Lois Weber (1879-1939) 1910s and 20s - wrote, directed and starred in films. She was a social realist. One of her films was banned in Boston. The subject of her films dealt with abortion and birth control. She is the first woman to direct a full-length feature, the Rex production of "The Merchant of Venice, " in 1914.
Frances Marion (1888-1973) 1920s and 30s. The most renowned female screenwriter of the 20th century, and one of the most respected scripters of any gender. She modeled and acted and had some success as a commercial artist. She entered into journalism and served in Europe as a combat correspondent during World War I. She won Oscars for her writing on The Big House (1930) and The Champ (1931/I). She died in 1973, one of the most respected names in Hollywood history.
Kathryn Bigelow (1951- ) A very talented painter, Kathryn spent two years at the San Francisco Art Institute. She later graduated from Ivy League's Columbia University School of Arts in 1979. In 2010, she became the first woman in Oscar history to win the Best Director award. Taught at the California Institute of the Arts.
Dorothy Arzner (1897-1979) She was the only woman director during the "Golden Age" of Hollywood's studio system during the 1930s and early 40s and the woman director with the largest oeuvre in Hollywood to this day. Arzner would be one of the few woman to break the glass-ceiling of directing, and the only to work during the early Sound era. Started out as a switch board operator. She served as an ambulance driver during the war. Directed "Dance Girl Dance" in 1940. She was gay and her partner was a dancer.
George Cukor (1899-1983) He was replaced as director of Gone with the Wind (1939) because of constant disagreements with producer David O. Selznick over the script and direction (not as rumor had it because Clark Gable considered him better suited as a so-called woman's director). Worked as Broadway director before going into the film business with Grumpy (1930). Did a few days work as intermediate director on The Wizard of Oz (1939). Directed "Adam's Rib"
Maya Deren - known as the mother of independent film "Meshes of the Afternoon" - Together with her father, a psychiatrist, and her mother, an artist, she fled the pogroms against Russian Jews. She studied journalism and political science - Deren is the author of two books. Maya Deren became the first filmmaker to receive a Guggenheim grant for creative work in motion pictures
Germine Dulac - France - 1920s - she studied various forms of art with an emphasis on music and the opera. veered toward journalism. one of the leading radical feminists of her day, she was editor of the French suffragette movement. She also doubled as theater and cinema critic of the publication and became increasingly enamored with film as an art form. In 1915 she formed a small production company and began directing highly inventive, small-budget pictures. She was the second woman director in French films, after Alice Guy,
Alice Guy - France - 1890s and 1900s - the world's first female director, French-born Alice Guy entered the film business as a secretary at Gaumont-Paris in 1896. The next year Gaumont changed from manufacturing cameras to producing movies, and Guy became one of its first film directors. 1905 she was made the company's production director, supervising the company's other directors. In 1910 she set up her own production company in New York and built a studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
Ida Lupino - Ida was born in London to a show business family. In 1933, her mother brought Ida with her to an audition and Ida got the part her mother wanted. The picture was Her First Affaire (1932). Ida, a bleached blonde, came to Hollywood in 1934 and played small and insignificant parts. Peter Ibbetson (1935) was one of her few noteworthy movies and it was not until The Light That Failed (1939) that she got a chance to get better parts. High Sierra (1941), she played the part magnificently. It has been said that no one could do hard-luck dames the way Lupino could do them.
Mira Nair - Accomplished Film Director/Writer/Producer Mira Nair was born in India and educated at Delhi University and at Harvard. She began her film career as an actor and then turned to directing award-winning documentaries, including So Far From India and India Cabaret. Her debut feature film, Salaam Bombay! was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1988; it won the Camera D'Or (for best first feature) and the Prix du Publique (for most popular entry) at the Cannes Film Festival and 25 other international awards.
Penny Marshall - First female to direct a movie that grossed over 100 million dollars in the US, with Big (1988). And the first female director with 2 movies that grossed over 100 million, with A League of Their Own (1992). Penny began directing such films as Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986), Big (1988) and A League of Their Own (1992). Her hobbies include needlepoint, jigsaw puzzles and antique shopping. She is best friends with actress Carrie Fisher and is godmother to Carrie's daughter, Billie.
Amy Heckerling - Studied Film and TV at New York University and got a Masters Degree in Film from The American Film Institute. Despite this education she couldn't get a break in Hollywood. However, in 1982, she made Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), and people started to take notice. In 1987, while Amy was pregnant, she got the idea for Look Who's Talking (1989). In 1994, Amy wrote Clueless (1995). Amy is a liberal and also an environmentalist and helps environmental charities whenever she can.
Jane Campion - Graduated with a BA in Anthropology from Victoria University of Wellington in 1975, and a BA, with a painting major, at Sydney College of the Arts in 1979, she began filmmaking in the early 1980s, attending the Australian School of Film and Television. Her first short film, Peel (1982) won the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1986. She co-wrote and directed her first feature film, Sweetie (1989), which won the Georges Sadoul prize in 1989 for Best Foreign Film. She followed this with An Angel At My Table (1990), a dramatization based on the autobiographies of Janet Frame which won some seven prizes. The Piano (1993) won the Palme D'Or at Cannes, making her the first woman ever to win the prestigious award. She also captured an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay at the 1993 Oscars, while also being nominated for Best Director.
Mary Harron - Female Canadian director and screenwriter. Directed I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), American Psycho (2000) and The Notorious Bettie Page (2005). She was a journalist for rock music. She made six short films about pop culture.
Elaine May - Writer, Director and Actress. Partnered with Mike Nichols for a number of years until their less than amicable split. They made up years later and wrote the movie The Birdcage (1996). Has not directed a movie since the colossal box office failure of Ishtar (1987).
Joan Micklin Silver - Director, Writer, Producer. Wrote for the Village Voice. Wrote screen plays before directing Hester Street.
Claudia Weill - Director, Actress and Cinematographer.
Leni Riefenstahl - German. Her penchant for artistic work earned her acclaim and awards for her films across Europe. It was her work on Triumph of the Will (1935), a documentary commissioned by the Nazi government about Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, that would come back to haunt her after the atrocities of World War II. Despite her protests to the contrary, Riefenstahl was considered an intricate part of the Third Reich's propaganda machine. Condemned by the international community, she did not make another movie for over 50 years.
Agnes Varda - Belgian - France - Director, Writer and Producer. Was the very first director to ever cast Gérard Depardieu, in 1965. The film, called "Christmas Carole" (revolving around Carole, a young comics writer), was never completed, due to lack of money. Around 8 minutes have been shot, featuring Depardieu, and shown at the French Cinematheque at the end of the 90s.
Lina Wertmuller - Italy
- Director and Writer. Often gives long, verbose titles to her works. The first
woman ever to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Direction.
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Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography. Many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Depression.
femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype or stock character of literature and art. Her ability to entrance and hypnotize her victim was in the earliest stories seen as being literally supernatural, hence the most prosaic femme fatale today is still described as having a power akin to an enchantress, vampire, female monster or demon.
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50's Archetypes
Mother - Elizabeth Taylor - Earth mother, needs a weaker man to depend on
Daughter - Audrey Hepburn - Needs to be guided by an older man.
Sister - Doris Day - Tomboy, the girl next door, won't have sex until married
Mistress - Marilyn Monroe - Use body as an asset and does not feel guilt about doing so.
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Brave Dame Philosophy
Brave dame is passionate about something besides passion. Even in the worst of times, a brave dame does not give up; she is resilient. A brave dame is competent and is willing to face moral and physical challenges. She has high ethical standards. She stands up to injustice and is a true friend.
Wimpette Philosophy
All men are really little boys at heart. Your worth rises in direct proportion to your masochism. Always opt for indirection and subterfuge. Men are strong and women are weak. A wimpette has low ethical standards. She is a moral lightweight except, occasionally, in sexual matters (and even there her abstinence has to do with her perceived value to a man rather than any deeply held belief). She betrays other woman, including her friends and she does not take responsibility for her own actions and blames her lack of action on others. A wimpette looks to a man to give her an identity.
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Women's Weepies
1. Hetero Love Film - Casablanca - Women are punished for breaking moral code
2. Maternal Melodrama - losing their children
3. Paranoid Gothic - Suspicion - Birds
4. Medical Discourse - Now Voyager, Terms of Endearment