Why are there so few female film directors?

I'd have to guess that Nancy Meyers (The Parent Trap, What Women Want, Something's Gotta Give, The Holiday) is one of the most successful woman directors these days, box-office-wise.

mimi leder
claire denis
catherine breillat

lol thread is all mangs posting

Especially since a lot if not most movie directors start by doing all the technical stuff like editing

Editing seems to be a a pretty female friendly profession in the film industry

Thelma Schoonmaker, yo.

Jill Sprecher
Susan Streitfeld

Much more common than camera, errrrrrrr, persons for instance!

Susan Seidelman
Sarah Polley

Belladonna

lols I am gross-o

Not that bad a representation when compared to, say, being a music producer or conducting an orchestra

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.

What I liked best: that the film ends up aligning itself with the time-honored tradition of high school movies that argue there's-more-uniting-us-than-separating-us (which, in the here and now, when you're actually in high school, is a complete fantasy; it's only credible with some time and perspective--and maybe not even then, but it's a nice thought).

One thing that leaves me at a complete loss: where the line of acceptability is for over-the-top caricature. The two gay students...If Chris Rock (or fill-in-the-blank) tried something like that, he'd be run out of town. It doesn't outrage me or anything--I basically never get outraged at the movies, just bored--I'm just curious. If there's controversy over these two characters, it hasn't reached me.

You misread that sentence; it's less polished than Eight Grade (in that it's like a bulldozer), but I think it's a more interesting film.

(I'm talking about the two guys--maybe the gay lead is seen as a fair trade-off.)

A rewatch of Wandayesterday, and that educational short by Barbara Loden about the frontier mentioned above. It's halfway into her interview w/ Dick Cavett from 1970 before the other guests chime in with questions -- Jimmy Breslin and Howard Cosell.

The loser thief Wanda hooks up with is treated with surprising depth, I think, w/out letting him off the hook or painting him as anything but damaged and cruel.

I hadn't realized Loden stayed married to Elia Kazan from '67 til her death; I thought they split up at some point.

Also, I've been to the religious theme park that Wanda and Mr Dennis visit. It's in Waterbury CT, and is essentially in ruins as it closed in 1984.

XP According to the You Must Remember This about Loden, they had agreed to divorce when she got her cancer diagnosis.

They were more or less separated for a lot of the '70s.

pauline kael was so mean to barbara loden in her review

cavett is sort of a prick to her too in that interview

sort of in the way of the era

for sure, tho unusual for Cavett

Not really, bcz he's *trying* to be 1970-woke ("It must be harder to raise money for a film when you're a woman") but then puts his foot in it anyway. Similar Cavett moment in the trailer for the recent Toni Morrison doc. He was nailed by Rick Moranis' namedropping impression on SCTV.

on the history of women editors

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6582-hidden-histories-the-story-of-women-film-editors

S.C. centennial

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6616-celebrating-shirley-clarke

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