![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
More Movies by Female Directors
Jan. 8th, 2019 09:02 am2018 is over, which means that my New Year’s Resolution is at its end - except that I’m ending the year with an even longer list of movies by female directors that I want to watch than I had at the beginning, so this is clearly going to become an ongoing project for me.
Some movies that I want to see, in no particular order:
I want to watch more of Dorothy Arzner’s and Ida Lupino’s movies. Arzner was the only female director in Hollywood in the 30s & 40s, and Lupino took up her mantel in the 50s & 60s (clearly female directors in mid-twentieth century Hollywood were like the Highlander: there can be only one) so they’re the spiritual grandmothers, so to speak, of female directors working in Hollywood today.
I’d also really like to see some silent films by female directors - there were actually more female directors working in the silent days than later on - but I’m not holding my breath on this one. Silent films in general were preserved quite piecemeal, so that we’ve lost even some films by big stars and famous directors, so who knows how many silents by female directors even still exist? But I’ll keep my eyes open, just in case.
Speaking of women who have managed to work mostly within the studio system, I’d also like to see the rest of Nora Ephron’s films: This Is My Life, Mixed Nuts, Michael, and Lucky Numbers. I’ve had very mixed reactions to her movies but I do love Julie and Julia, and in any case her work is an important part of women’s cinema history because she’s had more reach than a lot of other female filmmakers.
(Also a landmark: Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust, the first film by an African-American woman released in theaters in the US. In 1991.)
For the same reason I’d like to see the rest of Sofia Coppola’s films - The Virgin Suicides and The Bling Ring - not least because I’d like to see if my supposition that she has the biggest thing for suffering blondes since Hitchcock is actually true. Like seriously. This explains so much about her filmography.
(While we’re covering the Coppola dynasty, I’d also like to see Gia Coppola’s Palo Alto. And Eleanor Coppola’s Paris Can Wait.)
Other big studio releases: I want to see Pitch Perfect 2 and 3. I’ve already seen the first one (which was directed by a man anyway), which surely means that I’ve gotten past the big vomiting scenes and can now enjoy my all-girls a cappella choir vomit free. Surely? And I’m hoping that the second and third movies have more actual female friendship than the first one. Basically, I’m hoping that the second and third Pitch Perfects are the movies that I hoped the first one would be.
I want to dig deeper into French cinema. More Agnes Varda, of course, any other Agnes Jaoui I can get my hands on, Claire Denis - Beau Travail is supposed to be wonderful - and I’ve had Celine Sciamma’s Water Lilies on my list for years, long before I began this project. Perhaps I’ll keep that one for Pride month?
I didn’t plan ahead for Pride month in 2018 and therefore didn’t manage to watch many LGBT+ movies, but this year could be different! This year I could watch Water Lilies, The Itty Bitty Titty Committee, Appropriate Behavior, Saving Face, Desert Hearts... this might be too ambitious for one month. But there’s always June 2020 if there are any left over.
I also didn’t manage to carve out a Soviet month (it would have to be October, wouldn’t it? Although it could be May for May Day…). Someday I will watch The Ascent!
And then there are so many Bollywood films which I marked and didn’t watch because it’s hard to sell people on “Hey, do you want to spend three hours watching a movie you’ve never heard of?” Even though I didn’t particularly like Happy New Year, I want to give Farah Khan’s other heist movie Tees Maar Khan a try. Also Aparna Sen’s The Japanese Wife, and Gauri Shinde’s Dear Zindagi (Shan Rukh Khan plays a therapist. I don’t actually seek out SRK movies but he’s in 90% of the Bollywood I watch anyway. Does Bollywood just automatically ship all his movies to the US?), and Zoya Akhtar’s Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, which is about three friends on a road trip in Spain. I love road trips!
And… that’s probably enough movies to be getting on with, so I’d better stop there.
Some movies that I want to see, in no particular order:
I want to watch more of Dorothy Arzner’s and Ida Lupino’s movies. Arzner was the only female director in Hollywood in the 30s & 40s, and Lupino took up her mantel in the 50s & 60s (clearly female directors in mid-twentieth century Hollywood were like the Highlander: there can be only one) so they’re the spiritual grandmothers, so to speak, of female directors working in Hollywood today.
I’d also really like to see some silent films by female directors - there were actually more female directors working in the silent days than later on - but I’m not holding my breath on this one. Silent films in general were preserved quite piecemeal, so that we’ve lost even some films by big stars and famous directors, so who knows how many silents by female directors even still exist? But I’ll keep my eyes open, just in case.
Speaking of women who have managed to work mostly within the studio system, I’d also like to see the rest of Nora Ephron’s films: This Is My Life, Mixed Nuts, Michael, and Lucky Numbers. I’ve had very mixed reactions to her movies but I do love Julie and Julia, and in any case her work is an important part of women’s cinema history because she’s had more reach than a lot of other female filmmakers.
(Also a landmark: Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust, the first film by an African-American woman released in theaters in the US. In 1991.)
For the same reason I’d like to see the rest of Sofia Coppola’s films - The Virgin Suicides and The Bling Ring - not least because I’d like to see if my supposition that she has the biggest thing for suffering blondes since Hitchcock is actually true. Like seriously. This explains so much about her filmography.
(While we’re covering the Coppola dynasty, I’d also like to see Gia Coppola’s Palo Alto. And Eleanor Coppola’s Paris Can Wait.)
Other big studio releases: I want to see Pitch Perfect 2 and 3. I’ve already seen the first one (which was directed by a man anyway), which surely means that I’ve gotten past the big vomiting scenes and can now enjoy my all-girls a cappella choir vomit free. Surely? And I’m hoping that the second and third movies have more actual female friendship than the first one. Basically, I’m hoping that the second and third Pitch Perfects are the movies that I hoped the first one would be.
I want to dig deeper into French cinema. More Agnes Varda, of course, any other Agnes Jaoui I can get my hands on, Claire Denis - Beau Travail is supposed to be wonderful - and I’ve had Celine Sciamma’s Water Lilies on my list for years, long before I began this project. Perhaps I’ll keep that one for Pride month?
I didn’t plan ahead for Pride month in 2018 and therefore didn’t manage to watch many LGBT+ movies, but this year could be different! This year I could watch Water Lilies, The Itty Bitty Titty Committee, Appropriate Behavior, Saving Face, Desert Hearts... this might be too ambitious for one month. But there’s always June 2020 if there are any left over.
I also didn’t manage to carve out a Soviet month (it would have to be October, wouldn’t it? Although it could be May for May Day…). Someday I will watch The Ascent!
And then there are so many Bollywood films which I marked and didn’t watch because it’s hard to sell people on “Hey, do you want to spend three hours watching a movie you’ve never heard of?” Even though I didn’t particularly like Happy New Year, I want to give Farah Khan’s other heist movie Tees Maar Khan a try. Also Aparna Sen’s The Japanese Wife, and Gauri Shinde’s Dear Zindagi (Shan Rukh Khan plays a therapist. I don’t actually seek out SRK movies but he’s in 90% of the Bollywood I watch anyway. Does Bollywood just automatically ship all his movies to the US?), and Zoya Akhtar’s Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, which is about three friends on a road trip in Spain. I love road trips!
And… that’s probably enough movies to be getting on with, so I’d better stop there.
