Tag Archive for 'Jane Campion'

Here’s the beginning:

In less than one week, March 7 to be exact, the Hollywood awards season will be over, and chances are very good that for the first time a woman—Kathryn Bigelow—will have won the best director Oscar for The Hurt Locker.  Three other women (Lina Wertmuller, Jane Campion and Sophia Coppola) have been nominated in the 82 years that the Academy has held its awards, but with due respect to them and their films, none of them had a shot.

This year is different.  Based on earlier awards by critics and more recently by the Directors Guild (a first for a woman director) and the British academy (BAFTA)—as well as conversations with several Oscar watchers—the consensus is that Bigelow is at the front of the pack to win the award.  Last week, Time magazine got into the act titling its story “The Front Runner.” Forgive me for not sounding the trumpets in advance but we all have seen female front runners fade. While there are many reasons to believe that Bigelow will win, there is something in the back of my head that screams caution remembering the Gloria Steinem piece from the 2008 election season “Women are Never Front-Runners.”

Read full piece here

After the Golden Globe nominations, I reached out to several women who write and think about films to get their sense of the stories that came out of the nominations.

The issues that I wanted to hear other people’s thoughts on what I saw coming out of the nominations:

• Meryl vs Meryl
• Kathryn Bigelow
• The return of Sandra Bullock
• Nora (Ephron) vs. Nancy (Meyers)
• Women over 40 rule acting nods
• Bright Star missing
• An Education, no best picture

The woman who participated included: Sasha Stone, Awards Daily; Thelma Adams, Us Weekly; Anne Thompson, Thompson on Hollywood; Monika Bartyzel, Cinematical; Caryn James, film critic Marie Claire; Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer; Ella Taylor, LA Weekly; Katey Rich, Cinemablend; Jan Lisa Huttner, The Hot Pink Pen; Susan Wloszczyna, USA Today; Jenni Miller, Cinematical.

Thanks so much to all the participants.

Sasha Stone

I’m a bit horrified that Jane Campion’s Bright Star was ignored.  On the other hand, it is an extremely competitive year for women and in that way, be careful what you wish for.  The one woman who is playing in the big leagues, Kathryn Bigelow, didn’t direct a gender-based film at all; in fact, her film, like most of her films, is all about the men.

But who’s to say a woman shouldn’t feel free to direct a film about anyone?  Men, women, aliens, politicians – women should have an open playing field.

Nora vs. Nancy is funny – both women kind of corner the market on funny films about older women looking for identity and love.  And there is Meryl Streep smack dab in the middle. Having them both there is call for celebration.

Bright Star is an odd film, not easily sold or packaged.  It didn’t get enough momentum out of the festival circuit and not the fault of the publicity team who worked day and night to get that film the exposure it needed.   Campion’s refusal to make Bright Star and out and out weepy, combined with its distant romantic tale, fought off the very audience it would need to survive: romance-hungry women.  How awful to have it categorized like that but that is what women want.

Campion, however, is an auteur.  Her films will last long after many of the films in play today are merely footnotes.  She in uncompromising and that makes her a powerful force in filmmaking in general, not just in “women’s filmmaking.”  This year is an exceptional leap forward.  One hopes it doesn’t get rolled up and put into a stupid theory that films directed by women don’t win awards unless they’re about men.  That would be a shame.

Finally, it’s a mistake to confuse quality of filmmaking with success in the awards race.  One is a game, the other is art.

Thelma Adams

Here’s another: Vera versus Anna.  Don’t you wish Anna would gracefully bow out so that this terrific veteran actress who really soars in Up in the Air has a chance at best supporting actress?

As for Meryl versus Meryl — this is a speed bump.  It won’t happen at the Oscars where Meryl will be nominated for Julie & Julia — and has a very good chance to take the Oscar.

I LOVE Bright Star but it was a tough sell…..Jane Campion is making brilliant movies, but not movies for the masses.

I so LOVE Marion Cotillard’s nomination — she is the brilliant heart of NINE.  Imagine the movie if all the casting had been equal to hers.

Anne Thompson

What I think happened with Bright Star is that it opened too early in the season in September and didn’t get any real traction.  It was very well reviewed. The thing that struck me about it, why it would have been overlooked it has a very low key effect.  Jane Campion has made a very subtle, intimate, very precise, very beautiful drama and tragic romance that appeals to women.  It is extremely intimate.  There is nothing hugely dramatic about it.  It almost errs on the side of restraint in a way that I admire and I found it very moving but it doesn’t wow people.  A lot of people find it to be a long and quite meditative – it’s like a beautifully wrought Keats poem.  It didn’t score at the box office, it hasn’t been getting prizes from the critics groups and the Golden Globes also completely overlooked it.  My other theory is that Campion may not have realized this when she went with an unknown cast and really junior key players on her crew, a lot of young crew people, in a funny kind of way I think the Oscars are going to overlook it too.  I pray that she gets recognized for costumes and production design and cinematography but finally it feels like a small movie that a lot of people haven’t seen.

From the beginning I thought that Kathryn Bigelow would be the leading contender in that category and because you have 10 best picture slots it’s possible that An Education would get in there remote possibility that It’s Complicated or Julie & Julia would get in there.  But in the director category you only have five and my sense is that there will only one woman getting in there.  But she could win.  I’m very optimistic that the time has come for everybody to come through for Kathryn Bigelow.  People are jumping on the fact that she is competing with her ex-husband, and that’s really not the story.  The fact is that Cameron himself respects her is a big deal.  You have to be pretty great to stand up to Jim Cameron, and he absolutely respects her.

It’s Complicated, The Hurt Locker, Julia & Julia, The Proposal and An Education all did very well with the Golden Globe nominations.  That’s a pretty strong list of women’s pictures.

Sandra Bullock is an interesting siituation where I suspect the Golden Globes came through for her in a way the Oscars may not.  But people are writing about The Blind Side and it has done well at the box office.  The best actress category isn’t as strong as it might be.  We are going to see Gabourey Sidibe, Carey Mulligan, Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep probably for Julie & Julia.  There is a fifth slot there.  Is it going to go to Emily Blunt?  Is it going to Bullock?  Is it going to go to Cotilliard?  These are the contenders for that spot.

Nora Ephron v Nancy Meyers – first of all remember that the Globes have a comedy and musical category.  Without that category they wouldn’t be there.  It’s Complicated, The Proposal and Julie & Julia are considered on some level romantic comedies (not really Julie & Julia) and they don’t do well at the Oscars.  There are a lot of people in the muscial/comedy category who will not show up on Oscar morning.

I couldn’t miss the opportunity to ask Anne if she noticed anything different this  year with the success of female centric films at the box office.

I have been covering the question of hollywood and the women’s audience and women directors for a very long time.  If you’re a screenwriter you have a better shot so Nancy Meyers and Nora Ephron have made their way by virtue of being screnwriters as well as directors.  Bigelow has made her way outside of the so-called women’s genre and she’s managed to make her way as an action director and that’s one of the reapsns why she’s so strong.

I don’t have a sense that Hollywood is jumping up and down to create more projects for women.  What may be going on is that they have to learn that lesson over and over again with the audience thirsty and starving for good women’s fare.  In some ways Manohla (Dargis) is right.  Even though it looks like they are doing well, the studios are not supportive.  They don’t count on women to show up on opening weekend unless it’s a branded entertainment like Twilight, Sex and the City or Mamma Mia.

Monika Bartyzel

While writers like Nikki Finke have called the Golden Globes “completely meaningless,” I found myself inspired and hopeful because of Up in the Air. Not only did Clooney get a nod, but also Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick. While someone in the Women Film Critics Circle certainly didn’t like Farmiga’s character, these were two of my favourite female characterizations this year. Each had a few big flaws to ignore (like Kendricks’ ridiculous mid-movie meltdown), but overall, they were women I could really relate to, regardless of age and place in life. With the film getting so much love, I hope it inspires more successful and balanced women on the big screen.

Women Over 40 — It’s great, but the cynic in me wonders if this is only because these women are aging so slowly that no one believes their real ages — that Hollywood can forget that they are, indeed, over 40.

Meryl — She’s definitely worthy for Julie & Julia, she stunningly brought Julia Child to life, but I would’ve liked to see someone else take the other spot. I’ve already noticed complaints of Streep overkill, and she is becoming the safe bet. Since (500) Days was included, maybe Zooey Deschanel to go with Levitt.

Caryn James

I don’t want to take anything away from Kathryn Bigelow; The Hurt Locker is an amazingly-directed film. But it is also a stereotypically macho film, while Jane Campion’s beaufitul, poetic Bright Star plays into stereotypes of what a woman filmmaker might do. It’s true that awards rarely honor subtlety, male or female, and that has hurt Bright Star. But it’s also true that the many nominations for Bigelow play into the old idea that women get ahead by behaving like men, in this case making a movie voters might expect a man to have made. I’m glad Bigelow made the film she wanted to make, but real progress will come when we stop looking at poetic films as if they exist in some lesser, female category.

Carrie Rickey

The only thing you’re missing is Kathryn Bigelow vs. her ex husband Jim Cameron in best pic and director race.  I think the Cameron/Bigelow noms are an excellent illustration of the dif between studio epic and intimate indie and the weirdness of comparing apples to mangoes when it comes to awards.  My principal thought at looking at the Streep, Ephron and Meyers nods is that we’re seeing an illustration of the creative second wind of women of a certain age — what anthropologist Margaret Mead called “post-menopausal zest.”

Ella Taylor

My only comment (as a Brit) is that An Education, a perfectly presentable, perfectly unremarkable film that would do nicely as a television drama, didn’t remotely deserve best picture. But Rosamund Pike, relatively unsung as the blond ditz, certainly deserves a nomination for best supporting actress.

Katey Rich

Meryl vs. Meryl– This doesn’t really seem to be a contest to me. It’s Complicated is such a dud that Meryl should easily be able to win for Julie & Julia. Even though all the buzz is about Sandra Bullock having this comeback year and all, the potential spoiler to watch is probably Marion Cotillard, who is by far the best part of Nine. I still think it’s a supporting role, though, so that could damage her chances.

Kathryn Bigelow– You go girl. She swept the critic’s awards over the weekend and is very much poised as a Best Director frontrunner. The more people who talk up her chances to be the first-ever female Best Director winner, the more it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that she’ll win.  And it’s not like it’s just some token “time for a woman to win” award– that would never have gotten her so far.  She made an amazing film and is getting rightly rewarded for it.  It’s ridiculous that it’s taken this long for it to happen, but I’ll take it!

Sandra Bullock– I haven’t seen The Blind Side yet, but I’m pretty iffy on awarding for performances in really mediocre movies, which is what I hear about this one. However, more power to her for having such a comeback in her 40s– she and Meryl Streep need to start giving lessons. It’s hilarious, though, that everyone has completely forgotten the existence of All About Steve. I saw that movie! I will not forget!

Nora vs. Nancy– It’s Complicated had a truly, truly awful screenplay, and while Julie & Julia wasn’t exactly a masterpiece of writing, I would have much preferred seeing it get the screenplay nomination instead. But hey, District 9 was co-written by a woman, and it got a completely out-of-the-blue nomination, so that’s pretty cool.

Women over 40– I wouldn’t say they “rule” the acting nods, exactly– there’s plenty of hot young things in there (Anna Kendrick, Carey Mulligan, Gabby Sidibe, Penelope Cruz, Vera Farmiga even is just 36) that make it pretty status quo. Julia Roberts’ nomination, though, thrilled me– Duplicity was so, so great and was quickly forgotten once it was a flop. She wasn’t revelatory in that movie or anything, and I’m sure the Globes went for her for their much-beloved starpower, but I’m glad to see someone else remembers that movie.

Bright Star– It’s a shame that this movie has utterly fallen off the radar, since Abbie Cornish really was remarkable in it, and Jane Campion at least deserves to be part of the conversation. I think it will be back in the Cinematography department come Oscar time, but sadly Bright Star seems to be one of those victims of the December release glut.

An Education– I can’t figure out why this seems to have fallen off the radar except for Carey Mulligan, though a friend of mine has a theory that it only seems to have disappeared in the fast-moving online world. Basically, there was only room for 5 Dramas at the Globes, but only one of the Comedy/Musical nominees (Nine) seems likely to make it at the Oscars, so there’s room for An Education to come back. They need to come back with the marketing campaign though. Maybe if they had sent me a screener I’d be talking about it more.

Jan Lisa Huttner

Bright Star missing: As I told you back in July, Melissa, men do NOT get this film & they’re actively pissed that it’s told from Fanny’s POV (that is, that is it NOT told from Keats’ POV).  Did you see that execrable “review” in recent NY Review of Books?!?  Oy!!!

An Education no best picture: Again, guys don’t really get this picture & they totally missed all the Mr. Rochester references in Acts 1 & 2, which I why I asked Women Critics Circle members to add new “Invisible Woman” category for Olivia Williams as “Miss Stubbs.”  Sure enough, when I received my Chgo Film Critics Assoc ballot, Olivia Williams wasn’t even offered as a candidate for Best Supporting Actress!!!  Oy!!!

I loathed Up in the Air.  Also, saw INGLORIOUS BASTERDS & hated it.  Saw INVICTUS & shook my head in despair–this is the best we can do for Nelson Mandela: a rugby movie?!?  Saw PRECIOUS & liked it but didn’t love it.  Having spent most of my life as a fat girl, I just didn’t believe the fantasy sequences.

Susan Wloszczyna

Well, I sensed Bright Star was frizzling quite soon after Toronto. They went crazy for it at Cannes but it quickly lost momentum. Once it opened, the reviews were mixed and the box office weak. And that was all she said.  Too bad — I root for Jane Campion since she is one of a kind and a true artist. That butterfly scene alone is worth an Oscar. But I think it was the wrong kind of movie at the wrong time, as good as Abbie Cornish was.

It is interesting about An Education being left out because it is such a smart, savvy film with a fine ensemble cast that outshines most crappy female-driven romcooms. But Carey seems to be the only story there now.

Just like people love Robert Downey Jr. and Meryl, they totally love Sandra Bullock. The fact that she gave two great performances in one year in decent enough movies is reason for celebration. Us Sandy fans have been waiting for her to get back on track for ages.

Jenni Miller:

I’m disappointed that An Education didn’t get a best picture nomination, but I do think the others were deserving. My feelings about Up in the Air aren’t as strong as others writers’, though.

I cannot believe that Bright Star didn’t get any nominations. Abbie Cornish, Jane Campion’s direction, the cinematography, the way she wove his poetry into the music — Bright Star was dazzling. Emily Blunt was good in The Young Victoria, but I thought the movie itself was fairly mediocre.

Meryl is amazing, of course. I haven’t seen It’s Complicated (although I would certainly like to!), so I can’t comment on that, and I did think she was great in Julie and Julia, but were 2009 comedies really that dry for actresses? What about Rachel Weisz in The Brothers Bloom, one of my favorite movies? What about any of the women in Whip It?

The Proposal is a guilty pleasure romcom, and as for Duplicity, I watched it on a plane. It’s a double-edged sword, as Monika wrote, about supporting women writers/directors/actors — I’m glad that women over 40 whom I enjoy in general are getting nominated, but they’re not for roles that blow me away, or even qualify (in my mind) as more thansomething I’d catch on DVD.

I can’t decide if that category is so blah because of what’s out there or because of the voters. I feel as though there’s something I’m overlooking.

When I started Women & Hollywood one of the things I dreamed about was doing events with women to raise awareness of issues effecting women in film and other areas of pop culture, and to help build a community to make change in areas that need some serious work.

Never in my wildest imaginations did I think that I would ever get to plan and host an event like the one we had this week for Jane Campion at Gloria Steinem’s home.  (Disclosure: Apparition Films, the distributor of Bright Star paid for the event including my time.)

This was an event where I was able to bring together women who worked in different areas of pop culture including novelists, magazine writers, poets, tv professionals, bloggers, women’s organization leaders, playwrights and directors to meet Jane Campion and celebrate her film Bright Star.  Here’s just a sampling of some of the people who were in the room: Ines Alberdi from UNIFEM; Ann Curry from the Today Show; writer Patricia Bosworth; director Nancy Savoca; feminist media activist Carol Jenkins; playwright and director Emily Mann; writer Erica Jong, writer Susanna Moore; Julie Parker Benello and Wendy Ettinger from Chicken & Egg Picutres; Planned Parenthood leader Cecile Richards and many others.

I know I’m bragging, but it was a magical evening where the group was able to hear from Jane and her experiences and also to talk about figuring out ways to improve the situation for women directors.

I really hope it is the start of something special and that many more events will follow.

Since I was really busy I didn’t take such great notes but the thing that was so wonderful was that Jane was unafraid to talk about the abysmal situation for women directors.  As a successful female director, she knows how much things suck for women in the business.  Many women are afraid to speak out.  That needs to change.

Here are some of the nuggets Jane shared:

She is looking forward to the day when we stop saying women filmmaker and that women are introduced as artists.

That women directors in the US are more timid than their counterparts abroad.

Poetry is the only thing that does not disappoint on this planet.

Filmmaking seems to have a glass ceiling that is untransparent.

That is makes her furious that men aren’t more interested in what women think.

Thanks to everyone who took the time out to attend the event.  If you are interested, my remarks from the evening are after the break.  More photos will be posted on the Women & Hollywood Facebook page.

Continue reading ‘When Jane Met Gloria’

If you read this blog regularly, you know that only three women have been nominated for a best directing Oscar in the 81 years that the Oscars have existed.  Zero wins, three nominations.  Based on a wikipedia count there have been 396 (one year 2 men were nominated together) total nominations and three for women.  That’s .75%.  Not even 1 percent.  Women have been nominated less than 1 percent of the time.  Shameful.

I wanted to learn a little bit about how the nomination process work in order to understand if and how we can get a woman — or multiple women — nominated this year.

First, in order to get a best director nomination you need to be nominated by that branch.  According to the folks at the Academy right now there are 367 members of that branch.  They of course do not share the names and also tell me they don’t do demographic breakdowns.  The winners are voted by the full Academy which currently has 5785 members.

Now there are a couple of ways to become a voting member.  According to the Academy site:

Jane Campion and Jan Chapman

One of my longtime obsessions has been finding Australian films, especially those directed by women.  It began almost 20 years ago when I first saw My Brilliant Career and I was blown away.  Thinking back now seeing that movie was another one of my seminal movie moments and that began a deep love for all things Gillian Armstrong and Judy Davis.

One thing you will discover if you dig a little deeper on some of the most interesting flicks to have come out of Australia in the last 20 years is the recurrence of one name in particular producer, Jan Chapman.

This woman has produced some great films (lots by women directors) including The Last Days of Chez Nous, The Piano, Lantana, Sommersault and the current Jane Campion film Bright Star.

I had the privilege to speak with Jan recently and immediately I was struck (through the phone) with that same sense of calmness that I got from Jane Campion, her long time collaborator.  (I guess there is something in the water in Australia.)  As a producer Jan does everything from getting financing to budgeting (which she says she find to be very creative), to helping with casting, to being a sounding board and support structure for her directors.

I always find descriptions of what producers do to be very interesting.  It’s one of those jobs that at times can be very, very thankless where you seem to do everything and not get any of the credit.  Also, most producers are anonymous.  You really don’t know who they are.  They get none of the credit for success and lots of the blame for failure.  You really need to have a certain personality to do it — and be successful– because there is no job description, and I bet the job changes with each director on every film.

One thing that Chapman stressed was collaboration.  I feel that people don’t need to be pitted against each other and compete with each other and the only way that we will get more women at all levels of the business is for us to realize that the more women the better.  Pitting women against each other is done to hold the numbers down.   When asked about these persistent discussions about how women compete with each other she said “that hasn’t been my experience” and cited the women directors like Mira Nair, Julie Taymor and Sophia Copolla who came to the premiere of Bright Star to support Jane Campion and her work.

I also talked to Jan about the bugaboo about why we still have so few female directors and like most other people I posed the question to, she had no good answer (because there isn’t one.) To illustrate the issue even further she told the story of attending the 60th anniversary of Cannes with Jane Campion who won the Palme D’Or for The Piano in 1993 (which Chapman produced). All the Palme D’Or winners were posing for a picture and Jan said of the moment:

When I saw only one woman on the stage full of Palme D’Or winners at the 60th anniversary of Cannes I felt shocked at this physical representation of how few women proportionately are directors let alone award winners even now. It seemed that we hadn’t really progressed very far at all.

I asked about her biggest disappointment and she paused and said that it was her inability to raise the funding for a film called The Riders which was to be directed by Lantana director Ray Lawrence.  The film never got made.  “We were so close to financing.  I wake up some nights with the words of that script in my head.”

Chapman’s latest producing effort, Bright Star is still playing across the US and recently opened in England.  This film is in all the awards conversations and if you haven’t seen it and it is playing in your neighborhood you need to go.  First, because it is great.  Second, because you are supporting women and their visions.  Third, we need to keep momentum for the film going through the awards conversations.  It’s vital that the film still be playing when all the year end lists and awards start to happen.

I look forward to seeing many more of Chapman’s productions in the future.

Peter Bart, the editor of Variety, has never been known as being ahead of the curve on gender issues, so it’s not too surprising that his was the first column to begin pitting Jane Campion and Kathryn Bigelow in a girl-on-girl competition for year end awards for their films Bright Star and The Hurt Locker.

Instead of talking about the films, Bart decides to talk about the women, their looks and how they come off as the main person selling their film to the world and more importantly to Bart and Academy type folks.

Here’s how Bart describes the women:

Jane Campion, 55, made a quintessentially romantic picture in “Bright Star,” but in person she is cerebral, somewhat severe, leans toward post-hippie attire and seems perplexed by the rigors of the award circuit.  Kathryn Bigelow, 57, is tall, model thin, a one-time art student whose gracious manner belies her proclivity for tense, even violent films – “The Hurt Locker” is her contender.

Would anyone EVER think to write this about a male director?

These are experienced women of stature, one American, one Australian and their work should be what is discussed not their looks.

Let’s nip this one in the bud right now.

Unlikely Rivals on the Oscar Circuit (Variety)

Most directors are lucky to make one movie in their lives that moves people beyond words but in my book Jane Campion has made three — An Angel at My Table, The Piano and now Bright Star.  When I first saw An Angel at My Table I remember loving it but not completely getting it.  It took a couple of viewings.  The same could be said for The Piano where we saw Holly Hunter totally break out in an incredibly raw and aching performance.  For that film, Campion was deservedly nominated for the best director honors (following her Golden Palm win at Cannes) making her only the second woman ever to receive that honor.  And now we have Bright Star, her first film after a six year hiatus.  Please check out these comments from Campion about why she took the hiatus and other issues about women and film

I loved Bright Star.  I loved the colors, I loved the fact that Campion can write a scene where the main action is a watching a curtain blow in the wind and I am mesmerized.  I don’t what it is about that scene but it’s one of the ones I can’t get out of my mind.  That’s the thing about her films there are scenes that just stick.

In case you don’t know this by now, Bright Star is the story of the relationship between John Keats and Fanny Brawne played by Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish.  This is a tragic love story, supposedly never consummated, but deeply passionate and moving.  You feel the aching on both of them but especially on Fanny who has completely lost herself in this sickly poet who will hopefully amount to something.  She is stuck as he is, but the rules for women at that time made it much harder to devote herself to a person with really no prospects.  A young woman needs to marry to help support her family, yet Fanny cannot give up on Keats.

Jane Campion is a passionate and visionary director.  Yet there is a calmness that emanates from the film.  Knowing now that Campion practices yoga, I can understand where the calmness comes from.  Abbie Cornish is an actress I have been watching for some time, but here she just shines.  She is a young woman who knows what she wants and won’t be deterred.  The scenes where she learns that Keats has died are devastating, unhinged, raw and aching.  This young woman has an incredible talent that will hopefully keep growing.

This is a film from a director at the top of her game.  It is deep and soulful and demands that you pay attention to it.  The film opens in NY and LA today, wider this Friday and hopefully wider as the award talk continues.

The Toronto Film Festival kicked off this week and there are some very special and excellent films about young women that are getting a lot of notice.  It seems that young women coming of age has emerged as one of the themes of the festival.  The great thing is that all the films look so cool and are getting great notices.

Here’s what Cameron Bailey the festival’s co-director said to IndieWire last week:

“There’s been some really great films about the coming of age of young women,” he said. “It began probably at Sundance with films like ‘An Education’ and ‘Precious’ – two very different approaches to that turf – and then at Cannes in films like ‘Fish Tank.’  With ‘Cracks’ and ‘Tanner Hall’ – two new films that Toronto has – we see [those themes] picked up again.  It’s sometimes with women directors, and sometimes with men, but in every case you’re seeing a kind of new approach to the coming-of-age story. The coming-of-age story of a young man is kind of a staple in the movies, but I think we’re seeing filmmakers pay more attention to how young women come of age and what they’re going through.”

As he says- the coming of age for young men is so common and finally we are starting to pay attention to young women. FINALLY.

Even more important is that the conversation about both Precious and An Education are just beginning as they both get ready to roll out.  I am also going to throw Bright Star in here as a woman’s coming of age story.  Even though it’s basically a love story the growth of Fanny in the relationship and what she has to endure and live with after the death of her beloved is one of those life changing moments.  All three films are potential Oscar bait so I for one am psyched for these films and themes to be a part of our cultural conversation.

Blogging is usually a slog. I spend my time reading tons of feeds and stories looking for the inspiration that will get a post going.  Most days I usually find something that gets my blood boiling or makes me happy.

Today was not one of those days.

Today I met Jane Campion.

To put it in some context there are 3 women who have ever been nominated for an Oscar for best director. Suffice it to say that I won’t be meeting Sophia Coppola or Lina Wertmuller, but today I had the privilege of meeting the third.

I know I’m gushing but I don’t usually get to meet directors of Campion’s caliber for a whole hour.  Other directors I have met have come in at a junket for 10 minutes and all the questions are similar because people need info for their stories.  Because we had so much time we could all really get a sense of who she was and what makes her tick as a filmmaker.  I am happy to report that she was so normal and nice and HONEST and made the group of us (female bloggers) feel incredibly  comfortable.

She is in town starting promotion on Bright Star her new film about the love affair between John Keats and Fanny Braune. The film has been getting great reviews and from this distance (mid-july), Campion and the film could be on many an awards list come the end of the year. The film is great and opens in mid-September.

I recorded the hour long conversation so I will be transcribing it and getting the info out to you.

At the end of the meeting I whipped out my camera to document the event. Usually the point and click route works. But there was some light behind us and Jane (hopefully I can call her that) said we needed to retake the shot and remove the flash.

Embarrassment ensued cause I literally had no idea how to take the flash off.

So I guess I can say that I have now been directed by Jane Campion.

Toronto is one of the places where many films with year end award ambitions debut in North America. It is always one of the most interesting festivals of the year and helps kick off the awards season. Festival runs from September 10-19.

Women directed and women centric films include:

Bright Star -Jane Campion

Precious -Lee Daniels

Cracks- Jordan Scott

Vinter’s Luck- Niki Caro

Partir – Catherine Corsini starring Kristin Scott Thomas

Mother- Bong Joon-ho

Fish Tank- Andrea Arnold

Descriptions of the films can be found here (Indiewire)

Another of the post-Cannes write ups include a supposition that 2009 might be a year where a woman could get a best director nod which would be the first since Sophia Coppola in 2003 for Lost in Translation.  (H/T to Guy Lodge from In Contention for even raising the question.)

Potential contenders include:

Kathryn Bigelow

Jane Campion (New Zealand) – Bright Star- being released by Bob Berney’s (Picturehouse) new company on September 18.  She’s the one with a pedigree and the movie fared quite well out of Cannes.

Lone Scherfig (Denmark) – An Education- did very well at Sundance starring this year’s “it” girl Carey Mulligan.  Will be release this fall.

Kathryn Bigelow (US)- The Hurt Locker- will an Iraq war film really work and will it be the one directed by a woman?  Opens on June 26.

Mira Nair (India) – Amelia- Hilary Swank as Amelia Earhardt.  Opens October 23rd.

Also mentioned are Nora Ephron (US) for Julia & Julia, Andrea Arnold (Scotland) for Fish Tank (didn’t know it had distribution.)  I would also throw Nancy Meyers (US) for her Christmas release with Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin.

Could this be a breakthrough year for women directed films?  If yes, will it have any long term effects or would it be dismissed as a fluke.  I don’t want to get up my hopes too early but just the fact that women are being thought of this way so early in the year is heartening.

Any other contenders I’m missing?

Could female directors hit Oscar paydirt this year?

The prizes at the Cannes Film Festival were announced over the weekend and none of the women made it to the top spot, but then again neither of the egomanics did either so that’s a plus.  Andrea Arnold shared the jury prize for Fish Tank which I hear has amazing performances from Katie Jarvis and Michael Fassbender who was amazing in Hunger.  It’s about a teen whose life gets turned upside down by her mom’s new boyfriend.  I haven’t hear anything about it being picked up yet for release in the US.  I really liked Arnold’s last film Red Road which you should rent if you haven’t seen.

Here’s the trailer for Fish Tank:

Jane Campion’s Bright Star seems to have fared best in the long run with a US release

Bright Star Trailer:

Here’s some interesting tidbits from an Anne Thompson interview with Campion for More.com:

With three female directors in the main competition for the Palme d’Or, another festival first, “it’s a good year for women in Cannes,” says Campion, an unabashed feminist at 55. “Do the math! It’s not possible to be a woman without caring about other women.” She credits the Australian government’s insistence on equality for women in its film industry—which doesn’t have a big-studio old boys’ network like Hollywood’s—for giving female directors a leg up. “The macho flamboyance you see in American cinema, where they get excited about Spiderman—I just can’t go there,” she says.

Jane Campion’s Cannes Triumph (More.com)

Here’s another Cannes piece: Cannes: Poor Girls (Time)

The Cannes Film Festival kicks off on May 13th with actresses Isabelle Huppert as the head of the jury and of the 20 films in the official competition only three are directed by women:

Fish Tank directed by Andrea Arnold (a teenage girl drama)

Bright Star directed by Jane Campion about the poet John Keats

Map of the Sounds of Tokyo directed by Isabel Coixet

There is only one woman director featured in Un Certain Regard, Mia Hansen-Love for Pere de mes Enfants.  Lee Daniels’ Precious (formerly Push) will also play.

Where are the women directors?