Being a director means having power. And in the past
year, three women already famous for being performers -- Angelina Jolie,
Vera Farmiga, and Madonna -- claimed some of that power for themselves
by stepping behind the camera, with varying degrees of success.
With In the Land of Blood and Honey, Higher Ground, and W.E., Jolie, Farmiga and Madonna made three very different movies, for very different audiences. The unifying factor? In all three movies, complex women owned the story arcs -- still a far-too-unusual occurrence in Hollywood.
With In the Land of Blood and Honey, Higher Ground, and W.E., Jolie, Farmiga and Madonna made three very different movies, for very different audiences. The unifying factor? In all three movies, complex women owned the story arcs -- still a far-too-unusual occurrence in Hollywood.
In the Land of Blood and Honey: Golden Globe NominationJolie's In the Land of Blood and Honey, which earned a Golden Globe nomination for best foreign-language movie, dramatizes the high cost of war in the Balkans, unflinchingly depicting rape as a tool of oppression. A tortured Romeo and Juliet between a Muslim artist and a Christian soldier, the movie is ambitious, well-shot, and muscularly performed by lesser-known actors unimpeded by celebrity. It's no vanity project. Jolie does not appear onscreen. It makes the particularly strong point that war is not just fought on the battlefield, but in the bedroom. By doing that, it presents a strong female perspective -- without sacrificing the men in the frame. There's not a scrap of egotism in the work even if, like most debut directorial efforts, it could have been shaved a bit. The movie functions as a direct extension of Jolie's work as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador: It bears witness to the horror of a very specific conflict and makes a strong universal statement about the ways atrocities erode the humanity of both the victims and the perpetrators.
Higher Ground: Indie-Side Out
Farmiga's movie, based on Carolyn Briggs's memoir about a woman's journey through Christian fundamentalism, is in the tradition of American independents associated with the Sundance Film Festival, where it debuted last January. It tells the story of a young writer who gets pregnant, joins a patriarchal rural Christian community with her husband, and -- two decades and three children later -- has a crisis of faith. Higher Ground is in tune with a segment of America rarely seen onscreen, and certainly not depicted in such TV shows as Big Love or the flashier Sundance movie Martha Macy May Marlene. In this case, Farmiga has also crafted a role for herself at the movie's center that is intelligent, searching, maternal, and relatably flawed. Her character -- wife, mother, and Christian -- drives the action. And it turns out that behind the camera, Farmiga's work is as glowing, sensitive, and careful as her work onscreen.
W.E.: Reframing a Famous Love Story, a.k.a. Gone with the Windsors
Better known as a musical performer than an actress, Madonna has enormous ambitions for W.E., her second project as a director. (She lensed Filth and Wisdom in 2008.) Her primary subject is Wallis Simpson, although the movie also weaves in a fictional contemporary love story. One of the movie's main thrusts is to reframe the narrative of the Wallis Simpson-King Edward VIII "romance of the century." While the common wisdom tends to be that the royal abdicated the throne for this commoner, Madonna poses the question: What did this uncommon woman sacrifice to marry the king? The question has resonance given Madonna's personal journey from Michigan unknown to global superstar. Madonna, like Jolie and Farmiga, is driven by a desire to control the female narrative arcs as we see them in the movies, and she's not above revising the historical record to accomplish that.
Of the three, W.E. is the most stylistically ambitious, the most overreaching, and, unfortunately, the least successful -- despite how passionate Madonna was about sharing this story. She was also the most vulnerable when the movie premiered, because she had put so much of herself into it that she'd given critics an opportunity to "put her in her place." In other words, she'd stepped out of her Madonna box, and the wolves were waiting.
The difficulty for performers who have achieved a high level of success is that they face greater scrutiny when they're still getting their bearings as directors. Critics and audiences find it hard to be objective, particularly when it comes to sexual icons like Madonna and Jolie. I've written elsewhere how critiques of Jolie's persona -- the "don't hate me because I'm beautiful" syndrome -- has clouded critics' ability to see the movie objectively. Also, her film makes no concessions to the audience; this is a story that Jolie wants to tell, but like many foreign-language films about war atrocities, it's not a drama that holiday audiences flock to see. And while Farmiga got restrained respect for her movie -- and her performance -- her bold choice to intelligently address religious faith in the language of independent cinema failed to connect with a larger audience.
In some ways, these women, despite their previous successes, are pioneers. They have used their power in their industries to make the movies that they want to see. That's the model: If you build it, they will come. If women produce and direct the stories they want to see, the female audiences that flocked to The Help and Bridesmaids will eventually come, drawn by movies driven by true passion, rather than cynical focus-group marketing.
1/22/2012
Actor, Humanitarian, Director.
(USA, 127 min.)
Written and directed by Angelina Jolie
Starring: Zana Marjanovic, Goran Kostic, Rade Serbedzija.
Angelina Jolie can direct! The Oscar-winning actress makes a strong feature debut with In the Land of Blood and Honey. Jolie displays a keen sense of cinema in In the Land of Blood and Honey, and the film allows a fair, well-handled dramatization of Jolie’s political convictions.
In the Land of Blood and Honey
portrays the atrocities of the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina of
1992-1995. It’s a conflict fueled by complex political roots, the
origins of which stem back to longstanding intercultural conflicts.
Jolie handles the politics of the situation fairly and objectively. Her
characters voice their old grudges and preoccupations in clear natural
arguments, thus granting viewers enough context to appreciate and
understand the drama. Jolie succeeds in doings so without giving an
essentialist portrait of the War. Nor does she fall victim to
heavy-handed preaching or didacticism.
Jolie stages
the politics via an ill-fated love story between a Bosniak Muslim and a
Bosnian Serb. The former is Ajla (played by Zana Marjanovic); the latter
is Danijel (Goran Kostic). Ajla and Danijel meet shortly before the War
begins and they fall in love with no qualms of their differing
heritages. Once the war begins, though, they are torn apart.
Ajla is
rounded up with the other Muslim women and they are taken to a camp and
raped by Serbian soldiers. Ajla survives, however, because Danijel
happens to be the commanding officer at the camp. He watches over her
and she takes shelter in his authority over his more brutish colleagues.
In spite of all that is going on, their love reignites the best it can.
They find themselves star-crossed lovers, although the \Romeo & Juliet-ishness of their affair is embroiled in far more volatile politics.
Rather than
dumb down the hardship of the Bosnian War, the love story makes it
accessible. Jolie, moreover, hardly panders to sweet, syrupy Hollywood
convention. In the Land of Blood and Honey
is hard-hitting and visceral, and Jolie offers an ending that troubles
the tale of happily-ever-after, but rings true to the conflict she
depicts.
Jolie is also
quite sensitive to the origins of her story. Although this is an
American production, the drama plays out in subtitled Bosnian and
Serbian, rather than English. The result is a film both compelling and
provocative. Jolie is especially good in handling the violence in her
film, and she alternates between explicit carnage and offscreen
restraint.
As far as first features go, In the Land of Blood and Honey
exceeds most. The actor-cum-director solicits some fine work from her
actors, especially Marjanovic. Jolie also stages some spectacular action
scenes and offers a genuinely engaging and unpredictable tale. As Vera
Farmiga did with 2011’s Higher Ground,
Jolie makes a most welcome entrance into the small field of artists who
perform just as well behind the camera as they do in front.
Percentage of women directors in Hollywood declining
Women account for just 5% of directors
working in Hollywood, according to a new report conducted by the Center
for the Study of Women in Television and Film.
Kathryn Bigelow may have become the first female director to
win an Oscar in 2010, but it seems that women’s presence as directors in
Hollywood is getting significantly worse, not better.Women account for just 5% of directors working in Hollywood, representing a 2% decrease from 2010, according to a new report, which also reveals that the percentage of women directors in Hollywood has almost halved since 1998.
The Celluloid Ceiling report - which was carried out by Dr Martha Lauzen, executive director of The Center for the Study of Women in Television And Film in San Diego – anaylsed gender statistics of women working behind the scenes on the top 250 domestic grossing films in the US.
According to the report, women were most likely to work in the documentary, drama, and comedy genres. They were least likely to work in the horror, action, and animated genres.
In other roles, the report shows that women comprised 14% of writers, 18% of executive producers, 25% of producers, 20% of editors, and 4% of cinematographers.
Kate Kinninmont, chief executive of Women in Film & TV (UK) said it was “shocking to find that gender equality in Hollywood is now actually running backwards.”
“These statistics are appalling, but understanding how bad they are is the first step to making things better. WFTV invites academics working on gender issues in film and television in the UK to contact us. We can publicise their work widely within the industry,” added Kinninmont.
Dr Lauzen added: “Women’s under-representation is the result of many factors operating at multiple levels. As filmmaking has become more of a business, the studios have become more interested in minimizing their risk. If women are viewed as “riskier hires,” they are less likely to be considered for employment, and certainly not for big-budget, high-profile films.
However a previous report carried out by Dr Lauzen – entitled Women @The Box Office – concluded that movies made by women perform just as well at the box office as movies made by men.
Women Underrepresented In 2011's Blockbusters
Filed under: Film Flickers
In Hollywood's biggest features of 2011, women barely had a voice.
Only five percent of 2011 blockbusters were directed by women, down from seven percent in 2010.
The numbers are abysmal in other areas too.
Out of the top 250 grossing films, 18% had female executive producers, 25% had female producers of any kind, 20% had female editors, and 14% had female writers.
A lowly four percent had female cinematographers and 38% had zero to one female in any of the aforementioned roles!
We need more ladies behind the camera!
