A few weeks ago, headlines for the opening of WONDER WOMAN read: Patty Jenkins is the first woman to direct a superhero film with a female protagonist. WONDER WOMAN is the first female-directed live-action film to have a $100 million+ budget. WONDER WOMAN opened at $103 million box office, which is the highest US opening for a female director.
Because of the female superhero, or superheroine, story, a number of women directors were considered. According to imdb.com, they include Kathryn Bigelow, Catherine Hardwicke, Mimi Leder, Karyn Kusama, Julie Taymor, and Tricia Brock. The first director assigned to the project, Michelle MacLaren, had to bow out.
Why, seventeen years into the 21st century, in a country such as ours where women have moved into so many professional fields, do we put such an emphasis on the gender of a film director? I guess the answer to this question goes back to the very beginning of the history of commercial filmmaking. In its infancy, from the 1890s to the early 1920s, there were a good number of female directors.
However, as the industry exploded into a billion-dollar business, studio moguls and the Wall Street bankers who were investing in this industry paled at the thought of women in such responsible positions. Let women be costumers, editors, screenwriters, but leave the powerful, profits-dependent position of director to the menfolk!
A new Blu-ray and DVD release by Flicker Alley celebrates women in the United States and Europe who directed motion pictures from the start through World War II. It is a three-disc set titled EARLY WOMEN FILMMAKERS: AN INTERNATIONAL ANTHOLOGY. It was curated and produced by a prestigious group, including the late David Shepard to whom the release has been dedicated, Serge Bromberg, Film Preservation Associates, Lobster Films, the Women Film Pioneers Project of Columbia University, and the Library of Congress.
Some of the 652 minutes of programming presents classics by Alice Guy Blache and Lois Weber of silent days. Also included is a selection of lesser-known, very rare material by such little-remembered or completely forgotten directors as Madeline Brandeis’s THE STAR PRINCE from 1918 and Olga Preobrazhenskaia’s THE PEASANT WOMEN OF RYAZAN from 1927. On the avant-garde side, there are independent films by Germaine Dulac, Mary Ellen Bute, and the great Maya Deren.
The collection has a few big surprises that will satisfy and impress even the most avid classic film aficionados. A couple titles are already mentioned. Add to these a ridiculously bad murder mystery called THE WOMAN CONDEMNED directed by Mrs. Wallace Reid in 1934. The story is absurd and the budget, dirt cheap. Still, it is fun to watch. A real popcorn movie! What can I say?
A 1916 Lois Weber film, DISCONTENT, is a rare gem. It deals with a cranky elderly veteran in an old soldiers’ home who brags about his wealthy nephew and his family and then moves in with them. He practically demolishes their happy home within a few days. It is dramatic, funny at times, and the story hasn’t dated one bit in a hundred years.
In no case did I view any of the films and remark, “Aha, a woman directed that!” Each has its own director’s touch, but that touch often is not gender dependent. In 120 years of filmmaking, we have had directors who are heterosexual, homosexual and transgender. Each of their films reflects the individual nature of the director or the assignment they have been given. The history of women making movies is what strikes me as more interesting than the sexual bias of any film. EARLY WOMEN FILMMAKERS is a fine collection to demonstrate that point.
Audrey Kupferberg is a film and video archivist and appraiser. She is lecturer emeritus and the former Director of Film Studies at the University at Albany and has co-authored several entertainment biographies with her husband and creative partner, Rob Edelman.
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