Why are there so few female film directors?

Lisa Cholodenko

Julie Delpy
Robin Swicord
Kasi Lemmons
Nicole Holofcener
Nancy Meyers

Good we have named a whole bunch of people found thru google searches that hardly anyone wld be familiar with; glass ceiling broken.

Callie Khouri

i like that this has turned into "name whatever female directors u can think of off the top of your head"

amy heckerling

That was always going to happen (xp)

xpost Yeah, are we just naming female directors now? Doesn't prove anything, but OK:

Agnes Varda
Mary Harron
Kimberly Peirce
Lynne Ramsay

whole bunch of people found thru google searches that hardly anyone wld be familiar with

sorry, no

it proves that there are not zero female film directors.

wtf is naming female film directors proving, exactly?

it proves that there are not zero female film directors.

asia argento

maybe we're not proving anything ;)

ida lupino

I knew all of these names already and have seen all of their films, mostly in small cinemas in foreign countries.

glad 2 see weve solved this issue good work everyone

Yes. Job done. What's next?

that hardly anyone wld be familiar with

Uh mostly yes gabbnebb, I'm not film-illiterate but Sofia and Amy Heckerling (who I love!) are the only ones I know just by hearing their names. Heckerling, who in spite of being a big name and director of well-liked movies had her last film buried straight to DVD for really no reason.

I mean you shouldn't have to do film festival circuits to be able to prove whatever point it is you are making.

How do you strike a balance between wanting to entertain a mass audience, and also wanting to write something that's true, and maybe even a little painful?

Heckerling: Well, there's another element involved, and that's knowing that there really are young people out there who care a great deal about what you say to them. There are these images and characters you want to give them to look up to, vs. what you're going to be allowed to do or say. It can be something as simple as a girl dressing a certain way. Do you dress her up so that she's comfortable, or so she'll look pretty, or because you like the way it looks? Is it too sexual? Do you want your daughter to have to dress that way and worry about it? It's tough.

Gillian Armstrong
Nora Ephron
Phyllida Lloyd

harmony korine should be a woman's name

And Sofia, believe it or not, MIGHT have a nepotism factor benefiting her. I know, I know, it's some grande challops.

antonia bird

miranda july is actually a dude

uh no

mirando

ugh why did I look up Heckerling's filmography ;_;

i don't think there is a single (American) director named on this thread who you need to go to a film festival to see, at least if you live in a major American city like most Ilxors.

wtf is naming female film directors proving, exactly?

― Lamp, Tuesday, 26 May 2009 17:33 (8 minutes ago) Permalink

that eventually we will have enough names to poll them on their physical attractiveness

cat power

well this thread didn't work out very well. Although I'm glad this random list of names has proven once and for all that there's no glass ceiling of sexism in the film industry. Tuomas the lone voice of reason (oddly)

Wim Wenders
Akira Kurosawa
McG

ugh gabbnebb I guess the thing is even most people in major American cities are probably not watching those movies AND (everyone forgets) not everyone lives in major American cities...before Netflix most of these wld be hard to RENT in less than 250k population cities. I mean, if you asked a non-ILXor person, say a coworker at the office or another person on the bus, to name even 25 directors it's really unlikely a woman wld come up, tho you are doing an A+ job at deluding yrself hey good job.

Why are there so few female anythings at the top of any industry or art?

it was hollywood's blatant sexism that prevented leslie nielsen from moving into the director's chair

btw Edward III I <3 you

abbott i agree w/ you generally but i think the a decent % of ppl could name popular female directors michel gondry or ridley scott

No woman has ever won best director, and only three have ever been nominated: Lina Wertmüller for 1976's Seven Beauties, Jane Campion for 1993's The Piano and Sofia Coppola for 2003's Lost in Translation.

One nearly every decade since the 1970s hey female directors are all over the place.

It's weird that I'm having to argue the thread title is an accurate & valid question!

That's how ignorance works, let's just pretend sexism isn't an issue and make some jokes.

i agree w/ u abbott

but i still support making some jokes

It's pretty impressive that film has been around less that 125 years and is full of institutionalized sexism.

I am all about the female name joeks too btw.

you are doing an A+ job at deluding yrself hey good job.

i'm not making the point you think i'm making, but good job deluding yrself

what point are you making then?

Why are there so few female anythings at the top of any industry or art?

fair (and fairly easily) answered question - but in the case of this particular industry I wonder what it is about film/directing that makes sexist "old boys' club" networks more enduring than in, say (as already mentioned), music or photography or literature or whatever. I mean, there are probably more female heads of state than there are well-known, mainstream female film directors... for an industry widely perceived as deeply liberal (and one that congratulates itself regularly for being so - heyo Oscars!) this seems like a rather glaring incongruity.

x-posts

i would have agreed with abbott except i read the fantastic list of popular successful female directors provided in this thread so now im wondering why there are so few male directors working nowadays

<3 <3 <3

guess:

considering how alpha-male assholish most film sets are, film studios probably prefer to have another alpha-male type on set to "handle" the stars (especially the male ones) and it's believed that women couldn't do it. it's tough for even the best female directors to get work; if you're a female director and you have a couple of hits in a row, you'll be okay, but if you have a single flop you're in trouble. a male director can have five flops in a row and still get work. there's pretty much no excuse for someone like kathyrn bigelow to find it difficult to land projects considering the fact that she's one of the best directors in her genre (unless she's just someone who takes her time working on projects.)

new Lupino set

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/09/ida-lupino-box-set

A woman I grew up with on Fire Island is making quite the name for herself as a director right now and it’s so awesome. Can’t wait to see what she ends up doing. This is her latest project: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.indiewire.com/2019/09/the-rhythm-section-trailer-blake-lively-reed-morano-1202174816/amp/

That Lupino set was announced maaaaybe a day or two after I bought The Hitch-Hiker. Which was pretty annoying. But the set doesn't contain Outrage which is a bit of an outrage unto itself.

Went to see Hustlers the other night, good stuff

I recommend the pre-Code alcoholic romance Merrily We Go to Hell, directed by Dorothy Arzner (who quit directing features in the mid '40s, but later taught F Coppola at UCLA). Fredric March is a newspaperman turned playwright (a warmup lush for his Star Is Born role), Sylvia Sidney is his 'doormat' heiress wife, and when they end up in an open marriage she takes revenge with Cary Grant (one scene). Recently issued on a Universal disc.

https://www.screenslate.com/features/172

^^^ watching this afternoon on Criterion Channel (recently added).

Just watched Working Girls, which the Criterion Channel just put up as a companion to MWGtH. The screenwriters and director must have worked hard to get a happy ending for foolish sister May and wise sister June, in the big city and surrounded by men of varying morals. But they achieved it.

Related topic: Why do discussions of women in film rarely discuss female screenwriters?

well we all love rio bravo

https://www.criterion.com/films/27854-daisies

Great film! I saw Chytilová's follow-up The Fruit of Paradise but don't remember anything other than bewilderment.

My favourite film! Got to see it on the big screen a few times, the best was last year with a p raucous audience of mainly students who were v nonplussed but loved it

There's already an excellent blu-ray of this from Second Run, a label that's shown far greater commitment to East European cinema than Criterion. They also offer other Chytilová films:

https://www.secondrundvd.com/release_daisiesBD.html

Susan Seidelman memoir: https://read.macmillan.com/lp/desperately-seeking-something-9781250328212/

Criterion releasing an early Martha Coolidge film: https://www.criterion.com/films/33619-not-a-pretty-picture

That looks really interesting--amazed I've never heard of it. (Liked Valley Girl when it came out, also a rewatch years later.)