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Nell Shipman
Oct. 4th, 2018 07:25 amOf all the female silent film directors, my favorite - at least in theory; I haven’t managed to see any of her films yet - is Nell Shipman, a Canadian actress who started her own production company in the wilds of Idaho (truly: two days horseback ride from the nearest dirt road) in the early 1920s, where she codirected her own productions, did her own stunts, and starred as a tough, stalwart action heroine who in at least one movie rescues her own husband.
Nell Shipman, I would like to note, wasn’t even the first female action hero. (Here’s an article from the Atlantic about The Forgotten Female Action Stars of the 1910s.) There have been action heroines for essentially as long as we’ve had feature films, and they’ve been wildly popular for nearly that long, and yet somehow each generation forgets all about it and believes that the action heroine is a bizarre innovation that we have invented from scratch and will the audience go for it???
And by “we” I definitely mean “studio execs in Hollywood.”
The two Shipman titles that I’ve managed to track down on Youtube are The Grub-stake and Something New.
I’d also like desperately to see The Girl from God’s Country, which is either Shipman’s sequel or Shipman’s exploration of a screen persona created in two earlier films that she starred in, God’s Country and the Woman and Back to God’s Country. (God’s Country is, of course, the Northlands. Back to God’s Country was filmed in Alberta and some members of the crew got frostbite.)
But unfortunately The Girl from God’s Country, like so many other silent films, has been lost. Oh well.
There is however a documentary about Nell Shipman, which is also called Girl from God’s Country. (The trailer is here.) Unfortunately it’s not available on Netflix or through any of the libraries I have access to (although the Purdue library does have a copy of the book by that name that is about Shipman! ...I may be going a little too far down this rabbit hole), so I would have to buy it, so… we’ll see.
Maybe I should actually watch a couple of Shipman’s movies first, and then decide if I’m interested enough to buy a documentary about her. That would probably be the smart thing to do.
Nell Shipman, I would like to note, wasn’t even the first female action hero. (Here’s an article from the Atlantic about The Forgotten Female Action Stars of the 1910s.) There have been action heroines for essentially as long as we’ve had feature films, and they’ve been wildly popular for nearly that long, and yet somehow each generation forgets all about it and believes that the action heroine is a bizarre innovation that we have invented from scratch and will the audience go for it???
And by “we” I definitely mean “studio execs in Hollywood.”
The two Shipman titles that I’ve managed to track down on Youtube are The Grub-stake and Something New.
I’d also like desperately to see The Girl from God’s Country, which is either Shipman’s sequel or Shipman’s exploration of a screen persona created in two earlier films that she starred in, God’s Country and the Woman and Back to God’s Country. (God’s Country is, of course, the Northlands. Back to God’s Country was filmed in Alberta and some members of the crew got frostbite.)
But unfortunately The Girl from God’s Country, like so many other silent films, has been lost. Oh well.
There is however a documentary about Nell Shipman, which is also called Girl from God’s Country. (The trailer is here.) Unfortunately it’s not available on Netflix or through any of the libraries I have access to (although the Purdue library does have a copy of the book by that name that is about Shipman! ...I may be going a little too far down this rabbit hole), so I would have to buy it, so… we’ll see.
Maybe I should actually watch a couple of Shipman’s movies first, and then decide if I’m interested enough to buy a documentary about her. That would probably be the smart thing to do.
