#yearproject

*better late than never

It’s the month of May, and I am behind in writing a first quarter check in. I’ve been steady in my watching though, chronicling everything here and on letterboxd. But in the larger scope of my commitment to watching women’s cinema for the year, it’s about time I got around to talking about what I’ve learned thus far and why I am on this quest.

At the end of every year, I make lists. Lists of my “favorite pictures of the year,” “favorite pictures I saw in retrospective screenings”, and my favorite list to make: my “favorite pictures I saw within a year, not released in that year”. I easily watch over a hundred movies in a year, and maybe ten to twelve of them are new releases. I section my months into viewing cinema from around the world and mostly from the past - my own cinematic education. Looking at my lists of 2015, something occurred to me:. not a single picture on any of my lists were directed by women. I went back and looked at my lists from 2014 and found the same trend. No women directors.

Also, I was beginning to notice that my movie taste is beginning to sway toward what is known as “women’s pictures.” A lot of my recent favorite directors were Wong Kar-Wai, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Jacques Demy, and Douglas Sirk, and I’ve always been a fan of the women-central films of the Nouvelle Vague. What really opened my eyes was when I looked at my favorite films of 2014 - Ida, Under the Skin, and Two Days, One Night held the top spots - and I knew that I enjoyed these pictures because of who they were about. It occurred to me that these films, although great, were not directed by women. The same trend continued in my watchings in 2015, my top two pictures being Tangerine and Phoenix. I knew after reflecting on my 2015 lists that for all of my 32 years on this planet, I had mostly watched pictures directed by men. I pride myself on my cinema knowledge and the fact that I relatively knew nothing about women’s cinema bothered me. To me, that only reinforced the sexism of the motion picture industry. So, when I woke up on January 1st, 2016 I decided I was going to watch nothing but pictures directed by women.

Okay, not exactly “nothing but…” My year-long watching goal does have some exemptions. As to not lock myself away from 2016’s cinematic offerings, I watch new releases despite the sex of the director. The same goes for repertory screenings - older titles that screen in my town: opportunities that may not come around again. And the rule for private viewings: every picture I watch this year that is directed by a woman has to be a picture I have not seen before. So, I will not be rewatching Daisies, 20 Fingers, Cleo from 5 to 7, Dance, Girl, Dance and others that I had already seen  (however I will touch upon these titles in discussing broader themes and movements) . My goal is to watch anywhere from 8-12 pictures a month, putting my goal at watching up to 120 pictures directed by women this year.

As April came to a close, I had already traveled the world and through the history of cinema looking at exploitation cinema, horror cinema, and hit some of the famous titles directed by women. I’ve tallied forty-one pictures thus far. I’ve also taken to reading the work of Laura Mulvey and Alison Butler and hope to read more feminist film theorists throughout the year. So, at this point (the overdue quarterly check-in) I want to highlight some of the points of views, themes, and the pictures I’ve encountered. 

In Film, Feminism and the Avant-Garde, Laura Mulvey theorizes that the new comes from confrontation and the avant-garde is seemingly the place for women’s cinema to grow and cast aside the conventions of male-dominated cinema. Confrontation is certainly a way to radicalize something from the normative state of things. And this confrontation in the avant-garde is the casting out of the normative way of directing motion pictures. Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), Vera Chytilova’s Daisies (1966), and Jackie Kong’s Blood Diner (1987) are all strong examples of women confronting cinematic form as well as society itself.

Other titles, less adventurous with breaking film form, also aim to confront society. Barbara Loden’s Wanda (1970) sees women used, abused, and uneducated in Nixon-era America; Ida Lupino’s Outrage (1950) tackles rape culture through the lens of film noir; Germaine Dulac’s The Smiling Madame Beudet (1923) examines emotional abuse in relationships; and in Mania Akbari’s 20 Fingers (2004), hypocritical gender views are laid bare.

As much as some pictures seek to confront, others explore the self. The two strongest artists I have encountered thus far are Chantal Akerman and Claire Denis. Both of these filmmakers use the cinema to explore the great flaws of humanity but their styles are vastly different. Akerman always shoots from fixed points of views, as in Je, tu, il, elle (1974) and Jeanne Dielman, 23 quay du commerce 1080 Brussels (1975). Her pacing and camera work are always measured to a degree so that time is felt by the audience. Her scenes play in long form, revealing character and action without the use of montage. Editorial Cuts only occur when the characters travel to different locations. Very rarely does she cut for pacing the narrative.

Claire Denis on the other hand, is intrigued by the body. She explores relationships between people and how they interact physically. Beau Travail (1999) explores toxic masculinity in the military; her camera views men’s bodies as they train, showing the power they build. This view carries over to the threatening positioning the body can shape itself into, as well as one of the most incredible shots of a vein pulsating over a muscle and it slowly dying after a suicide. Denis’s body exploration continues in Trouble Every Day (2001) and Bastards (2013) with more horrifying effect. Unlike Akerman’s pristine, fixed vantage points, Denis uses Rembrandt-style lighting and slowly gazes upon the human form like terrains.

In just a short time, I’ve covered a lot of varied territory, yet I still have much to watch and to learn about. I am going to refrain from trying to contain or to box just what is “women’s cinema.” I’ve learned that women’s cinema cannot be clearly defined and that is should be viewed just like the cinema of men. We can define and divide cinema by genre, language, and time period, but we should discontinue the classification by sex. Pictures directed by women confront the problems women face, societal or industrial. But they don’t have to be confrontational, and in fact they can be whatever they want to be. They can be entertaining, like the ‘90s action movies of Kathryn Bigelow or they can be the indie dramedies of Sofia Coppola, or the Hollywood romcoms of Nora Ephron. Women’s cinema crosses every possible genre and country and, for this reason, the genders of the people behind and in front of the camera needs to be balanced.

In the United States, women filmmakers are not taken seriously. In March I researched women filmmakers from every decade within the 110 years of cinema to cover as much chronological ground as I could throughout the history of the medium. It was most difficult finding women filmmakers from the United States than from other countries. Lately, more women are finding success in this country behind the camera, but just look at the backlash women get in this country from being in front of the camera (Ghostbusters, Star Wars: Rogue One), not to mention the imbalance of men and women in superhero movies. Our major studios are only now allowing a woman to direct a multi-million dollar super hero movie with Patty Jenkins helming Wonder Woman (2017). We can only hope that this will bring more women to the director’s chair in big budget fare. But Jenkins’ own career might be an indication how women are treated and viewed in Hollywood, (she directed the critically acclaimed Monster (2003) but hasn’t made a movie since, pulling television gigs in the last thirteen years.)

I’m starting the fifth month of watching women’s cinema, and there’s a wealth of movies ahead of me. When I started this in January, I had naysayers. Some friends and associates of mine said I “wouldn’t last three weeks,” or asked “Are there enough movies to cover a year?” I’ve researched so many pictures from around the globe and concluded that, a year could not contain the amount of pictures directed by women. With a goal of 120 movies under my belt by the end of the year, to me I’m only hitting a minimal knowledge of women’s cinema.

Follow me here and @ https://letterboxd.com/hipsville29ad/ as I update as I watch each picture. I’ll be navigating through Iranian, Asian, and European pictures in the next few months. I’m always up for suggestions and discussions.