Friday, 8 March 2013

Let Us Now Praise Famous Women

Considering today is International Women's Day I thought I highlight some women filmmakers.

Alice Guy-Blaché, with the film Falling Leaves (1912) :



Lois Weber, with a clip from Hypocrites (1915):



Dorothy Arzner, with a clip from Dance, Girl, Dance (1940):



Ida Lupino, with the whole of The Hitchhiker (1953):



Agnès Varda, with the short film Les fiancés du pont Mac Donald (1961):



Mai Zetterling, with the short film The War Game (1962):



Chantal Akerman, with a clip from Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975):



Gillian Armstrong, with a clip from High Tide (1987):



Claire Denis, with a clip from Nenette and Boni (1996):



Samira Makhmalbaf, with a clip from The Apple (1998)



Nicole Holofcener, with a clip from Lovely & Amazing (2001):



That will be enough for now. Usually I do not like to single out filmmakers based on gender, or discuss cinema in this way, but I made an exception today. I often hear complains about the lack of female role models for women who want to make films. That is nonsense. These 11 are just a tip of an iceberg.

Previously I have written about Maya Deren (here) and Nora Ephron (here, here and here).
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(I of course borrowed the title of this post from James Agee and Walker Evans.)