|
| |
Women and Film
by Lisa Johnson |
|
3/23/2007 at 4:23:13 PM |
 Email
|
 Print
|
|
Female filmmakers are making great strides these days – overseas. This year for example, two of the five directors nominated for Best Foreign Language Film Academy Awards were female. That’s the equivalent of 40%.
Unfortunately, the same doesn’t hold true in Hollywood. Imagine if we were privy to that same kind of ratio in the Best Picture or even Best Director categories. Today, it’s a big deal - and a rare occurrence - when any female director is nominated in either category, let alone when that person, like Sofia Coppola, goes on to win.
The directors (and co-writers) of those two aforementioned foreign films - Water and Efter brylluppet (After the Wedding) - are respectively Deepa Mehta of Canada (pictured above) and Susanne Bier of Denmark (pictured below). Both of their movies are touching, beautiful, and would have been entirely deserving of this year’s Oscar had it not gone to The Lives of Others. (I actually voted for Water in the Critics’ Choice foreign film category.)
When I sat down recently with Bier, I felt compelled to ask her why it is that women directors in Hollywood don’t seem to go as far as their counterparts in other countries. Her answer was fascinating.
“Actually, in Denmark, a lot of the movies that have been both critically acclaimed and commercially successful have been made by women,” Bier tells FilmStew. “I don’t think it has to do with the film industry. I think it has to do with society in general, particularly in Northern Europe.”
“We have a very strong tradition of childcare,” she continues. “And, even though it may seem like a superficial explanation, I think that on a wider scale, women of a certain age in Northern Europe know that they can have a career and kids. They can have a life and still work. I think that changes society radically, and therefore, also, the film industry.”
Bier says that in the United States, the opposite seems to be true. “There is the idea that you work, and then you sacrifice everything else, which I don’t necessarily, particularly as a film director, think is right,” she avers. “I think if you are a film director, and you want to make movie about real people, you also have to know what real life is. If you decide not to have kids, there’s a whole area of life which you will not experience. I think it’s about having a society that caters to women being able to have a career.”
Bier, a mother of two, notes that because national childcare is available in Denmark and no one looks askance at her for taking advantage of it, she is able to enjoy the experience of raising children while working diligently - and successfully - in film. She’s currently in post-production on her first English language film, Things We Lost in the Fire, starring Halle Berry, Benicio Del Toro, David Duchovny and Alison Lohman. It’s all about family, loss and healing.
Here’s hoping that we, here in the US, can follow the lead of countries such as Denmark and figure out how to have a family and career without suffering the loss of one or the other. As people like Susanne Bier remind us, there are a lot of things lost in life when everyone is too busy stoking the fire of their professional ambitions.
|
|
|
<< Prev Blog Entry |
Return to Main Index |
Next Blog Entry >> |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|