THE 2ND SEX &amp; THE 7TH ART: WOMEN DIRECTORS IN FILM

Bite-sized blog post: Elaine May

Known for her comedy, ELAINE MAY was one of very few women in Hollywood to direct films in the 1970s. An actor and director she has helmed now classic films such as Neil Simon’s The Heartbreak Kid (1972).

After the financial and critical disaster of Ishtar May has acted in several films but hasn’t directed since (arguably a fate that would not have befallen an equally skilled male director). She is slated to direct a documentary on her comedian partner Mike Nichols who passed away in November 2014.

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Bite-sized blog post: Chantal Akerman

I had the opportunity to study with CHANTAL AKERMAN right before she left this world in October 2015. She was definitely eccentric in her brilliance and never filtered her points of view … which sometimes caused for controversy… nonetheless she clearly cared about film and those studying it and her passion for it never dulled.

Best known in academic and art house circles for her feminist epic Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) which she directed at the young age of 25 Akerman vacillated between documentaries and fiction but always remained faithful to expressing the truth as she saw it.

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Where to watch her films:

HULU

CRITERION COLLECTION

Bite-sized blog post: Maggie Greenwald

Unlike many up -and-coming filmmakers in the 1980s who went the film school route MAGGIE GREENWALD learned the ropes of filmmaking directly through working on sets, driving vans, editing and exposing herself to the ins-and-outs of the industry before making her first feature Home Remedy (1987).

Her film noir The Kill-Off (1989) based on the novel by Jim Thompson is listed as one of the top 100 American Independent Films by the British Film Institute. Greenwald went on to direct The Ballad of Little Joe (1993) taking over the traditionally male-genre of the Western and putting a woman at the center of it and she continues to direct films and for television.

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Bite-sized blog post: Julie Dash

The first film directed by an African-American woman to be released theatrically didn’t happen until 1991 with Daughters of the Dust directed by JULIE DASH.

Dash was first exposed to cinematography in an after-school program at the Studio Museum in Harlem where she and a friend believed they were enrolling in a class on still photography, not knowing what cinematography was. She went on to study at AFI with cinema legends such as Ingmar Bergman and UCLA at the tail end of the movement that became known as the LA Rebellion. Keep an eye out for Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl coming soon!

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WOMEN MAKE MOVIES FILM CATALOG

Bite-sized blog post: Dorothy Arzner

After returning home from the first World War where she worked in the ambulance corps DOROTHY ARZNER decided against medical studies and chose to pursue a career in film directing. She began her career as a writer and editor at Paramount Pictures and eventually leveraged her success in those arenas by telling the powers that be at Paramount if they didn’t give her a directing opportunity she would move to rival studio Columbia.

Paramount gave her Fashions for Women (1927) to direct which was a financial success and led to her being the only woman working as a director in the studio system at the time.

Tying a microphone to a pole during a scene in an attempt to get better sound she invented what is now known as the boom!

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Where to watch her films:

ONLINE
Columbia University Women Film Pioneers Project
Dorothy Arzner is the focus of a retrospective by UCLA Film and Television Archive
UCLA
Sense of Cinema
Sophisticated: The Hollywood Story of Miss Dorothy Arzner
Wikipedia

Read more about her:
BOOKS
Directed by Dorothy Arzner by Judith Mayne

FILMOGRAPHY (from imdb):

1943First Comes Courage

1940Dance, Girl, Dance

1937The Bride Wore Red

1937The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (uncredited)

1936Craig’s Wife

1934Nana

1933Christopher Strong

1932Merrily We Go to Hell

1931Working Girls

1931Honor Among Lovers

1930Galas de la Paramount (sequence director)

1930Anybody’s Woman

1930Paramount on Parade

1930Sarah and Son

1930Behind the Make-Up (uncredited)

1929The Wild Party

1928Manhattan Cocktail

1927Get Your Man

1927Ten Modern Commandments

1927Fashions for Women

1922Blood and Sand (additional footage, uncredited)

January 6, 2016January 7, 2016 by JENDEAN

Bite-sized blog post: Jessica Yu

The 1996 documentary short Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O’Brien won JESSICA YU an Oscar for Best Documentary Short where she quipped, “You know you’ve entered new territory when you realize that your outfit cost more than your film.”

Yu never attended film school but has gone on to direct for television, as well as documentary and fiction features and experimental films – including the 2008 film Ping Pong Playa.

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Bite-sized blog post: Lynn Shelton

Seattle-based filmmaker LYNN SHELTON directed her first film We Go Way Back (2006) in her late-thirties after being inspired by a lecture with French director Claire Denis where Denis informed the audience she hadn’t made her first film until she was forty proving it was possible.

Shelton has continued to write and direct indie features including Humpday (2009) and Your Sister’s Sister (2011) which have both been remade by French filmmakers.

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Where to watch her films:

HULU

Bite-sized blog: Maria Giese

When Saturday Comes (1996), the first feature directed by MARIA GIESE came directly on the heels of her matriculation at UCLA – in fact the deal to get the movie made was inked before she even graduated.

That first feature led to her being signed by the iconic agency William Morris. After facing years of closed doors with male only signs she started her own blog and went to the ACLU to get those doors open for all female filmmakers!

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Bite-sized blog post: Ava DuVernay

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Affrm, African American, Array, Ava Duvernay, film, Hollywood, Indie Film, Publicist, social media, Studio Films, Sundance, Women, women directors, women in film, women producers
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After being told, “African Americans don’t go to indie films so we can’t fund your indie film with an African American cast,” AVA DUVERNAY made Middle of Nowhere (2012) without industry support and it screened at Sundance where she became the first African American woman to win Best Director at the festival. Using her experience as a publicist she formed a distribution company AFFRM to distribute her own films and those of other African American filmmakers.

Her next feature film Selma (2013) was nominated for an Academy Award and she re-branded her distribution company AFFRM to ARRAY to encompass female filmmakers as well as people of color.

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