitch Flicks, highlights the gendered nature of such a critique. Male directors, however, who exhibit the same attention to style and aesthetics, are not held to this same ideal. As explored in Rosalind Galt’s book Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image, prettiness in film is not exclusively female or feminine, and is thus unfair to use as a critique against women directors’ films.

With five feature films (The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette, Somewhere, The Bling Ring) and with a sixth, The Beguiled, being released later this year, Sofia Coppola has firmly established herself as a modern-day auteur. All her films are about girls and young women. She emphasizes mood, atmosphere, and slow moving narratives. Her dreamy colors and aesthetics, soft tones, use of soundtracks, and undeniable presence of the female voice have become synonymous with her name.

In his essay, “Off with Hollywood’s Head: Sofia Coppola as Feminine Auteur,” Todd Kennedy addresses the harsh critique on Coppola in the reviews of her films. He postulates:

“…the implication that a unique visual style lacks meaning because it is, essentially, pretty speaks toward the manner in which the critics seem unprepared to evaluate Coppola’s films on her own terms. Choosing to develop her own, feminine film form, she causes critics (and often audiences) not to know what to do with her films…” (2010, 38).

I suppose this is where I mention that Sofia Coppola is the daughter of esteemed 20th-century auteur Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather Trilogy, Apocalypse Now). Her lineage is part of the reason why her films are considered under so much scrutiny (not to mention the fact that women-directed films typically face more scrutiny). When seasoned cinephiles see the Coppola name on a film, I’m sure a soft, atmospheric film about five alienated sisters, or an 80s synth-pop, candy-colored romp at Versailles was not what they were expecting. In effect, Sofia Coppola as a director seems to be viewed as a little girl who was allowed to play with a film camera because of her father’s accomplishments and not necessarily as a talented director, in her own right.

Furthermore, Kennedy argues that “there is an implied, gendered language inherent of the attacks upon Sofia Coppola” (2010, 38). The implication of films being “too feminine,” as if masculinity is the default, is evidence of the sexist, masculine domination and nature of the film industry and film criticism.

Rosalind Galt outlines that prettiness in film has always been a critique, “defined by its apparently obvious worthlessness” (100, 7). But in modern cinema, it is something that is held against gender. Throughout time, film critics regard “pretty” as “merely pretty” and thus as films lacking “depth, seriousness or complexity of meaning” (2011, 6). Compared to other male directors with similar styles, this worthlessness is only ever present in regard to a women director like Sofia Coppola. Wes Anderson has cultivated a unique, decorative style for his films, but unlike Coppola, he is revered for it. Sofia Coppola’s distinctive filmic style has been parodied, but arguably not analyzed and celebrated to the extent of Wes Anderson’s films. Joe Wright’s period dramas are filled with just as much decadence and prettiness as Marie Antoinette, but he is instead praised for it.

There is a double standard in the way prettiness is regarded in cinema. “Pretty” is for female directors, but for male directors, prettiness isn’t ever uttered, and reverence is received in its place.

Let’s compare:

Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation and Damien Chazelle’s La La Land: both beautiful and visually stunning films, both pretty films. Each film was made while the respective directors were young, and both were in the early stages of their career. Both films received critical acclaim.

Sofia Coppola was the third woman (the first woman from the U.S.) to ever be nominated for the Best Director Academy Award for her sophomore feature, which she also wrote. The film received numerous nominations and awards throughout the season, and was nominated further for Best Film, Best Screenplay, and Best Actor at the Academy Awards. Sofia Coppola lost both Best Film and Best Director to the fantasy epic (and male-dominated) Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and instead was awarded Best Screenplay — high praise for her work, but not for the film’s direction and visuals.

In contrast, Damien Chazelle’s third feature film, La La Land, a visual spectacle of music and colors that mimic glorious Technicolor—and so pretty, but almost no one utters the word (although this review does). Chazelle swept through awards season, taking the Best Director award at the Academy Awards, but it never became synonymous with a pretty film. While the film has become divisive amongst film critics, the criticisms tend to focus on its depiction of jazz, the lack of skill in the singing and dancing, the lack of LGBTQ characters, and the film’s “unbearable whiteness.” Its criticisms aren’t coded in gendered language.

Sofia Coppola’s films are regularly accused, of having style over substance, but so does La La Land. Hiding behind the spectacle and the Old Hollywood Musical revival, was an empty story which lacked the emotional impact needed to really pack a punch during the third act. What we saw of aspiring actress Mia Dolan (Emma Stone, who carried the movie) and jazz purist Sebastian only skimmed the surface of what I believe could have been intensely complex characters. We as an audience saw so little of their relationship (a montage worth of love, essentially) that when the two broke apart, the film flatlined until the next musical number. The film is pretty, a love-letter to Hollywood, and Hollywood loves itself. While it won many awards and has received praise from film critics, many critics have denounced or criticized the film, they just haven’t done so in the same gendered way as Sofia Coppola’s films.

With the domination of male directors in the film industry, women too often see themselves represented on-screen through the male lens: Laura Mulvey’s term of the Male Gaze. Through the Male Gaze, women are seen on-screen as static and eroticized objects. In effect, it is rare to see women on-screen outside of the Male Gaze. Sofia Coppola emphasizes the female voice and representing the female experience and girlhood in an array of contexts — yet all quite similar, whether it be the loneliness and isolation of the Lisbon household, of Tokyo or the Palace of Versailles — it’s enlightening to see on-screen. The double standard in film criticism and film awards diminishes the importance and achievements of the female director and the female voice on-screen.

Sofia Coppola’s latest film The Beguiled is set to be released this year with a screening at the Cannes Film Festival. She is one of three women who have been selected to screen for competition at Cannes, a number which remains too low. Set in Civil War-era Virginia at a young women’s school, led by Nicole Kidman and (Coppola-favorite) Kirsten Dunst, the girls and women’s lives are disrupted when a wounded soldier (Colin Farrell) arrives at their house. A thriller, and a remake of the 1971 Western, this film looks to be much darker and less colorful as her previous films, and is a genre-change. While “her approach” on The Beguiled “was different,” Coppola told the Los Angeles Times that she “really wanted to emphasize that lacy, feminine world.” Perhaps this film is her response to previous critiques — that she can do substance and she is here to show it to you. A radical interpretation would be the “vengeful bitches” in the film represent Coppola herself, fighting back against patriarchal society, for a soldier is the very stereotypical depiction of masculinity. The film industry better watch out, Sofia Coppola is not going to take this standing down.

Bibliography:

Kennedy, T 2010, ‘Off With Hollywood’s Head: Sofia Coppola as Feminine Auteur’, Film Criticism, vol 35, issue 1, pp 37-59

Galt, R 2011, Pretty: film and the aesthetic image, Columbia University Press, New York.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Sofia Coppola as Auteur: Historical Femininity and Agency in Marie Antoinette

Sofia Coppola and the Silent Woman

Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette Surprisingly Feminist

The Virgin Suicides: Striking Similarities Between the Lisbon and Romanov Sisters

The Repercussions of Repressing Teenage Girls in Mustang and The Virgin Suicides

Bad Girls and (Not-So)-Guilty Pleasures in The Bling Ring

The Bling Ring: American Emptiness

Othering and Alienation in Lost in Translation

One Woman’s View: Martha Fiennes’ ‘Onegin’

Director Martha Fiennes unlocks this costume classic for a modern audience, deftly allowing the two main characters to take their share of the center stage to tell their stories. While Ralph Fiennes’ Onegin plays a familiar type of romantic male, Liv Tyler’s Tatyana is not often familiar, even in modern love stories. She does not play the martyr, pining for someone she can’t have, but rather takes stock of what she needs in life and makes her choices accordingly, regardless of how others may feel.

This guest post written by Paulette Reynolds appears as part of our theme week on Women Directors. | Spoilers ahead.

“A woman’s film is a movie that places at the center of its universe a female who is trying to deal with the emotional, social, and psychological problems that are specifically connected to the fact that she is a woman.” — Jeanine Basinger

Although film historian Jeanine Basinger was referring to a particular period of films about women in her seminal book, A Woman’s View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women, she was also one of the earliest female film critics to hone in on what are the essential elements of the woman’s film. She defines such a film as “…[Where] women actually take on heroic dimensions, bursting forth from the boundaries of female behavior to become “female heroes”…[as] a woman who defies conventional rules and redefines her life on her own terms…” Published in 1993, many of Basinger’s observations are now just breaking through the cinematic glass ceiling, thanks in part to the recent upsurge in the Women’s Movement. This awareness and celebration of female empowerment is growing across multiple media platforms, as a new generation of women artists add their voices to the demand for equal representation in the entertainment industry.

In the spirit of that celebration, I’d like to include Martha Fiennes to Bitch Flicks‘ list of women directors to honor. Fiennes falls into that category of female film directors who holds a scant résumé of two narrative films and a documentary — Onegin (1999), Indians’ Sacred Spirit (1999) and Chromophobia (2005) — yet deserves a second look, especially for Onegin, her directorial debut.

Onegin is based on the 1833 novel, Eugene Onegin, written by what many consider to be the father of modern Russian literature, Alexander Pushkin. In his celebrated story, he creates a woman of strength and empowerment in Tatyana, the first female hero of Russian literature. Martha Fiennes’ adaptation appears to focus on Eugene Onegin, a bored and aimless Russian aristocrat (portrayed by Ralph Fiennes), who’s forced back to his ancestral roots when his rich uncle dies. He reluctantly takes up residence on his new estate, which include several mansions, villages and serfs. That he is now wealthy beyond imagination — and hence, more powerful — means little to Onegin, who scorns the idle rich (while including himself in his contemptuous worldview).

A chance encounter with a young poet, Vladimir (Toby Stephens), from a neighboring estate makes his stay in the unsophisticated countryside bearable, especially when he meets Tatyana Larina, played by Liv Tyler. Tatyana’s sister, Olga (Lena Headey) and Vladimir are expecting to marry, much to her mother’s annoyance, since she looks forward to both her daughters marrying within their social circle. Onegin, with his worldly experience, can see at once that Olga is rather vain and shallow, and considers her beneath Vladimir’s station, but she suits the young poet’s youthful ego and he eagerly awaits their wedding day. Tatyana however, is not so easily stereotyped, as she is no country girl looking forward to the bridal veil. This serious young woman reads literature, which causes her mother to fear it will warp her feminine sensibilities.

During a small dinner party, Tatyana firmly voices her disagreement with the Russian policy of serfdom, something that Onegin initially shares when he states he will free his serfs and rent them his land to farm. Later, curiosity gets the better of Tatyana and she seeks out Onegin in his library. She asks him if he’ll really free his serfs, and he answers that his idle lifestyle rules out the responsibility of maintaining the land, so he really doesn’t care about the question of serfdom at all. Rather than be offended by his lack of political conscience, Tatyana values his honesty, something that she sees few people display in her small community.

While Tatyana and Olga are like oil and water, one common belief they share is in the romantic ideal of love, and Tatyana wastes no time in falling for the aloof, brooding Onegin. Her lack of experience encourages her to read about love and romance in books and she tries to make sense of why a cosmopolitan man would hang around the rural shade of an empty estate. The viewer is already aware that Onegin cares more than he’s willing to admit, and Tatyana takes a chance and shares her feelings for him in an ink-smudged letter. Once sent however, she notices her inky hands and slowly wipes them on her white nightgown, and as the quiet moonlight falls upon her we can feel her misgivings giving birth.

Tatyana’s mother invites Onegin to her daughter’s naming party and she takes the opportunity to confront him about his silence. Diplomatically, he tells her that any affair they might have would end in ruination for her, due to his dislike of marriage. “Can’t you see where this leads? A declaration, a kiss, a wedding, family, obligation, boredom, adultery.” He sees her feelings as “romantic imaginations” of a young girl that will ripen into something more meaningful for someone else at a later time. She sorrowfully states, “You curse yourself,” and no sooner are the words uttered than everything goes horribly wrong for Onegin. In the next few hours, he will be forced into a fatal duel with Vladimir and flee Russia for a more peaceful isolation.

Six years later, Onegin returns and happens to spy a woman at a ball hosted by his cousin, Russian Crown Prince Nikitin. His eyes and the camera follow this tall, dark-haired woman, who’s scarlet red gown stands out amid a sea of pale dresses and fans. She casually encircles the entire room, proud and confident, as we realize that it’s Tatyana. Onegin asks the Prince who she is, and is astounded to recognize the girl who once gave her heart to him is now Nikitin’s Princess. He asks for the next dance as a pretext to speaking with her, but she gently rebuffs him and walks away. “It’s true,” her husband confides sadly, “She doesn’t like to dance.”

In the days that follow, Onegin feverishly pursues Tatyana with his own letter and declarations of love, but it doesn’t take much to see that this Tatyana is not so easily swayed. Although she married as society expected her to do, she wisely chose a man who could be happy with an independent woman. Prince Nikitin might one day govern a country, but in the matters of marriage and sex Tatyana rules her world with a calm and steady grace. Onegin is finally able to snatch a few moments alone with Tatyana, where he begs her to run away with him. She tearfully informs him that he’s just a bit too late, finding it ironic that he would eagerly aid in her downfall, now that it is he who feels the sharp pains of unrequited love. The mature Tatyana may still care for Onegin, but she refuses to go against her own standards to ease his suffering and her discomfort. She orders him not to see her ever again and walks away, leaving Onegin to wander alone, yet again.

It might be helpful to the Western gaze to keep in mind that on one level Onegin and Tatyana represent twin aspects of the universal “Russian soul” in literature, blazing with passion just below a cool surface. Director Martha Fiennes unlocks this costume classic for a modern audience, deftly allowing the two main characters to take their share of the center stage to tell their stories. While Ralph Fiennes’ Onegin plays a familiar type of romantic male, Liv Tyler’s Tatyana is not often familiar, even in modern love stories. She does not play the martyr, pining for someone she can’t have, but rather takes stock of what she needs in life and makes her choices accordingly, regardless of how others may feel. Tyler’s well-crafted performance brings Puskin’s female hero forever into our consciousness, where she can add her voice to the growing feminine collective.

References:

Jeanine Basinger. A Woman’s View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women 1930–1960 Wesleyan University Press: Middletown, Connecticut | Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. 1993. Print

Paulette Reynolds is the Editor and Publisher of Cine Mata’s Movie Madness film appreciation blog. Film viewing and theory are her passion, but film noir remains her first love. Paulette breathes the rarified Austin, Texas air and can be seen on Twitter @CinesMovieBlog.

The Future of Anime Is Female: ‘Yuri!!! On Ice’s Director Sayo Yamamoto

Thankfully, this hasn’t stopped animator/director Sayo Yamamoto from not only surviving over the past two decades — but thriving. And in style. Like Attack on Titan, Yamamoto’s ‘Yuri!!! On Ice’ has become a breakout hit, and amazingly, it’s only her third time as a series director. … Yamamoto’s success as a woman director shouldn’t be the exception to the rule in the anime industry.

This guest post written by Hannah Collins appears as part of our theme week on Women Directors.

The meteoric global success of Mokoto Shinkai’s feature-length anime, Your Name, coupled with recent news that anime streaming service, Crunchyroll, now has over 1 million subscribers, might lead most to believe that the anime machine is chugging along nicely at the moment. The reality is unfortunately very different for those doing all the hard work to keep that machine churning to meet rabid fan demand. These success stories punctuate a general aura of “doom and gloom” that has hung over the Japanese animation industry for several years now. The workload is unreasonably high, the pay is unreasonably low, and intense pressure to succeed has even proved fatal for some.

Industry legend and beloved grandfather of anime, Hayao Miyazaki, isn’t known for his sunny disposition at the best of times in regards to the future of his trade, made all the more evident by this tweet in 2011. Surprise, surprise — the “end times” for a male-dominated field are apparently signaled by women trying to muscle their way in. Miyazaki wrote:

“They say it’s over for animation in Japan. When we look for new hires only women respond, and I get the feeling that we’re done for. In our last hurrah we borrow from outside staff (i.e. outsource), but soon we won’t be able to do that forever.”

Considering his championing of strong-willed, independent heroines throughout his body of work, this statement was all the more disheartening. Working in such a toxic environment is tough enough, but for Japan’s female population, who still earn up to 30% less than their male counterparts (60% less for working mothers) and are now even labeled as symptoms of its stagnation by male industry leaders, the odds are doubly stacked against them to survive.

Thankfully, this hasn’t stopped animator/director Sayo Yamamoto from not only surviving over the past two decades — but thriving. And in style. Like Attack on Titan, Yamamoto’s Yuri!!! On Ice has become a breakout hit, and amazingly, it’s only her third time as a series director. For those who’ve only dipped their toe into the weird and wonderful world of “Japanimation,” her name might not ring any bells, but the shows and films she’s worked on prior to Yuri!!! On Ice most likely will. Beginning with CLAMP’s “X” in 2001, Yamamoto has storyboarded and/or directed episodes of some of the most popular shows of the past decade, including Space Dandy, Psycho-Pass, Highschool of the Dead, Gunslinger Girl, Eureka Seven, Death Note, Ergo Proxy and Attack On Titan, as well as films Redline and Neon Genesis Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance.

In 2004, she got her first big break as a director, helming several episodes of Samurai Champloo under the tutelage of the legendary Shinichiro Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop), an experience that would prove to be hugely influential on her. In the screencaps below, you can see her playful experiments with different styles developing through her work.

Fast-forward four years, Yamamoto is given her next even bigger break: an opportunity to direct a whole series. This was 2008’s Michiko & Hatchin, an action-packed, crime-caper across a Brazilian-inspired land that saw the young and sheltered, Michiko, team up with the dangerous and sultry, Hana, in search of a missing man from their pasts.

Though the series was sadly financially unsuccessful, it garnered enough praise for Yamamoto to be offered another series in 2012, commemorating the 40th anniversary of Lupin III. Never one to follow expectation, Yamamoto opted to craft an origin story, not around the eponymous gentleman thief, but around his love interest and rival, Fujiko Mine, instead. This became the cult series, The Woman Called Fujiko Mine. Similarly to Michiko & Hatchin, Yamamoto was given full creative freedom, allowing her bold, pop art-inflected visuals and thematic fixations — feminine sensuality, comedy, multiculturalism and complex, queer relationships — to begin to blossom.

Yamamoto’s continuing exploration of eroticism through a female gaze is particularly important within a medium infamous for leering “panty shots” and unwanted groping being normalized and excused as “fan service,” with too many female characters swinging between either hypersexualisation or infantilization. During an AnimeFest panel in 2012, Yamamoto made no secret of what attracted her to Fujiko Mine as a character:

“In almost every chapter or episode [of ‘Lupin’] there were some sort of naked female somewhere in there. I felt that the recent TV series animation was really aimed at kids, made intentionally with kids in mind. So I wanted to go back in history and bring back the original manga, how I felt it was intended to be entertaining to adults. […] When I was growing up watching Fujiko in the original series of ‘Lupin’, I always watched her with anticipation of when she was going to take off her clothes.”

The key word here is “adult.” Sexual content alone is not the problem; it’s the context and tenor of that content. Too often in anime and manga, sexuality and “ecchi” humor fixate on teenage characters with a similarly teenage sensibility. Yamamoto, however, crafts stories about adults for adults, with a suitably mature and artful understanding of the power and mystique of sensuality — both heterosexual and queer.

Considering Yamamoto’s female-focused track record, directing a series like Yuri!!! On Ice — a show about professional male ice skaters — seemed like an odd move. But, despite men taking center-stage, Yamamoto was characteristically careful not to underrepresent women throughout the series. Also, considering the show falls into the shonen-ai or “Boys Love” (BL) genre (stories about queer male relationships created by and for women) a woman director and storyboarder (Mitsurou Kubo) team was also a logical move. As fans of BL stories like myself know, the genre has long been plagued by problems of the kind of festishization that always seems to sadly come part and parcel of hetero-appropriation of LGBTQ stories. But in the hands of Yamamoto and Kubo, Yuri!!! On Ice thankfully dodges most of this, managing instead to channel Yamamoto’s skillful handling of comedy and adult eroticism into protagonist Yuri Katsuki’s journey of self-discovery with complexity and sensitivity. Aside from the dazzlingly choreographed skating, it’s this competent handling that’s been key to enthralling the show’s fans.

Episode three is particularly pivotal in Yuri’s journey, as he is challenged by his skating idol, Victor Nikiforov, to perform a program titled, “On Love: Eros.” To tackle his severe lack of confidence in his ability to channel the “eroticism” needed for the routine, Yuri imagines a story about an 18th century “playboy,” which Yamamoto and Kubo animate beautifully using a sketchy, shadow-puppet technique to accentuate the fairy tale aspect of the story.

Reflecting upon the narrative he created, Yuri begins to realize that he identifies with both the feminine and masculine characters, a revelation that empowers him both on and off the rink. During his first performance, he compares himself to a “woman” skater and makes the suave and handsome Victor the object of his seducing. The costume Yuri chooses to wear during competitions visually reinforces all this — a replica of one that Victor once wore, incorporating both masculine and feminine elements into its design with a half-skirt layered over the trousers.

Yamamoto’s success as a woman director shouldn’t be the exception to the rule in the anime industry. A report from the Women in Animation (WIA) board formed by The Animation Guild found that a staggering 84% of roles in animation were taken by men and 16% by women in 2006. By 2015, this ratio had shifted slightly to 80% men and 20% women, with just 10% of animation directors/producers being women. Though these figures come from American studios, a comment made by Yamamoto during AnimeFest seemed to corroborate a similar — or worse — gender imbalance in Japan:

“At the time that I started work on ‘Michiko & Hatchin’ [in 2008] there were only about 5 female directors. But as I moved on to ‘Lupin’, I do feel the female influence on the industry is definitely increasing and growing.”

Her optimism is shared by Naoko Yamada (A Silent Voice) who is currently the youngest female director of feature-length anime. In a recent interview, Yamada shared this advice to women hoping to beat the considerable odds stacked against them:

“There’s no limit in a creative industry, so just look at what you like and create and make what you like to create and just be passionate about it.”

The immense popularity of Yuri!!! On Ice and the positive reception of Yamada’s A Silent Voice proves that Miyazaki’s fears are completely misplaced. Female directors and animators are not symptomatic of the anime industry’s failings. Rather — if given enough opportunity, encouragement and fairer wages — they could instead be the driving force behind its salvation.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Michiko to Hatchin: Anime’s Newest Mom Has Some Issues

Hannah Collins is a London-born writer and illustrator fascinated by the intersection between pop/visual culture and feminism. On the blogging scene, Hannah has attracted over 1 million readers to her blog on gender representation in pop culture. By day, she is currently a freelance illustrator for children’s books and comics, and by night (and any other available hour) she contributes to the Cosmic Anvil and Fanny Pack blogs, as well as her own.

Teen Girls Coming of Age in ‘Clueless’ and ‘The Edge of Seventeen’

These two women directors, Amy Heckerling (‘Clueless’) and Kelly Fremon Craig (‘The Edge of Seventeen’), use their films to give a focused examination on the insecurity and self-doubt teen girls face. Cher and Nadine’s personal struggles, as well as their relationships with older mentors, reveal how patriarchal expectations shape their lives as they come of age.

This guest post written by Emma Casley appears as part of our theme week on Women Directors.

The Edge of Seventeen’s protagonist Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld) says, “There are two types of people in the world: The people who naturally excel in life and the people who hope all those people die in a big explosion,” placing herself firmly in the second camp. Though Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone) is the star of an entirely different film released 21 years before, there’s little doubt that Nadine would categorize the Clueless character in the first group. Despite differences in tone and the personalities of their leads, both films share a similarity in subject matter: teenage girls growing up. And both films are written and directed by women – a rarity in mainstream movies.

These two women directors, Amy Heckerling (Clueless) and Kelly Fremon Craig (The Edge of Seventeen), use their films to give a focused examination on the insecurity and self-doubt teen girls face. Cher and Nadine’s personal struggles, as well as their relationships with older mentors, reveal how patriarchal expectations shape their lives as they come of age. Though the two films both focus on a very particular demographic of white, well-off teenagers, they do point to the ways in which even these girls of relative privilege suffer under the boundaries of gender roles. The films do what they aim to do well: give depth and nuance to a demographic that is often written off as being frivolous and shallow. However there are obvious limits in what these films can portray. Though casting a critical look at male privilege, both films leave issues like racial and economic inequality untouched. The success of Heckerling and Craig’s films demonstrates the need for even more diversity of voices in film rather than being the end goal of more inclusive filmmaking.

The similarities between Clueless and The Edge of Seventeen can be most clearly seen in the parallels between their lead characters. Their actions reveal how they both struggle with the immense pressure that society places on young women. Cher sees herself as an expert and mentor for her family, fellow students, and teachers; Nadine frets over her social awkwardness and isolation. Cher spends her weekend choosing non-school books to read and workout regimens; Nadine’s nights off involve crying while throwing up into a toilet while her one friend (Haley Lu Richardson) holds her hair back. Cher uses strategically delivered flowers and chocolates to woo the object of her affection; Nadine sends a painfully awkward and explicit Facebook message to her crush about “doing it in the Petland stockroom.”

Cher might present herself as more put together through reading Fit or Fat and working out to buns of steel, but this urge to constantly “improve” herself and others demonstrates how she sees herself as something that needs to be improved upon. She complains about “feeling like such a heifer” after spending the day eating candy and snacks, and after her friend declines her suggestions for sex, she worries that she wasn’t presenting herself as attractive enough: “Did my hair get flat? Did I stumble into some bad lighting? What’s wrong with me?” While it’s a line played for laughs in the film, Cher clearly isn’t so different from Nadine as she despairs that she “feels so grotesque” and outcast from her cooler peers. They just have different ways of expressing this insecurity.

It doesn’t help that the few female role models Cher and Nadine have don’t provide much reassurance that things will get any better once they reach adulthood. Nadine’s mother (Kyra Sedgwick) seems to be constantly on the edge of breaking down – struggling between her job and taking care of her children and dealing with the emotional aftermath of her husband’s death. Cher’s mother has passed away, but her teacher Miss Geist (Twink Caplan) serves as an example of what the future might have in store for her. Similar to Nadine’s mom, Miss Geist is overworked and lonely. Though Miss Geist has a happier ending in Clueless, she still demonstrates the difficulties of living up to social expectations, even as an adult. Nadine and Cher are young women struggling with insecurity and feeling like they’re failing to perform femininity in the right way and they watch as their older female mentors struggle with the exact same performance. Nadine’s mother even tells her that she comforts herself thinking that everyone is as miserable and dead inside as she is – not exactly an “it gets better” message for the teenager.

Especially in comparison to many of the male characters in both films, the women in Clueless and Edge of Seventeen are unhappy and flawed, unable to provide support for the young female protagonists. While one reading might interpret this as plain old sexism in the writing, another way to look at it is that these films showcase the wear and tear that these women experience under a patriarchal society. While Nadine and Cher feel the pressure to twist and conform to impossible standards, their male counterparts (both teenagers and adults) are allowed to just simply be. This translates into many of the male characters being mentors or supportive figures for the female characters: Nadine has her teacher Mr. Bruner (Woody Harrelson); her mother has her son Darian (Blake Jenner); Cher has her father (Dan Hedaya) and Josh (Paul Rudd). Darian might express frustration with being the only “stable” one in the family, but The Edge of Seventeen never shows him struggle to live up to gendered social expectations as his mother and sister experience. Both films portray many of the male characters in a very positive way: they act as a sympathetic ear to Nadine and Cher’s problems without having much personal stake in the matter.

However, both films also demonstrate how a lack of awareness of societal pressures on women manifests a much less positive, and much more dangerous, way in other male characters. The Edge of Seventeen and Clueless contain very similar scenes that take place between the protagonists and a male classmate while they drive together in a car. In both cases, the girls reject the boys’ sexual advances and subsequently are stranded after leaving the car to escape the situation. In these scenes, from the boy’s perspectives, they were responding to “obvious” signs that the girls were interested in a romantic and/or sexual relationship with them. But the films suggest that actually the boys simply felt their own desires and assumed that the girls would accommodate them.

In this way, the male characters in both films, whether they are understanding mentors or aggressive sexual assaulters, are ignorant of their own power. Characters like Mr. Bruner and Cher’s father can be so “good” because they’re not dealing with the same kinds of social pressures as characters like Nadine’s mother and Miss Geist are, and can instead be pillars of stability in the main characters’ lives. But their pillar-like quality can be seen in a different way: as the men stay static, then women must constantly bend and be flexible to accommodate their positions. Cher’s father and Mr. Bruner remain ignorant to this dynamic, even when offering support to the two girls. This lack of awareness shows its darker side in the two car scenes. The two boys assume that they “know best” in these situations and expect the girls to acquiesce to their advances. Neither film gives credence to this assumption. They instead give a sympathetic view to Cher and Nadine’s hurt and betrayal, pointing the finger at the dangerous presumption of male privilege. Clueless and The Edge of Seventeen show empathy for the deeply flawed female characters and the societal oppression they face. They also demonstrate how men, as kind advisers or dangerous predators, have a tendency to assume the impartiality of their views — of course they can give good advice to their students and daughters, of course they know that when a girl gets in a car with them it’s an invitation for sex. One of the main functions of male privilege is men not even knowing that they have it.

Of course other kinds of structural oppression exist in conjunction with male privilege, and both Clueless and The Edge of Seventeen center on the lives of well-off, white, suburban girls. The two films focus on giving detailed portraits of a single character so it does make sense within the context of their stories for them both to have such a focus on a particular demographic and lifestyle. However, neither film deviates from the larger film canon’s intense fixation on the stories of the rich and the white and the otherwise privileged at the expensive of other narratives. Both directors have discussed their process in writing and directing their films; Heckerling details how she fought for Clueless to focus on the girls rather than the boys, and Craig used her own experiences with self loathing and insecurity to inform Nadine’s struggles. So while it might not have been essential that these films give nuance to female coming-of-age stories, in both cases, their role as writers and directors shaped the films into stories that echoed their own life experiences. What would other women, of different backgrounds, bring to their stories if they were given more opportunities to get behind the camera?

For both Heckerling and Craig, their efforts have translated into films that bring depth to the stories of teenage girls, but Clueless and The Edge of Seventeen shouldn’t be seen as the end goal of gender inclusivity in film direction. They represent two good examples of what can be accomplished when women directors are given more control over the stories they tell, but there are still a vast array of voices that have remained unheard.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Clueless: Way Existential

Emma Casley is a Brooklyn-based film writer. Last year she participated in the New York Film Festival’s Critics Academy. She can be found wandering the streets for good coffee and also on Twitter @EmmaLCasley.

‘Queen of Katwe’ Is a Gorgeous, Inspiring Look at a Young Black Life Fully Realized

But at its core lies a story of redemption, cultural pride, feminism, and economics — elements of a young life contending with extraordinary challenges. … ‘Queen of Katwe’ is a mesmerizing story of a life fully realized, a life that’s often overlooked and not given a chance. Its young cast, led by Nalwanga’s nuanced performance, help illuminate layers of humanity resting deep in the “slums” of Uganda, exhibiting talent well beyond their years.

This guest post written by Candice Frederick originally appeared at Reel Talk Online. It appears here as part of our theme week on Women Directors. It is cross-posted with permission.

A few months ago at the Tribeca Film Festival, I had a chance to catch the first episode of the new Roots mini-series on the History Channel (which later became a ratings success), as well as the pre-screening discussion with the actors, including the series lead Malachi Kirby, who marveled over his experience working on the project in Africa. Rarely do big screen depictions of the continent highlight its joy and beauty, he said.

I thought of his statement again recently while watching Queen of Katwe, which tells the true story of a young girl from Uganda who rises to become a chess prodigy amid challenging circumstances. Sean Bobbitt’s radiant photography, capturing the crease in each character’s smile line, the wistful yet determined furrow of their brows, and the movement of their hips as they dance with excitement, combined with the vibrant costumes and gorgeous landscape, immediately invites you into the narrative. That’s because you never feel like you’re watching the typical somber meditation of life in Africa that is relentless and one-dimensional. Rather, you’re watching life in all its shades: joyful, messy, devastating, and triumphant. Powerful.

Based on a remarkable true story, which later became a bestselling book, Queen of Katwe shines a light on the journey of 9-year-old Phiona Mutesi (portrayed by astonishing newcomer Madina Nalwanga), who, lured by the smell of porridge in her nearly depleted belly, stumbled onto a makeshift chess group and defied all the odds to become an international hero.

If this sounds like a quintessential Disney film to you, then you’re half right. Yes, it’s wholesome and finishes on a heartwarming high like many other cherished Disney stories. But at its core lies a story of redemption, cultural pride, feminism, and economics — elements of a young life contending with extraordinary challenges. As one of few girls in war refugee-turned-missionary Robert Katende’s (charmingly played by David Oyelowo) group of budding young chess stars, Phiona’s genius is at first an unwelcome threat against her male counterparts. But with time she was embraced, and was even looked up to, by everyone from her teammates to her firm yet loving single mother (Lupita Nyong’o) and even Katende himself. And years later (the film spans several years of her life, beginning in 2005), when the little Katwe team battles the upper class prep school prodigies when she takes her first ever flight across Uganda, Phiona comes face to face with the realization of how Katwe (and more specifically, the people of Katwe) are regarded–or disregarded–to everyone else. With a fighter’s passion and a fierce yearning to overcome her circumstances, Phiona simultaneously comes of age and transfixes a world of fans — ultimately going on to compete in the 41st Chess Olympiad in 2014.

Queen of Katwe is a mesmerizing story of a life fully realized, a life that’s often overlooked and not given a chance. Its young cast, led by Nalwanga’s nuanced performance, help illuminate layers of humanity resting deep in the “slums” of Uganda, exhibiting talent well beyond their years. Meanwhile, Oyelowo and Nyong’o’s performances temper the film with heart-wrenching emotion. And Mira Nair’s touching portrait of Katwe’s inspiring young queen with a dream is one to remember.

Candice Frederick is an award-winning journalist and the founder of Reel Talk Online, a website devoted to providing honest and often irreverent reviews and commentary about film from a woman’s perspective. Find her on Twitter @ReelTalker.