His Eminence Garchen Triptrul Rinpoche

Watched an inspiration film this week, Christina Lundberg’s For the Benefit Of All Beings, a biographical documentary about the Drikung Kagyu Lama, His Eminence Garchen Triptrul Rinpoche. For those unaware of the ways in which Tibet was taken over by China this film is informative, but more relevantly it is the backdrop of Garchen Rinpoche’s most important work as a spiritual warrior. Imprisoned for 20 years from the age of 22 for defending the Buddhist religion, Garchen Rinpoche grappled with staying alive in body and spirit. Anger drove him into despair over what was happening to the Tibetan people: not only was their religion being taken away, but men were being killed and women sterilized. Garchen Rinpoche realized the only way to help Tibet was to tame his anger and relentlessly put into practice the scriptures that he had studied before his imprisonment. Significant to his continued practice were the teachings transmitted to him by other imprisoned lamas, whose secrets and wisdom would otherwise be isolated from the Drikung Kagyu lineage that Garchen upheld.

It was through the love and devotion for Tibetans that Garchen Rinpoche was able to keep his mind strong and stay alive. The message that Garchen Rinpoche wants to transmit through the making of this film is: “The cause of happiness is love and the cause of suffering is self-grasping.” Garchen Rinpoche’s message places great emphasis on the cultivation of compassion for others and attests that this will set you free from suffering.  After Garchen Rinpoche was released from prison in 1979, he gave hope to Tibetans by resuscitating the teachings of the Buddha and initiating seekers into religious refuge; while today, Rinpoche continues to rebuild the Drikung Kagyu monasteries in Eastern Tibet (at the risk of further imprisonment). Garchen Rinpoche’s ongoing mission is to spread the teachings of the Buddha beyond his homeland, and does so by traveling the world and through the production of this film. Garchen Rinpoche has a truly remarkable strong will, but with an equally strong if not superior, heart. For the Benefit of All Beings is a film giving evidence to the resilience of the human spirit.

The film is clear on its intent to send a message for the benefit of all beings that Garchen Rinpoche’s life work is relevant to all of us indiscriminately, and does so in the hopes that each of us finds the buddha within and become enlightened beings.

See the film’s link below to donate funds for the film’s DVD distribution, teaching archive, and translating the film into additional languages.

http://www.forthebenefitofallbeings.com/

For the Benefit of All Being will premiere at BuddhaFest in Washington DC, from June 16 to 19th. See trailer and link below for details.

http://www.buddhafest.org/

For those interested to know more about this subject for its political depth or to witness the resilient spirituality of Tibetans, watch What Remains of Us, the 2004 documentary about: “A Tibetan-Canadian returning to her homeland to smuggle a secret message from the Dalai Lama and to document the occupation and cultural genocide of Tibet by China.” (imdb.org)

I know I am not the only one to love the film Amelie by director Jean Pierre Jeunet. I recently watched Paris, je t’aime and New York, I love you, and I found them to elicit that falling-in-love with falling-in-love feeling that Amelie accomplishes. Preparing for this post in the spirit of Valentines Day, I’ve discovered that I am partial to romantic films from France. French films about love are good for all types. See list and short synopsises below:

Romantic-Comedy Hollywoody:

Heartbreaker

Alex and his sister run a business designed to break up relationships. They are hired by a rich man to break up the wedding of his daughter… (imdb)

Recently broken-hearted:

In Paris

Anna has just left Paul who, annihilated by the separation, moves back with his father in Paris… (imdb)

Unrequited love:

Three Colors: White

Second of a trilogy of films dealing with contemporary French society shows a man dealing with a Polish immigrant wife who wants to divorce him because he can’t perform in bed. (imdb)

Cerebral philosophical:

My Night at Maud’s

The narrator (Jean-Louis), a devout Catholic, moves to a provincial town and vows to marry Francoise, a pretty blond he notices at mass… (imdb)

and the Lonely-hearted:

Amelie

What I love so much about Amelie is that she has a pure heart, who is a little afraid of love for herself, and only lives through others’ experiences of it. She does realize that a heart can break even when being without, so she steps out of her imagination and lets her excitable heart fall. Watch Amelie montage below:

Before I sign off, I want to suggest a film from Hong Kong whose main character reminds me a little of the character Amelie, Chunking Express (1994) by director Kar Wai Wong. A plot synopsis contributor on imdb writes, “In the second story, the unnamed Cop 663 (played by Tony Leung) is dealing with a breakup, this time from a flight attendant (Valerie Chow). He meets Faye, the new girl at the snack bar (played by Faye Wong). She falls for him in secret, and frequently breaks into his apartment…” (imdb) Watch the setup of the story of the unnamed cop and Faye courtesy of youtube below, it looks like you can watch the whole film there complete with english subtitles:

Predictions and discussions of the major awards in Hollywood proves to be about personal relationships and politics, as much as box office numbers. One may recall the projected drama between 2010′s Oscar contenders and former lovers, Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) and James Cameron (Avatar). Perhaps these kinds of murmurings creates more draw to audiences to tune in, I know I am tuning in to see if best picture contenders The King’s Speech or The Social Network wins.

Dave Karger writes for Entertainment Weekly: “Anyone who follows these things closely knows that this year’s competition is particularly juicy because it pits the two most savvy and larger-than-life Oscar campaigners — studio head Harvey Weinstein and producer Scott Rudin — against each other. The pair famously clashed when they worked together on The Hours and The Reader (Rudin even took his name off The Reader shortly before that film’s release) and now they’re battling each other for the film industry’s biggest prize.”

Another subject of discussion this time of year is the idea of the artistic winning over the commercial. Indiewire’s Eric Kohn writes a nice overview of some of Sundance’s films, which he says was a strong year, particularly for the commercial. He goes on to write: “The decision (Grand Jury Prize for Best Dramatic Feature) was a shocker to many, myself included. Like Crazy has an admirable tenderness, but it’s not bold or particularly unique. The Like Crazy award demonstrated a collusion of industrial and artistic concerns: The most commercial movie won. If anyone wants to get really conspiratorial, the pieces are there. Consider how Like Crazy buyer Paramount bonded with dramatic competition juror Jason Reitman when it released Up in the Air and that the director also works closely with production company Indian Paintbrush, which partnered with Paramount on the Like Crazy deal. But conspiracies are less certain than commercial domination. The more likely reason behind the jury’s selection involves its accessibility.”

Kohn’s take is expected, since he is writing to champion everything indie and all those marginal. To put you on the side of Indiewire is Brooks Barnes article for the New York Times where he writes in anticipation of the upcoming Sundance’s Film Lab entries and we are reminded what is at the heart of Sundance: “Sundance’s labs, now in their 30th year, emphasize creativity over commerciality. So it is unlikely that these six films will generate many headlines about selling for big money to the likes of Fox Searchlight. But the lack of commercial hype is part of why they merit attention, said Robert Redford, who founded the mentoring programs along with the festival. ‘The lab films are a reminder, before the noise from the ambush marketers and paparazzi starts to take over, of what we have always focused on here,’ Mr. Redford said. ‘Our purpose is to push and promote new films and emerging filmmakers who have ideas that are different and challenging and fresh — delicate work that could get trampled by the mainstream movie industry.’

Highly unorthodox story lines bind the six films. Braden King’s “Here” is a romance focusing on a satellite-mapping engineer (played by Ben Foster) conducting a survey of Armenia. “Circumstance,” directed by Maryam Keshavarz, centers on lesbian teenagers in modern-day Iran. Andrew Okpeaha MacLean’s “On the Ice” weaves a tale about two seal-hunting boys who live in an Alaskan village ravaged by crystal meth. The other two lab projects are both unusual examinations of identity. “Pariah,” directed by Dee Rees, looks at a lesbian teenager who behaves in a feminine manner at home but adopts a butch persona elsewhere. Sean Durkin’s “Martha Marcy May Marlene” takes on what it’s like for a young woman to recover her life after escaping from an abusive cult; Elizabeth Olsen, the younger sister of Mary-Kate and Ashley, plays the central role.” ‘We are always excited to see worlds that we didn’t know before,’ said Michelle Satter, director of the Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program.

To close, I have chosen to include another article from the New York Times about the role and denouncement of the critic! Enjoy, it’ll be a breath of fresh air after reading this post!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/movies/16scott.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=film%20january%2016,%202011&st=cse

No one would consider watching reality TV an intellectual experience, people would likely laugh at the suggestion. It is an experience that turns your brain turn off so that you can escape your problems and the ones at large in the news- it’s exactly what television is for. Reality TV differs from scripted television in that it secures audiences through sensationalism and outlandish situations, or so it may seem on the surface. There are other drives that keep audiences tuned in to reality TV which could reveal some interesting things about our culture at large.

Reality TV may give us insight about ourselves and those around us, since reality TV stars often resemble their audiences. One of my favorite reality TV programs is Bravo’s The Real Housewives franchise. It is not that I identify with these women, except for maybe having a friend that is more a “frenemy”. It is fair to say that these women are less than real, from their fake breasts and botox to their interactions with one another. However, Bravo is offering us the chance to see “real” housewives. They have given us an opportunity to witness the struggles of  being a housewife or a working professional mother, along with the ups and downs of marriage and children. These women’s “real” lives, however fake and shallow that it appears to be onscreen, allows us to get a glimpse of how women behave in each others company and what values and pressures have endured in American society regarding gender roles, friendship, family and status. (Watch funny youtube video below “How to Spot a Frenemy”)

The Real Housewives depict the microcosm of the modern housewife. The competition for status and power within the group of women is the core of the show determined by who throws the most lavish parties or who has the largest at-home staff. Alliances are either formed with the queen bee and her minions or the dissidents. For the most part the women in The Real Housewives of Orange County measure their worth by the position they hold within their social group. However for Orange County (house)wife, Vicki, she redeems her feeling of power and status by measuring the successes in her professional life. Vicki’s disparaging remarks about the other women not going to work reflects her views on their status in society. Any full time mother, especially of small children, would likely consider working in an office, easy work. (See clip below from youtube at around six minutes in to see this dynamic unfold and to see where you stand in this issue.) The theme of status within the shared lives of these women are constantly brought up across The Real Housewives franchise. What is interesting is how the audience becomes the thermometer for who is justified in their actions and feelings, often determined by what camp you fit in: the stay at home mom or the working professional. Reality TV has as much to do with its audiences as it does with its characters.

Reality TV’s Filmic Roots

Reality TV owes its form to the early documentary mode cinéma vérité, the 1960s french documentary movement which sought to produce an unmediated nonfiction film. Jean Rouch, the founder of cinéma vérité (translated “film truth” in french), was a filmmaker and anthropologist who was interested in whether a subject could act exactly as themselves in front of a film camera. Edgar Morin, a sociologist and filmmaker whom collaborated with Jean Rouch in the groundbreaking, 1960  Chronicles of Summer (Chronique d’un ete) wrote: “There are two ways to conceive of the cinema of the Real: the first is to pretend that you can present reality to be seen; the second is to pose the problem of reality. In the same way, there were two ways to conceive cinéma vérité. The first was to pretend that you brought truth. The second was to pose the problem of truth.” (Watch youtube clip about Chronicles of Summer below for details on Rouch and Morin’s experiments)

Reality TV, particularly the docusoap form of the Real Housewives, is not interested in revealing the problems of delivering truth, but there is something that is depicted in the show The Real Housewives and in Chronicles of  a Summer that Rouch and Morin proved: there is no such thing as unmediated reality. They proved that the very existence of the film camera altered the way subjects acted. Surveillance is a simple example that proves that being watched alters ones behavior. For instance in England law enforcement have remedied limited man power on the streets by setting up a complicated circuit of video surveillance, called CCTV on their streets. The installation of these cameras have inhibited criminal behavior. Rouch and Morin deliberately asked their subjects to respond to politically charged ideas. In the youtube clip below, the subject of civil unrest of Africans in the Congo is brought up, specifically because there are two men of African decent in attendance. All speak with candor, except one may get the impression that there is a degree of forethought in the subjects’ motivations and the result is an edited and idealistic response. One may argue that this is the everyday posturing that people perform, especially in the company of those with diverse backgrounds.

The American/Canadian version of cinéma vérité called direct cinema adopted a “fly on the wall” approach in order to find the authentic in their subjects, which relied on the subjects getting so used to the camera that they would forget it was there. The well known Maysles brothers’ film Grey Gardens (1975) was a film that adopted the direct cinema style. Today no filmmaker would naively say that there is such a thing as an objective truth that can be obtained from the documentary filmmaking process, because there will always be a critical interpretation embedded into it (think leftist politics within Michael Moore’s films). The Maysles brothers’ affection for the Beale women are palpable making Grey Gardens a charming portrait of mother Edith and daughter, Little Edie. One almost forgets these women are recluses in danger of loosing their home due to it being deemed a public health hazard and that their psychological stability is in question. Grey Gardens definitely plays into ones voyeuristic drives, especially being a fly on the wall in the home to women who are related to Jackie Onasis. (Watch Grey Gardens trailer below)

Reality TV: Why Can’t You Look Away?

The question remains, what drives us to watch reality TV in its many forms and hybrids? Why is it taking over television programming? It is certain that reality TV hits a nerve that people respond to with intensity, if it be with fascination or compulsion. The Real Housewives and other docudramas like the Jersey Shore have elements of the direct cinema mode of filming events where the characters pretend the camera does not exist. The cinéma vérité form is also utilized where the characters are aware of the camera, often addressing it directly, and consequentially, grant authority to its viewers. The tensions between these modes is where the entertainment lies. Audiences find themselves dwelling in a moral high ground, positioned to judge truth and measure a reality star’s best intentions or otherwise. These documentary modes aforementioned have turned into signifiers of “realism,” however it is a common assumption that most reality TV is contrived and that the camera, but most importantly the practice of editing has the power to bias audience responses.

An Ohio State study in media psychology researched the motivations for Why People Watch Reality TV. The study relied on The Reiss Profile which, “is a new kind of personality instrument, however, based on motivational constructs rather than on traditional personality constructs.” The conclusion of the study of Why People Watch Reality TV was that “the largest significant effect was for the motive of status. The more reality TV shows a person liked, the more status-oriented was the person.” (Reiss and Wiltz, 11).  Another interesting insight in the study was its claim that the people who watched reality TV had above-average trait motivation to feel self-important and, to a lesser extent, vindicated, friendly, free of morality, secure, and romantic, as compared with large normative samples.” (Reiss and Wiltz, 1).

Reality TV: A Voyeur’s Moral Compass

At the end of every Real Housewives season, in an end of the season reunion special,  the characters have an opportunity to comment and attempt to vindicate their behaviors and testimonials in a end of the season reunion. The characters are now existing outside the frame of the show and there is an assumption that any falsehoods that were depicted will be debunked with either corroborations or oppositions amongst the characters. Most reality TV shows have a reunion show, even at the end of the 1960 film Chronicles of Summer, its characters are sitting in a dim movie theatre, presumptuously after screening the film. As an addendum to the film, Rouch and Morin have given their characters a chance to respond to what was depicted of themselves, and the other characters. Another addendum, or more so, a disclaimer is added with just Rouch and Morin commenting on the film. Another layer of reflexivity exists in Chronicles of Summer: there was the film itself, the space outside the film, and a space outside “outside of the film”.  Rouch and Morin understood that not only was the integrity of their subjects in question, but the integrity of their own motivations. Today in relation to reality TV, I have often questioned the integrity of producers, who create circumstances that push its stars to their emotional limits.

We are in the Youtube age that urges one to “Broadcast Yourself”. It seems like cameras are constantly aimed if it be by mobile phones, i-pods, flip cameras, laptops and video surveillance. Could this desensitization of being recorded lead to more truths being conveyed based on the direct cinema’s assumption that we will forget the cameras are there. The current  digital age has enabled anyone to record, edit and upload at lightening speed creating media producers that quickly become aware of the cultural value of their images, based upon the number of uploads, views and “thumbs ups” received. The internet is saturated by spectacle, definitely the pornographic and the plain idiotic.

I believe there is potential to use the internet and reality TV programs like The Real Housewives as indicators to where culture is headed, even with their less than scholarly motivations like filmmakers, Rouch and Morin. What is certain is the role of audiences and populous opinion are becoming all the more powerful, with its ability to instantly comment on youtube and the like, as well as it continual power to shape television programming for better or worse.

Photograph by Shirin Neshat “Untitled” 2006 from her Women of Allah series

My last post on filmmaker Samira Makhmalbaf has motivated me to expand on the complexities of Iranian cinema, which are based upon the censorship that exists in Iran and the unique qualities of their film making practices. This post will be limited since I have not seen many Iranian films due to the lack of access to them. I will broaden the discussion beyond feminism, however it is unavoidable. Hollywood films have been banned since the revolution of 1979. Any foreign films that are feminist, secular or pro-America have been banned in Iran. Although this does not fully eradicate Iranians to have access to such films via satellite and other alternative sources. According to Wikipedia: Cinema of Iran 6 to 8 Hollywood films make it to screen, even if “in 2007 President Ahmadinejad’s media adviser told the Fars news agency, ‘We believe that the American cinema system is devoid of all culture and art and is only used as a device.’”

There are creative limitations for filmmakers in Iran, guidelines to keep in line with strict Islamic doctrines. Close-ups of women and scenes where the opposite sex touch each other sensually are banned- basically anything depicted that could arouse viewers. The prohibition of gazing at women onscreen is also a practice off screen, as well as depicting women without headscarves. Women can not sing in public in Iran, which makes me suspect that they can not onscreen either. See video below 1998/99 Turbulent by Iranian born Shirin Neshat. Women were also banned behind the directors chair, although was later relaxed. Interestingly, there are a higher number of Iranian women directors than those in the West. See an extensive list of women directors on the Cinema of Iran Wikipedia page, under the heading “Iranian Women’s Cinema”.

The Iranian Cinema’s New Wave began in 1968. According to Ahman Talebinejad, a film critic and writer, who was interviewed for the Pars Times, (a publication in Iran) that Iran’s New Wave  was influenced by Italian NeoRealism, “Films like the Bicycle Thieves or works of Fellini and de Sica that were screened in Iran changed the people’s attitudes toward society and especially toward cinema.” Earlier in the article Talebinejad mentions the emergence of three films that set the course of a new cinema in Iran, “The Cow (1969-Dariush Mehrjuyee), Qaysar (1969-Massoud Kimyayee), and Calm in Front of Others (1969- Naser Taqvaie.) It was both serious and received approval from thinkers, specialists, and intellectuals of the society, whereas before that stage, cinema had no fruit to be approved by experts, except for a couple of failed efforts. Those three films set off a trend distinct from Film Farsi (a term coined for vulgar Iranian films) which contributed to the growth and dynamic character of a truly artistic and cultural cinema.”

The cinema of Iran is uniquely their own, which possess distinguishable qualities that are unlike the French New Wave and Italian Neo-Realists. A reoccurring formal quality used in some Iranian New Wave films is reinventing the use of documentary material, like in Samira Makhmalbaf’s The Apple (1988), discussed in my last post. This practice demonstrates the influence from the Italian Neorealists, whom shot documentary style on newsreel film stock and utilized non-actors in everyday exteriors- all elements that signified realism. Iran’s films have taken this concept and developed it into a more complex and layered practice with a continued interest in social criticism. The Apple is a non-fiction piece that uses documentary material with re-enacted scenes, and many others have made quasi-documentary films. Abbas Kiarostami’s  Through the Olive Trees (1994), “focuses on one of the events in Zendegi Edame Darad (1992), and explores the relationship between the movie director, and the actors. The local actors play a couple who got married right after the earthquake. In reality, the actor is trying to persuade the actress that they should get married.” (imdb) This film within a film concept produces a layer of reflexivity (addressing the audience) and creates an awareness of ourselves as spectators. The film, Zendegi Edame Darad, that is being made in Through the Olive Trees is the space of representation, the scripted, and imagined; and the film that exists outside Zendegi Edame Darad is the ‘real.’ These tensions between the represented and the real is where the spectator discovers the constructs in which representation work in cinema while the documentary material opens up an awareness to society at large. These creative choices leave more space for introspection and reflection garnering more varied receptions from such films.

In his book Close Up: Iranian Cinema, Past, Present, Future (2001) Hamid Dabashi describes modern Iranian cinema and the phenomenon of [Iranian] national cinema as a form of cultural modernity. According to Dabashi, “the visual possibility of seeing the historical person (as opposed to the eternal Qur’anic man) on screen is arguably the single most important event allowing Iranians access to modernity.”

It has been cited repeatedly that Iranian films have been a largely successful exporter of artistic and cultural treasures, winning many awards and recognition. Often than not, China is mentioned with Iran as another country that also has won many awards for its cinematic achievements. The perimeters of Iran and China’s censorship is similar in regard to its staunchness and some sources seems to be arguing that this makes for great cinema. Perhaps the enjoyment of watching a film is being able to have the freedom and space to reflect instead of being told what our opinions should be, and perhaps that is Iran and China’s silent protest.

Additional recommended Iranian New Wave titles:

Leila ( 1998) by Dariush Mehrjui

Taste of Cherry (1997)  by Abbas Kiarostami

10 (2002) by Abbas Kiarostami

A Moment of Innocence (1996) by Moshen Makhmalbaf

The Silence (1998) Mohsen by Makhmalbaf

The Blue Veiled (1995) by Rakhshan Bani-E’temad

Nargess (1992) by Rakhshan Bani-E’temad

Still Life (1974) by Sohrab Shahid Saless

The White Balloon (1995) by Jafar Panahi

Click on this 2007  Variety article citing rising talent in Iran.

Dialog of injustice or oppression were often at the center of feminist debates in film studies, now it is active at a residual level, in other words we live in a society that prides itself in equal rights, yet there are still instances of discrimination and inequality. Postfeminsm (the era after feminism) recognizes class, race/ethnicity and sexuality influence a woman’s experience and identity. It is important to note, debates about a woman’s equality has become transcultural. As the world becomes more globilzed or as countries become more conscious of societies outside its borders, feminism continues to be challenged.

Feminism is relevant today and we are still in need of finding ways for women to speak about their experiences or be an agent for others and foster change when it is needed. A great example is the 1988 semi-documentary, The Apple, directed by the, then 17 year-old, Samira Makhmalbaf, daughter of the famous Iranian film director, Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Eleven-year-old twin girls, Ma’sumeh and Zahra, had been imprisoned in their home by their parents their entire life. Imprisoning young girls is not common practice in Iran, although the film reveals that the father acts in a way that he feels is in reverence to his religion and is done on behalf of the well-being of his daughters, no matter how extreme the measure. One then must wonder, is the lesser acts that are in accordance with the same values not damaging, will they too be revealed as guises to protect the welfare of women? The Apple is a true story, the beginning of the film when the girls are at the welfare office were shot as they actually happened while the rest has been reenacted. The tensions between the home and society outside correspond to the psychological interior and exterior, it becomes a symbolic link to a cinematic version of the hijab (head scarf) which brings to the forefront the dynamics of a woman’s personal and private space verses public space. At the end of the youtube clip, when the mother is reunited with her daughters, she becomes angry that their heads are not covered with scarves, while she herself is completely covered, nearly formless. I am not suggesting that the headscarf is oppressive, it is a tradition that has established clearer lines of conflict between the identities of the exterior and interior self, as well as society (political) and home life (personal).

See Youtube clip below of the opening of The Apple.

When Sight and Sound suggested that “The Apple like the story of Adam and Eve in the Bible, represents life and knowledge in Iranian poetry.” Samira replied, “We have a similar story in the Qur’an. But I actually found this element in the children’s lives. Because while everyone was worried about the fate of these two girls, they were eating an apple, and truly enjoying it. So I decided to keep the symbol of the apple throughout the film”

Samira talking about what cinema can do.

Chick Flicks by B. Ruby Rich

My post today is a continuation of my writing about women directors in Hollywood, specifically Nancy Meyers, writer and director of It’s Complicated. It is important to note the emergence of feminism in film as a political movement, social practice and area of academic study in regard to this post (see part one). I will quote the New York Times article Can Anybody Make a Movie for Women to further explore the concept of women as filmmakers. I will also, as promised in the end of Part One, discuss Nancy Meyers’ directorial style as a Feminist Film practice and as a Hollywood director or auteur.

In the NYT’s article Daphne Merkin discusses Meyers’s filmmaking process and her stylistic sensibilities, like her “trademark aspirational interiors (referred to as “architecture porn” by one disparaging poster on an Internet message board)”. Then there’s ageism. What’s great about Nancy Meyers is that she taps into the desires of an unrepresented demographic of women. Merkin writes the films of Meyers are “postmenopausal chick flicks,” and quotes Diane Keaton, “she’s a pioneer with regard to representing older women…. She’s the only one delivering the fantasy for women over 55. You’re beautiful, charming and you get two guys instead of one.” Merkin then delves a bit deeper into a recognizable feminist tone by mentioning Meyers’s casting choices, “she has also mined a subtler subtext in her habit of picking male stars with a slightly misogynistic buzz to them, Mel Gibson, Nicholson and Baldwin, and then having these stars ‘relearn’ how to read women during the course of the film.” When reading this, I consider the directing of Meyers as genuinely evoking the spirit of Feminist Film from the 1960s and 1970s. I consider the casting of Meryl Streep to also have an underlying intention. The practice in Feminist Films of designating an actress to represent a woman emerging at a particular cultural moment is still being perpetuated here. Meryl Streep, the lead actress in It’s Complicated is such an actress, where the strength that lies in all her prior film roles cannot help but influence our reception of Streep’s character, Jane. Jane is the divorcee that women want to channel.

I consider Nancy Meyers to fall into the category “auteur”. When the term “auteur” became part of film history’s terminology back in 1940s France, no woman filmmaker was referred to as an auteur. Today, beyond gender wars, the term auteur is seldom used since it diffuses the credit to the army of people it takes to make a film and raises the role of director to an even higher authority, celebrity or genius (another word designated for men). The auteur theory believes authorship is not shared and asserts that a film retains it’s definitive style only by its director. Since Nancy Meyers writes her scripts and has directorial control of that script the term auteur is appropriate. Aesthetically speaking, Nancy Meyers retains a style all her own, which is not merely visual but retains a rich subtext much like her casting choices. Meyers’s use of rich home interiors speak to the woman’s domain, especially those of Meyers’s generation. The aspirational quality of Meyers’s interiors refer not to the lack of woman’s lives but of the richness, status and beauty.

Meryl Streep

Can Anyone Make a Film for Women? This question suggests something political. I have gone into the history of Feminist Film, one may see how valid and important this question was to answer during Second Wave Feminism when women were struggling for a voice: one to be heard, but also one they recognized. It was important based on the fact that films were saturated by male stories, communicating their desires and struggles, consequently left women’s experiences in deficit. This grew into a sincere effort to reflect woman’s desire and how better to represent these experiences than women themselves taking the role of author. Nancy Meyers is certainly projecting her fantasies on-screen, knowing full well that there are women hungry to see it too projected.

Nancy Meyers directing imbd.org

Films about the power struggles of the sexes in intimate life were not exclusive to Feminist Films. Male directors made films which touched upon these subjects, there was Jean-Luc Godard’s 1966 Masculin Feminine about a couple’s “social and emotional politics” (imdb.org) and Eric Rohmer’s The Six Morale Tales, which touches upon the power plays between men and women from dating to marriage and infidelity. To me most relevant in this discussion is Scenes from a Marriage (1973) by Igmar Bergman. Bergman draws with such a sensitive hand the woman’s story, one sympathetic to the collective consciousness of women at the time, the way in which they felt their true identity was sublimated, nearly lost- never to be found or splintered between too many identities generated by society’s demands. Scenes from a Marriage is about a couple that divorces, but continues to carry on a relationship afterward, a subject that It’s Complicated takes on playfully and comically. The husband, Johan, has left his wife, Mia, for another women, a younger one, but ends up back in the arms of Mia repeatedly. The clip below is when Mia reads from her journal to Johan (post separation). At the end of the clip, you will notice Mia’s inner thoughts have fallen upon deaf ears. Bergman takes the opportunity to prove the feminine interior to be incomprehensible, which is not a dig at Johan, because Mia mystifies her own self.

In todays mainstream film world, woman are still catching up with gaining notoriety and securing a firm place behind the camera. Finally, in 2010 a woman has won an Oscar for Best Director, Kathryn Bigelow for her film The Hurt Locker. The NYT article Can Anyone Make a Movie for Women is challenging an old debate by writing about the successful box office feature of a female auteur heavyweight in Hollywood. Merkin is careful to keep the debate alive since I detect a hint of 1960s style rhetoric, in the way she recounts Meyers getting her table downgraded in a Hollywood restaurant by a prominent male director. Merkin writes, “But it still gave me pause. You know, the whole sexual-politics thing rearing its timeworn, fractious head: a powerful man trumps any woman. (‘When you describe how influential I am in Hollywood,’ Meyers ruefully observed to me, ‘say we were thrown out of our booth.’)” Political movements are employed out of need and this incident is supporting evidence that there is a crisis on the position of woman in the film industry and is still a relevant issue. Certainly, upon reading about the incident, one may get nostalgic for the works of B. Ruby Rich, a Feminist Film theorist whom still retains her activist spirit of the 1960s and 1970s (read Chick Flicks: Theories and Memories of the Feminist Film Movement, by Rich) or for the Guerilla Girls circa 1985.

Guerilla Girls protest of the Oscars 2006

Nancy Meyers has paid her dues in Hollywood, but would she have gotten to where she is now without starting out with her long time collaborator and husband, Charles Shyer? It is no secret that Kathryn Bigelow’s boyfriend was James Cameron. This detail is not to imply that these woman are not talented, but would they not have gotten a chance without close relationships to men who were already established in the industry? Meyers is undoubtedly competent, Merkin observes Meyers at a scoring session of It’s Complicated, she comments, “watching Meyers at her rigorous fine-tuning, I was struck by how deftly she got her point of view across without grinding anyone down in the process.”

I will end this post by saying I think man or woman,an artist communicates what is being held up in his/her psyche, some are universal and humanistic while other issues are bound by other forces. In the alchemy film-making, issues can be resolved for the filmmaker, and as a result, can even affect the psyche of society, a quality that feminist films in the 1960s and 1970s wished to exploit. Films made by women perhaps at times retain something characteristic in a woman’s psyche that is lacking in a man’s, not because men and women are inherently different, but it is in the way society produces “man” and “woman”. We are all much more complicated than the roles we are appointed to, and when you push aside all that society has imposed on us, are we not the same? It is definite that women are still in need to see their experiences saturate the mainstream, progress has been made, but let’s not stop here!

Thought I would see An Education since it is receiving a lot of good reviews, also thought it relevant to my recent post about women directors. An Education, directed by Lone Scherfig, based upon the memoirs of Lynn Barber is the coming of age story of Jenny (Carey Mulligan) set in the early 1960s suburbs of London. Second Wave Feminism had not become a movement yet, and the issues that limited women at that time is superimposed upon the narrative. In the beginning of the film we see that Jenny’s life is centered around getting outstanding marks to guarantee her entry into Oxford. A man, David, (Peter Sargaard) twice her age sweeps Jenny off her feet, as well as her parents. These are all apparent through the trailer of the film. For most of the film, I did not feel much for Jenny and David, and David’s friends were equally vapid. (SPOILER*) Even up to the point she in engaged, knowing that the fairy tale is inevitably going to end, I feel nothing for Jenny.

What makes the film worthwhile is what happens before the collapse of the fairy tale. The teacher student dynamic crumbles and the culmination of Jenny denouncing her education is played out in the scene between Jenny and her school’s head mistress played by Emma Thompson. Thompson’s character fumbles as her authority diminishes and Jenny, unrestrained suggests she is being mislead about the worth of her education. Thompson tries to counsel Jenny in her choice to marry before university and urges “Nobody does anything worth doing without a degree” Jenny counters, “No one does anything with a degree, no woman anyway.” From this vantage point of history we see the contradiction and irony in these women’s perspectives. Lone Scherfig makes this scene the focal point of her film. For the remainder of the film you see the tensions of these points of view play out. On one side you see the dynamics of a woman putting marriage before her education and the power it puts in the man’s hands. You see through Jenny’s teacher Miss Stubbs character, played by Olivia Williams, the dignified alternative to married life, no matter how humble it appears on the surface.

Click URL below at movieweb.com to see above mentioned scene.

http://www.movieweb.com/v/VIfBvfiooSzhim

Jenny’s father, Jack, played by Alfred Molina is domineering, but lovable and only wants the best for his daughter. We see how important it is to send his daughter to Oxford and it is hard to see Jack acquiesce to David courting his daughter, taking her to Paris or asking for her hand in marriage. Then it becomes apparent that Jack’s wishes for his daughter have been fulfilled: Jenny will marry a wealthy, charming, attractive, well connected man with a sports car. He wants his daughter to rise above his own class and Oxford would have been a place to find a suitable man to marry. The need for status and power should be considered part of the motivations of these characters, after all a culture where a monarchy exists, class consciousness is pervasive and should not be underestimated.

Camille Claudel (1864-1943)

The New York Times Magazine article by Daphen Merkin, Can Anybody Make a Movie for Women? caught my eye. Were people still asking this question? Merkin diffusely points out that male directors experience more commercial success than women by mentioning Nancy Meyers, director of box office hit, It’s Complicated, has little female competition in Hollywood. This is a fact I struggled with in film school, and in graduate school tried to measure throughout film’s history. I was pleased to discover other women interested in this issue, whom sought to turn the tide and champion women’s visions and voices in cinema. It is not difficult to guess that this phenomena coexisted alongside the social movement of Second Wave Feminism in the 1960s and 70s. The goal of Feminist Film theory and practice was to represent real women’s experiences, the aim was for women to see their fantasies and desires depicted onscreen, and who better to authenticate it than women themselves. Feminist Film theorists, often filmmakers themselves, believed that this could only happen if women took the director’s chair.

film still of Germain Dulac’s Seashell and the Clergyman 1926

dulac_coquille.html (click here to watch at ubu.com)

Against all odds, women were in the director’s chairs before the 1960s, for example there was Dorothy Arzner from America in the 1920s to 40s and France’s Germain Dulac from the 1910s to 30s. Instead of knowing the names of these women and their films, we know their male contemporaries. It is common to hear Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel’s 1929 Un Chien Andalou to be the first surrealist film, while Dulac’s 1926 Seashell and the Clergyman is clearly the first. Unfortunately, one can observe this phenomenon throughout art history, from the brilliant sculptress Camille Claudel, who sculpted during the time of Auguste Rodin (The Thinker) or the impressionist painter Mary Cassat during the time of Edgar Degas. The issue does not lie in which is superior over the other, it is in examining why museums value the works of these men over their female peers. Also, why are these women categorized “women artists” rather than by the style of their work? Culture and society can not help but deem the works of Rodin and Degas more valuable because of the proliferation of their works in our cultural institutions.

Mary Cassat’s The Child’s Bath 1893

The “feminine” voice yearning to be significant in the 1960s and 70s had many defining characteristics, some were self-imposed and others were discovered. Early Feminist Film relied on an avant garde aesthetic (anti-commercial) to distinguish themselves from conventional filmmaking practices (the money making-status building-Hollywood-kind). In regard to shooting and editing, the motivation of Feminist Film was to find alternative forms much like the modernists in literature. Other inherited characteristics helping to portray the reality of women’s experiences was Psychology (particularly Lacan’s psychoanalysis) and Semiotics (function of signs and symbols). These areas of study helped structure and give meaning to the reoccurring theme of duplicity or multiplicity of voices residing in a female’s psyche, which emphasizes the interior self (in regard to psychology) and the need to challenge the definition of “woman” in society (in regard to semiotics). These influences demanded a new way of constructing films and consequently, viewing and understanding film. Meaning would often be found in the space or tension between competing voices, as if this constituted a women’s identity and even suggested it characteristic of a “feminine” voice. Women were trying to say they were more than the roles that society had appointed them, they were more than mother, wife, virgin, whore, and that was the source of their oppression and insanity.

Cindy Sherman

I have not seen It’s Complicated although I did see The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, directed by Rebecca Miller, released this past fall 2009. The title suggests the reoccurring feminist theme of multiplicity, and we witness a psychological gaze through flashbacks of Pippa Lee’s lives. The film’s synopsis describes Pippa’s (Robin Wright Penn) psychotic break and crisis as a “quiet nervous breakdown” and indeed it is composed. At first is seems like Pippa Lee is so good at the role she is expected to play, she nearly fools herself of her own sanity. The first flashback is Pippa as a young girl idolizing her beautiful mother, who is an expert at maintaining surface appearances. Pippa’s mother makes the impression that as long as you can eat off the kitchen floor and maintain a perfect face, you can get away with anything. In adulthood Pippa is a hollow mess underneath, just like her mother had been. As the audience reflects on the traumatic vignettes of Pippa’s life, especially the last one, which is by far the worst, it is clear that it is hard for Pippa to integrate her fractured selves into one and reconcile with the past, thereby deeming the nervous break she is dealing with in the present to be unavoidable. Burdened by guilt Pippa has found solace in doing what she thinks is expected of her, so that she does not bear the responsibility of pursuing her own happiness and facing her unfulfilled desires. The Private Lives of Pippa Lee delivers in the end by releasing Pippa from her self-imposed prison and we finally see Pippa’s desires projected onscreen through her blooming romance with Chris played by Keanu Reeves. Near the end of the film in the back of his van, Chris gives Pippa an orgasm, which signifies Pippa’s sexual vitality and vigor for life restored.

There are a lot of “damaged women” in the Private Lives of Pippa Lee. Miller is aware of the feminist themes she touches on and for the most part does so with deliberate restrain, specifically the subtlety of Pippa’s nervous breakdown. Miller also counterpoints subtlety with fireworks in the direction of  Winona Ryder’s character, Sandra, who too has suffered a sort of psychotic break and makes an attempt at suicide, so dramatic its almost comical. Of course, as the audience, we should have no sympathy for Sandra because of how she betrays Pippa, however I cannot help but read a parody of Winona Ryder’s character Susanna in Girl Interrupted, to me Miller says the image of damaged woman, not matter how sensationalized and romantic is still another role to transcend.

Maria Bello and Blake Lively in the film still from Rebecca Miller’s Secret Lives of Pippa Lee 2009

Feminist Films and Feminist Film theory have contributed greatly to film studies as well as helped substantiate film theory as a serious area of academic study based upon the debates it created in gender, politics, spectatorship and its recognition of films as artifacts of society and culture. In the times of the Second Wave Feminist Movement, theorists discovered the lack of real representations of women’s experiences and were eager to see themselves projected back to them. Can Anybody Make a Movie for Women? Many would say no, not just anybody of course. A film for women should be able to speak of the painful experiences unique to women and their subsequent triumphs, which not every man can do, but of course there are. I think the true question is why are successful women in Hollywood rare and why do films by women still not bear the cultural worth of a man’s?

to be continued in Part 2 of “ Can Anybody Make a Movie for Women”:

1. I’ll discuss Nancy Meyers’ directorial style as a feminist practice and as a hollywood director or auteur; and
2. I’ll discuss some female directors outside of hollywood and in the margins

Au Revoir, Les Enfants (“Goodbye Children”)

written and directed by Louis Malle

I watched Au Revoir, Les Enfants the other evening, a film nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Foreign Film and Best Screenplay in 1988 as well as nominated for four BAFTAs: winning Best Direction in 1989. The film is set in 1944 during Nazi occupied France at a Catholic boarding school for boys. The barbaric and unbelievable extent to which the Jews were persecuted during the Holocaust never fails to make the depths of one’s soul shudder. Au revoir, les enfants, “goodbye children,” is not only the last line of dialog in the film, but insinuates the end of the boys’ childhoods. The boys are standing at the precipice of puberty and have discovered the world is capable of inexplicable cruelty.

Turner Movie Classics’ website has a nice synopsis of the film, which explains the nuance and development of the relationship between the young boys, Julien and Jean, the latter a Jewish boy in hiding. The pleasure in watching the film is watching these dynamics unfold, as well as being reminded how children in spite of their ignorance, posses a kind of heightened awareness that can detect and reject the irrationality of the world. Sensesofcinema.com has an article about filmmakers utilizing children in war films, borrowing theory from Tyrus Miller’s book The Burning Babe: Children, Film Narrative and the Figures of Historical Witness and Memory of Trauma and Gilles Deleuze’s Cinema 2: The Time-Image.

Teetzel’s article from tmc.com also comments on Malle’s directorial style as divergent from Hollywood conventions and favoring realism, and he attributes this to Malle’s experience in documentary filmmaking. To elaborate, the quality of Malle’s shooting style is reminiscent of the French New Wave style started in the late 1950s and Italian Neorealism (in the 40s) which influenced the new wave’s aesthetic, signified by its tendency for less dialog, the demand for more distance and observation on the part of the spectator, the use of non-actors and the cross fertilization between documentary and narrative conventions.

Significantly, Au Revoir Les Enfants is an autobiographical account of director, Louis Malle’s childhood experience. Reading reviews online, one article stated that one weakness, if any, would be the lack of character development. I have been reading Vogel’s The Writer’s Journey, a book about screenwriting influenced by the writings on myth of Joseph Campbell (A Hero with 1,000 Faces). It discusses how important character development is and that it is essentially what makes a screenplay compelling. Since Au Revoir Les Enfants is drawn from truth, and because of its historical and moral context, one cannot help but think of what happened to the children outside the frame of the film and that it is the un-portrayed which gives the film its gravity. Perhaps rather than saying the film lacks character development, one might say that the characters reveal themselves subtly and that this gentleness and quietness of character underscores the incomprehensible magnitude of the holocaust. One can say that among the greatest tragedies of the holocaust are the innumerable moments lost; a subtle friendship between boys, a girl’s first crush, a cup of tea made for a loved one, the jokes never told and the arguments never resolved.The dilemma this poses to the filmmaker resides in the fact that the loss and the crime can’t compete on screen. What is a cup of tea compared to six million lives, gas chambers, slavery and genocide? The irony is, that’s exactly what it is. The only way to comprehend the holocaust is through six million cups of tea. This point is beautifully articulated by Rabbi Benjamin Blech in his article; Six Million: The Problem with Numbers from aish.com.

East German Poster Art for the film