Film Club 3000: A Journal on The History of Film - Issue 002

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OVERVIEW

About Film Club 3000

Letter From the Editor Kemari Bryant

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ESSAYS

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Nomadland and Promising Young Woman: Women Auteurs at Oscars 2021 Robert Karmi

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Just A Girl, Not Yet A Woman Growing Up In A Sofia Coppola Film Rachel Dwornick

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Highway Hypnosis: Lily Gladstone and Duration in Certain Women Tanner Benson “Girl Movies” A Journey Through Romantic Comedies (For Women?) By Women!

Cameron Linly Robinson What’s a Nice Woman Like This Doing Making Movies Like That?

On Kathryn Bigelow and Her Work Kemari Bryant

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FEATURES

The Oscars Need To Wake Up Scott Rogers Vive La Varde!

In Honor of the Queen of the French New Wave Sam Spaulding Jane Campion and The Piano: 30 Years Later Robert Karmi

CLOSE UPS

In Conversation with Madison Hatfield Cameron Linly Robinson

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Female Firsts

Mixology by Cameron Cameron Linly Robinson They Should’ve Been Contenders Revolutionary Femme Playlist Maddie Conti Watchlist 3000

CONTENTS Issue 002 | Nov/Dec 2023

JOSHUA RICHARDS

ABOUT FILM CLUB 3000 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF KEMARI BRYANT MANAGING EDITOR CAMERON LINLY ROBINSON CONTRIBUTORS ROBERT KARMI RACHEL DWORNICK TANNER BENSON SAM SPAULDING SCOTT ROGERS MADDIE CONTI COVER ART BAILEY POWELL ILLUSTRATORS VICO SANTOS JULIET GILDEN MADELINE SAINTSING HARRIS SINGER FILM STILLS COURTESY OF SHOTDECK

ALL VIEWS AND OPINIONS ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHORS AND DO NOT NECCESSARILY REPRESENT THE VIEWS HELD BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF. WEBSITE FILMCLUB3000.COM INSTAGRAM @FILMCLUB3000 CONTACT FILMCLUB3000@GMAIL.COM

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Dear Readers, Only seven women have been nominated for their work as director at the Academy Awards.

Only one of them was not white.

The matrixial gaze is a concept thoroughly explored by psychoanalyst and feminisit film theorist Bracha L. Ettinger in her book “The Matrixial Gaze”. She chooses to analyze from a different angle, that of the feminine. She posits replacing the standard psychoanalytical (and masculine) phallic gaze with the symbol of the matrix — representative of another, unqiue view.

2023 has been a year of fantastic films, from breathtaking debuts to late-career returns from seasoned auteurs, there has been something for everyone. As we near the beginning of a new year and reflect back on the films that graced our screens and memories, one can’t help but notice the wide variety of women-authored cinema that we were given: Celine Song’s Past Lives, a heartbreaking and soulful debut film, Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, a master of feeling crystalizing her vision, Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, an international filmmaker stunning the world with her precision and truth, Ava Duvernay’s Origin, an often-overlooked genius crafting a monument in storytelling, Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, a visionary continuing her take on provocative filmmaking, Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up, a leading slow cinema artist’s take on creating art, and, of course, Greta Gerwig’s momumental Barbie, taking her place as director of the highest grossing film of the year.

A look at films directed by woman in 2023 is a look into the multitude of stories available when women are given authority and access to tell bold stories. While the Academy Awards are an arbitrary marker of success, they also serve as essential record keeping within film history. The Academy neglecting to recognize women could cause future film lovers to look back and think there was a lack of women making films (which is untrue), or a lack of women making good films (which is also untrue). In this issue we explore the rocky relationship between the Academy and women directors — please dive in and take a look at some beautiful art and beautiful words in honor of women in cinema.

Enjoy, to 3000 and beyond, Kemari Bryant | Editor-in-Chief

LEIGH JOHNSON

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OSCARS 2021 BY VICO SANTOS

Nomadland and Promising Young Woman:

Women Auteurs at Oscars 2021

BY ROBERT KARMI

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omen directors at the Academy Awards have a fraught history, with only seven women ever being nominated. The earliest nomination went to Lina Wertmüller for her film, Seven Beauties (1975). Almost two decades later saw the second nominated woman, Jane Campion, for The Piano (1993). A decade later, a third woman received a nomination, Sofia Coppola, for Lost in Translation (2003). Six years later, Kathryn Bigelow became the fourth nominated and the first woman to win the Best Director Oscar for The Hurt Locker (2009). Since Bigelow’s historic win, the Academy nominated an additional four women; Greta Gerwig for Lady Bird (2017), Emerald Fennell for Promising Young Woman (2020), Chloe Zhao for Nomadland (2020), and Jane Campion for Power of the Dog (2021), making her the first twice nominated woman. Of those four, only Zhao and Campion have won, in part marking Zhao as the first/only nominated woman of color to win.

Of those seven, Zhao and Fennell are especially notable; they are the first and as of now only nominated women in competition with each other. These nominations, and each filmmaker’s multifaceted role in the production of their respective film, give credence to thinking these films are auteurist cinema. Zhao not only directed Nomadland, but also produced, wrote, and edited the film. Fennell likewise acted not only as the director but also as a producer and writer for Promising Young Woman.

Each retained control over their projects, creating highly idiosyncratic works singular to

themselves. As such, their competing nominations allow for an introspective analysis of their work, thematically and paratextually, not just as standalone films, but films engaged in the history and reputation of the Academy Awards.

Zhao’s Nomadland, her third neo-western centered on marginalized casts within the American Southwest, details the lived experiences of Fern (Frances McDormand), a nomadic houseless woman, mourning the loss of her job and her husband, as she travels in her recently acquired van for work and community, alongside others who share her nomadic lifestyle. As she travels, she works odd jobs including camp host, myriad restaurant gigs, Fulfillment Center worker, and assembly line worker. As she moves from place to place, she encounters others (many of whom performed by non-professional nomadic actors) along the road, including women who help her acclimate to her new life, a possible romantic connection in Dave (David Strathairn), and other likewise houseless nomads impacted by economic turmoil. As her story progresses, Fern faces increasingly difficult challenges and contemplates whether to remain in her independent ways or to live with her extended family who offers her shelter.

Nomadland exists as something like a modern, Kelly Reichardt adjacent answer to Pink Neo-realism, a submovement within Italian cinema where more polished/budgeted elements exist within works otherwise utilizing neo-realist aesthetics. Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Wide Blue Road, shot in color and starring

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Yves Montand, would be an example, notably similar elements present in Nomadland. Yet both films create immersive realism through handheld camera movement, location shooting, and nonprofessional actors. Both are likewise interested in articulating themes of community solidarity contrasted with isolated individualism. Nomadland has a sequence where Bob Wells, a community organizer, gives out portioned food at a travel stop so any nomad visiting can have a share, orating overtly about fostering a communal connection and sharing resources.

Likewise, the film explores various subcommunities made by women along the road, with maybe the most explored dynamics between women in Zhao’s career thus far. Fern befriends other women along the road, with two women in particular standing out; Linda, a coworker of hers, and Swankie, a nomad who assists her.

Linda is the character who introduces Fern to the larger community of nomads organized by Bob Wells, who encourages them to live as a larger community, sharing food and supplies as needed. They meet at gatherings where food is shared, at times discussing how not to fall into the mindset of capitalist traps. Swankie helps Fern become more self-reliant by giving her tips on how to stay safe and prepared for worstcase scenarios. Swankie, who comes across as more annoyed and apathetic to Fern at first, is revealed to be a sweetheart who wants to help Fern be the best nomad she can be. Linda and Swankie can be seen as the two opposing sides of the nomadic lifestyle the film explores,

THESE WOMEN REPRESENT THE DIVERGING IDEOLOGICAL CORES OF THE WORK, BETWEEN DESIRING INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM AND MANIFEST DESTINY OR RECOGNIZING THE HARSH ECONOMIC WORLD YOU LIVE IN AND BECOMING PART OF A COLLECTIVE ASSISTING EACH OTHER. Linda representing the more communal, class solidarity side, whereas Swankie is more self-reliant and individualistic. These women represent the diverging ideological cores of the work, between desiring individual freedom and manifest destiny or recognizing the harsh economic world you live in and becoming part of a collective assisting each other. Fern errs to the side of Swankie by the end, as is the American tradition.

The film is not without issue, however, especially in its airbrushed portrayal of the material and corporeal realities of its characters. There are discussions of lack of funds for medicine or mechanical repairs, yet the full scope of the damage sustained by poverty, from broken bones to perennial sickness, are glossed over in the film. Likewise, the portrait of the Amazon Fulfillment Center comes across as inappropriately neutral considering how public their substandard employee treatment is. Zhao

argues the Center is still shown as antagonistic through less complimentary aesthetics (harsher lighting, cramped mis-en-scene, and Fern’s tired expression/body language) yet it is never verbally/ explicitly commented on. These issues stem from having to adapt a frequently confrontational book in a way as to not make the audience too uncomfortable, a similar ailment shared by the other film under discussion.

Nomadland’s emotional resonance and the moment it was released, during the height of a pandemic where class inequality and access to the great outdoors were on everyone’s mind, certainly impacted its reception. At its most fulfilling, it reminded us of the various people and communities that make up our lives, of the beauty of the world we live in, and that even when we choose individualism, there are those whom we share those experiences with. Minari, Lee Isaac Chang’s semi-autobiographical film about Korean Americans attempting to eke out a living as farmers, touched on similar notes and likewise became celebrated for them. On the other side of the proverbial coin, we were also grappling with racial, sexual, and gendered inequality, especially forced to consider the baseline white supremacy and patriarchy of American hegemony, which were likewise present at the Academy Awards. White supremacy was explored in Judas and the Black Messiah, Shaka King’s historical drama showcasing biographical depictions of William O’Neil’s betrayal of Freddie Hampton and life within the Black Panthers, whereas patriarchy was most explicitly deconstructed in Promising Young Woman.

Fennell’s Promising Young Woman is, admittedly, a thornier film to discuss both in subject matter and critical appraisal. Carey Mulligan plays Cassie, a vigilante who confronts men with their attempted abuses of her and other women. She pretends drunkenness at bars, drawing in predators who then take her home, shocked when she turns out to be lucid and seemingly makes them change their ways as a response to the shock. She performs said task nightly to avenge her friend Nina, who committed suicide after attempting to bring her rapist to justice. Her friends and loved ones worry about her, noting her personality shift since Nina’s death, and she is acting in an unhealthy way, seemingly only alleviated by the sudden romance she experiences with Ryan (Bo Burnham). Lamentably, she discovers Nina’s rapist Al (Christopher Lowell) has announced his wedding, launching her to enact a cooly calculated

rampage through the varying institutions which led to her friend’s suicide, from the Dean of Students (Connie Britton) who let her fall through the cracks, and a lawyer (Alfred Molina) who smeared her reputation when trying to take it to court making her way to him.

Promising Young Woman pulls several intriguing tricks, both stylistically and narratively. The film’s color palette is bright and saturated, with pastels littering the mise-en-scene throughout in a similar way to Anna Biller’s works, filtering the severe subject matter through ironically pleasant aesthetics while not committing as hard to anachronism as Biller’s films do. Likewise, she takes scenarios from prior comedies featuring men taking advantage of women and refocuses them on the feminine perspective, deconstructing the inherent toxic gender politics of those works. As if to further articulate these concerns, the myriad men who populate those scenes play “nice guys” typically, further adding an element meant to make us see these more patriarchal works in a less kind light. Yet the film becomes most intriguing thematically when it is about how women interact with each other.

If Nomadland portrays womanly relations as utopian, Promising Young Woman portrays them as more dystopian than not. True, the film explores feminine bonds via Cassie’s relationships with Nina’s mother (Molly Shannon) and her coworker Gail (Laverne Cox), yet some of Cassie’s least palatable actions are directed towards other women.

Those women are part of her revenge, enforcers of patriarchy who didn’t help Nina. Dean Walker (Connie Britton) allowed Nina’s assaulters to have their stories told, and Madison (Alison Brie) victim blames Nina for her assault. As punish03 | FC3K

ment, Cassie makes Walker believe her daughter has been kidnapped and left in the same room where Nina’s assault occurred, and leads Madison to believe she had been date raped at the hotel they met until she gave her what she wanted. Compared to the stern talking to the men Cassie had interacted with before, it is apparent Cassie, or perhaps the film itself, feels more comfortable punishing women than men, even if only psychologically. The work keeps shoring its bets, which is made especially clear by the finale of the film.

After Cassie has been murdered by Al, and it looks like he has gotten away with everything, it is revealed she counted on her death, and left enough evidence to implicate Al in her death and Nina’s rape so the police can arrest him. The film is thorough in its detailing of how patriarchy maintains itself, yet it excludes the police, as the last ninth of the film effectively showcases them cracking the case and punishing all guilty parties. It is a suspicious exclusion to make, only matched by the sudden shift from a dour, borderline nihilistic survey of patriarchal violence to a cathartic revenge thriller where Cassie fulfills her ambitions, even when she is killed by Al. Fernell changed the original ending, where Cassie’s murder was never reconciled, and the targets of her revenge got away, at the financiers behest. While a much harsher and more severe ending, it better suits the pitch darkness preceding it and seems to exist merely to facilitate a comfortable, less challenging ending for the audience to grapple with. As is, the ending feels stapled-on, further reaffirming the status quo, arguing it isn’t the system at fault, but bad actors within it.

It is notable while both films show interest in larger systemic issues, both films take individualistic approaches to the issues and make them seem more personal than otherwise. Nomadland presents several characters who can make connections and end their nomadic lifestyle while downplaying the costs said lifestyle entails. Promising Young Woman creates a highly detailed depiction of patriarchal power structures but then walks back its larger systemic indictments in favor of a narrative where justice prevails through the machinations of a highly talented woman. Such readings are much more favorable to the Academy who, as part of the larger media industrial complex, maintains and

represents hegemonic cultural norms. If they were as challenging as their respective subject matter demanded, no nomination for either would exist.

However, despite their nuanced issues, both works reflect progress within women-authored cinema at the Academy Awards. It remains the first time women have told women’s stories and won awards. Both Bigelow and Campion homed in on masculine issues and genres to win the awards. Similarly, Zhao also had to work within the stereotypically masculine genre of the western to win her awards.

However, Zhao and Fennell contrastly tell women-centered stories explored through a feminine gaze. When Bigelow followed up The Hurt Locker with Zero Dark Thirty, a film in part about a woman trying to exist within the patriarchally structured military while hunting Bin Laden, it failed to receive Academy nominations. To say it is exciting Fennell won for Best Original Screenplay while Zhao won for Best Picture and Best Director considering these factors would be an understatement.

Women-authored cinema at the Academy Awards made some massive steps towards progress with these entries. Even with the frustrating politics of both films and the increasingly pessimistic way they pushed hegemonic agendas, these two films present diverging voices from the otherwise deeply patriarchal norm we find at the Academy Awards. Further, each film, made by two rising star talents in cinema, showcases women who have made some incremental changes within the industry, who continue to find new ways to challenge us, Zhao with her desire to make stranger blockbusters as in her MCU film The Eternals, Fennell with her bleaker genre exercises like her latest Saltburn. Hopefully, the visibility of these two eclectic and specific women authors allows for other likewise idiosyncratic women to not only become household names but become as public of fixtures as both women have become, for better or for worse. One might even be so bold as to hope that maybe one day, there will be another year where more than one woman is nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards. •

CHLOE ZHAO BY MADELINE SAINTSING

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EMERALD FENNELL BY MADELINE SAINTSING

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ina Wertmüller was a highly respected Italian director in the 60s, but it was her work in the 1970s that solidified her brilliance and memorialized her as the icon she is known as today.

A mentee of Frederico Fellini — a leading Italian filmmaker and considered by many to be one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time — her films were bold, expressive, and unapologetically brash. Her avant-garde style is most often attached to grotesque comedy, oftentimes critiquing the wealthy, or traditional Italian machismo. Fellini’s influence is clear in her aesthetic, settling for grand, baroque visuals that always highlight the beauty of Italy.

In 1976 she became the first woman director to be nominated for an Oscar in the Academy’s then 49 years for her masterwork Seven Beauties. The film follows a self-obsessed Italian man who flees the war and is sent to a German concentration camp. It all made sense — the film was political, pointed, and had such a clear voice dripping with vinegar juxtaposed with a beautifully rich aesthetic. It was a calling card from an international filmmaker begging to be discovered on a mainstream level, and her nomination did just that. Though Seven Beauties has been surrounded by much controversy, particularly in its lack of sensitivity in portraying concentration camps and the moral depravity of its main character, it still has gone on to be considered a great work by a master filmmaker — and will forever be marked as a “first” in our history.

NEW LINE CINEMA

JULIE DASH COLLECTION

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uring her time at UCLA Julie Dash mostly worked on documentary pieces. When she began to discover narrative works written by black women, something changed. “I stopped making documentaries after discovering Toni Morrison, Toni Cade Bambara, and Alice Walker. I wondered, why can’t we see movies like this? I realized I needed to learn how to make narrative movies.” She said in a 1991 interview with Village Voice. That was the same year her film Daughters of the Dust premiered at Sundance Film Festival. Daughters of the Dust follows three generations of Gullah women off the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina.

The film can be described as a beautiful and haunting exploration of culture and identity throughout generations. Dash’s main concern is cultural authenticity — specifically that of the black experience, even moreso her Gullah roots — and she successfully captures this, even evoking African, Russian, and Latin American cinema, which she was inspired by. What’s crafted is a tactile film that comes across as poetry, with stunning visuals, rich language, and music that transports you to a different world — Daughters of the Dust became the first feature film by a black woman to be distributed in the US for theatrical release.

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In Conversation with Madison Hatfield

BY CAMERON LINLY ROBINSON

CHASE HENDERSON

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eet Madison Hatfield — actor, screenwriter, director, and filmmaker based in Atlanta, GA. Madison’s work includes Jenna Gets an Abortion, which she co-wrote and stars in; Courtney Gets Possessed, where she returned as a co-writer and actor, and also co-directed; Post-Citrus, her solo directorial debut; and coming soon: I Could Dom, where she wrote, directed, and stars. I got the chance to sit down with Madison and ask her about her work.

Here’s a look into our conversation.

I want to start with your background and how you got into filmmaking. I know you’re also an actor. Did you go to school for the arts?

No. I’ve had a weird life. I went to school to study biology to be a high school science teacher, which I was. So, when I graduated college I taught at a public high school in Atlanta, mostly biology. And I did love it. That had been my plan for my life for a long time. You know, growing up I went to public school here in Atlanta, and at the time the school didn’t have any sort of drama program. There was a math teacher who would sometimes direct plays, but we weren’t sure if we’d get to perform them cuz there was no stage. It was this very sort of scrappy arts program, and I did enjoy doing that. I think I’m a great example of why art education is so important because growing up I didn’t know that being an actor, a filmmaker, a director, whatever — I mean, my parents had never met a screenwriter; they’d never met an actor in real life. So, I remember having a conversation with my mom once where I was like, “Maybe I wanna try to be an actor for a little bit,” and like the look on her face… It was just fear. For my parents, at that time, they couldn’t conceive of how that would be possible. And so I was like, “Okay. Let me stick with my plan.” And so, I was teaching high school. I started doing sketch comedy around town as a way to make friends as an adult. And, I did it a lot. And I loved it. And I did succeed — I made friends. I made a lot of friends, but I also just realized that I’m really good at this, and it makes me really happy. And I started acting in friend’s film sketches. And there was a situation at the high school where they were going to move me to middle school, and I was like, “Do not move me to middle school.” So, it was like this kind of gentle push that I think I needed to be like, “Okay. I do love this job, and I love this life. But I think I’m gonna regret it if I don’t try to pursue a career

in this other passion that I found.” And I did it. I worked in this children’s book store for about 5 years as a day job, and then about 2 ½ years ago I made the decision to leave that job and just be an actor and screenwriter full time.

I also wanted to ask you about Peach Jam Pictures. So, is that a company that you founded?

What is its role in your work?

Yeah, so I met Jono Mitchell–who is a frequent collaborator of mine and creative partner– on the set of an independent movie at the very end of 2017. And, very quickly he saw something in me before I necessarily saw it in myself and he was like, “I want you to help me write this feature.” And we ultimately crowdfunded and got that feature made — that was Pageant Material, which premiered at the 2019 Atlanta Film Festival. And then, after that — I think the first project we would have designated as a Peach Jam project was Jenna Gets an Abortion, which he directed, and we co-write, and I starred in.

So, yeah that was a company that formed as a home for the projects that really spoke to both of our tastes and interests and that we were working on together. That was almost 4 years ago at this point, and we’ve made several films under that banner. And now he’s got his own production company that’s more in line with some of the dramatic, character-driven work that he wants to do. And the tone of Peach Jam still very much aligns with what I want to do.

So, you know, it’s the kind of thing where it is a company that exists if we want to make something together or separately, as long as it fits the kind of joy-forward, hope-forward, comedy with heart kind of brand. I Could Dom is a Peach Jam production because it very much falls in line with that. So, yeah, it’s something that we created together, and I would love to continue to make stuff over the years and have it be the kind of thing where eventually I can help produce other people’s work. That’s the dream.

Peach Jam Productions debut film Jenna Gets An Abortion (2020) is a dystopian romantic comedy that follows Hatfield as Jenna weeks after a one night stand that left her impregnated. In this (at the time) dystopian world abortion is illegal after 6 weeks in most of the country — with the exception of Maryland. But, the father’s permission is required to perform the procedure. So, Jenna must find the man that she slept with, Hank (Michael Reagon), and convince him to drive across the country with her. This is a super funny romantic comedy that follows these two characters put into an incredibly high stakes situation. Basically strangers at the beginning of the film, Jenna and Hank grow closer on this 09 | FC3K

road trip adventure — and their developing relationship is captured with really clever and creative cuts and shots that show both the farcical situation they are in and their budding romance. They argue about who gets the bed in the motel then *quick cut* they’re both on the floor looking at each other over the bed as they share one of the more intimate conversations in the film. The heart of the film comes when Hank suffers a moment of second guessing at the abortion clinic, and Jenna must rely on the other women in the clinic for emotional support. Here, we see a group of strangers, all femme presenting, supporting Jenna and holding her as she cries. The weight of their rights being stripped is heavy and they support her the way only another woman could. From the writing (go Madison!) to the cinematography, directing, and acting (again, go Madison!), this is an exhilarating piece that goes from having you in stitches laughing to weeping in a matter of moments.

LOLA SCOTT

You have a lot going on. How do you balance all of it? Or what is your intention as far as writing, directing, acting — writing your own work, doing your own work, and then going out and doing other people’s things?

My two main sources of income are acting and screenwriting. So, I have Acting representatives in multiple cities, but most of my work comes through Atlanta.

That’s sort of just a constant–auditions come through, I audition for them, if I book something we figure out the scheduling. It’s very much something that I’m always doing. And then, on the writing side, those jobs are going to be bigger, but also less frequent. But, kind of like auditioning, it’s a lot of meeting people — and I know my representatives are doing a lot of work that I don’t see like pitching me for projects and sending my work out and all this stuff. So, you’ve got these two ma-

chines constantly churning, and every once in a while it’ll spit something out. And you’re like “Ok, okay! Let me go!” And then, you’ve just got to keep an eye on what money is coming in, has come in– you know it may be a while. That’s the thing about, especially acting, there are rules around when you’re supposed to get paid, but these companies– the big ones–they don’t care. They’ll just pay the fine. And so, like, I went two years without getting paid money I was owed from, like, a big show — everybody knows what it is, and yet they can get away with just not paying you. So, I feel like I struggle less with the balance of it, and more with just the uncertainty of it. And then you get into a spot where you’re not sure where the next job is gonna come from and you’re not sure where the next paycheck is gonna come from, and the trap in that for me is that I start to sort of lead with a kind of desperate energy. And I’m really holding tightly to every opportunity that comes along, and that is something that opportunities hate the most. They really don’t like when you want them. They really don’t like when you’re really eager.

They want you to just let it be. But, over the years I know I have gotten really better about that.

I would love to shift into the specific works that you wrote and directed and just talk about how you found your style, if it’s evolved, or if there’s anything new that you’re interested in doing.

The first project I technically directed was Courtney Gets Possessed, which I co-directed with Jono Mitchell. And the way that we split it up was that he really focused on the cinematography, the production design, all those lighting choices that you saw. And

then my focus was the actors. So I was working on them with performance– I was also key on wardrobe– you know, anything that dealt with people, that was me. It was a really intense learning experience and a really fun learning experience because we had a big ensemble cast that I was a part of. And so, I was directing them, and also performing, and also being one of the writers and having to make adjustments, and then also supporting Jono on his side of things. And I was also a Producer on that project as well. You know, that can be one of the hard things about being a Director, Producer, Writer, Performer, you know, when you are wearing multiple hats, and it does feel very much like this is my set. Like I feel a sense of responsibility for the set. And I learned a lot from Jono. Over the years, I’ve learned so much watching him direct. He’s a really gifted Director, and I like directing. And I really want to be able to do it proficiently and confidently. I don’t feel called to it the way he does and the way so many other people do.

Post-Citrus was the first thing I directed by myself. I purposefully picked something that was going to be simple, that was going to be all in one place. I picked something where a hand-held cinematography style would make a lot of sense.

I knew given my experience and given my skill, I was like, “I wanna have that flexibility. I want the cinematographer to be able to adjust very quickly if we need to.” I remember I shot-listed so many shots, like so many. And then we got on set, and it was like, “Oh, yeah it’s gonna be like half of these.”

But, Post-Citrus was my, like, I need to prove I can do this, I mean in a way that I was really enjoying.

It wasn’t like I was sacrificing the kind of story — no it was the kind of dumb shit I love. But, I did purposefully pick something that felt very manageable for me to do.

And then I Could Dom was a big leap forward for me. I worked with a new production partnership, so it’ll be a Peach Jam and Wax and Wane Production. And they really pushed me to go for more days, more time, more equipment, more crew. And my cinematographer, it was his first time doing a narrative piece. He was more of a commercial, documentary kind of guy, but he heard a live reading of the script back in January, and he loved it. And he was like, “Listen I know I’ve never done a narrative before, but it’s more I’ve never been excited to do a narrative before; I never wanted to do

it.” He was like, “I really want to do this, and if you are willing to trust me, I’m gonna give you everything I have.” And so, that pre-production process was so intense, because I knew I was going to be in every shot of the movie. So, I have to know that my DP knows what I want.

We did months of preparation. We did storyboards together. And then, as we got closer, we went to every location and took photos and did everything. And it was intense, but also once we started filming I was like, ‘I’m good.” I really have a lot of trust in him. And also having done Post-Citrus, and feeling more confident in my skill, there are some more interesting choices in this film. We are–both narratively and visually–taking some swings that I think are fun, and I think it’s cool to do that in the context of a comedy, and a sex comedy.

So what is the plan for that film?

It is technically a proof of concept for a feature, so I’m working on the feature script right now. The goal is by the time we have our first festival, the feature script will be done, so if people have questions I have something to show them. So, I’m investing a lot into festival submissions. And I do think, we’ve gone several years now with film festivals either not happening or being kind of weird, and now we’re existing in the world the way we did before the pandemic so film festivals are very much back.

And so, I’m eager to spend time in filmmaking spaces and meet new filmmakers and travel the country. And this film, it is my second, it’s like I’ve invested more of myself into this than I have in anything, so let’s see who wants to show it.

CHASE HENDERSON

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I Could Dom (coming soon) is Madison’s current work, and it is actively in the Post-Production process.

This film follows June, played by Hatfield, a people-pleaser who feels challenged to prove to her sexually experienced and adventurous friends that she could be a Dom in the bedroom and really take charge. So, she goes on the hunt for a perfect partner to be her Sub and she discovers, seemingly, the most friendly and un-intimidating man on that corner of the internet, Jeff (Derek Evans). What ensues is a hilarious display of Madison Hatfield’s comedic timing, direction, and voice. From exciting cuts and shots to surreal lighting choices and some truly hysterical lines, this short keeps you on your toes — until you find yourself on the floor laughing and begging for more (such a masochist! *wink, wink*).

I’m very impressed with your social media presence. I think that yours looks so well done and very professional. And so I’m just wondering about your relationship to social media. How did you get it to where it is now?

Facebook became a thing right at the end of my high school experience. And I bring that up because social media began as a friend-making tool for people going to college. Like that was literally all it was, so we all got it because, yeah, I really need that.

And obviously over time, social media has morphed into something so different. And I feel trapped in it, less from a social perspective and more from a business perspective.

And what I found was, there was a period of time, where I found myself just being on it more and more and more. Because, for me, the addictiveness is less about looking at other people’s stuff and more about if I posted something, I wanted to know who’s liking it and who’s commenting and I wanted to engage with them and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, “This is taking over my fucking brain.” And it was probably in January of 2020, where I made a conscious decision and I was like, “I look at this too much, and I can’t get rid of it for professional reasons, but I need to find a way to not be on it so much.” And so, it essentially has become a professional website for me. Basically all I’m posting most of the time–especially on the grid or whatever–is like shit I actually need to be talking about. If I have shows coming, I’ll put it on there. If one of the organizations I’m a part of is doing an event, it goes on there.

Sometimes with my story, I’ll do fun stuff.

But I know that everytime I post something, it’s going to become a major temptation for me to be on my phone a lot. And so, I just have to decide, “Is this worth that loss of

attention to all the other things in my life for a day.” And sometimes it is, and usually it’s because it’s part of my professional life. I also think about deleting it. But I think, mostly being an independent filmmaker, you go to festivals and you meet people, and like, “I don’t have business cards. You can have my instagram. And I want your instagram. That’s how I now can contact you.” It is a professional tool.

PAUL MCPHERSON

Returning again as a writer and actor, and stepping into the role of co-director, Courtney Gets Possessed was released in 2022. Here, we follow a bride, Courtney (Lauren Buglioli), and her bridesmaids the night before the wedding as they fight off the devil (Jonathon Pawlowski) who has possessed Courtney.

The groom and his groomsmen get involved and this group of wacky characters tries to free Courtney from her battle with Satan while also avoiding getting caught in the crossfire. The strength here is definitely in this ensemble cast who all maintained such precise comedic timing and chemistry with each other. Again, Hatfield proves herself as a force when it comes to comedic, farcical story as well as deeply personal emotional beats. As everything unfolds, we are left with a story of siblings who just misunderstand each other, who must come back to each other and really listen and learn to move forward. This film certainly stems from a very creative and off the wall concept, and the execution is really enjoyable and engaging.

This is one thing that I really wanted to talk to you about–Seed&Spark. How did you find Seed&Spark? What do you think the value in crowdfunding spaces like that for filmmakers specifically is? And then, also, do you have any tips for other filmmakers to have a successful campaign?

The first time I was really intimately aware of Seed&Spark, and I was not in charge of the campaign, but I was helping a friend of mine in New York do a crowdfunding campaign for a film of her’s called Ladylike. That was my first time being in the mix of it, but I was not the one building it or having a lot of contact with Seed&Spark directly. But, I watched them run a very successful campaign because they walked away with close to $50,000 I think. And they earned that with the amount of work they did ahead of time. And I remember when I was doing I Could Dom I was like, “I’m not anywhere close to what they did.” They followed every rule. You know, Seed&Spark provides so much guidance for what to do, and those women followed the guidance, and it fucking shows. Me? I followed some of the guidance. But, I made the mistake of doing my crowdfunding campaign in the final month of pre-production. Like, we finished the crowdfunding campaign and then like a week later, we were shooting. So, I just didn’t have the bandwidth. And I also did a lot of it by myself. I mean I had help in the building of it, but once it got going I definitely felt like, you know, it was my film. That was my job. So, if I can offer a tip: Do not do your crowdfunding campaign close to your shooting date. I’m glad that we did it that way ultimately because I do like the timing of when we shot, but had I been smarter; we just

would have done it earlier. Seed&Spark is designed for independent filmmakers, and they really have put so much thought and so much effort into providing guidance for how to build your audience, because the big thing is: how do you reach people outside of your own circle? Like, I was really excited when Kemari (Editor-In-Chief, Film Club 3000) donated because that was one of the few people who I didn’t know, who came on board. And I will say, I had a couple people that I didn’t know come on board in a major way, like I had some Executive Producers that found me, and I was like, “dang.” But that’s what they do.

They’re looking for things. I didn’t do anything, besides have a solid campaign page.

That’s not how I found them. With Ladylike, they were really intentional about sending out personalized emails, just like building and building and building this web of people. They really successfully built that new audience in the way that Seed&Spark urges you to do so. I think that the pattern of how mine went, it was a testament to the fact that I have been doing this for a while, and I do have a wonderful community of people in my life who want to support what I do. I now feel in this position where I don’t when I will be in the position to do that again. I don’t know when I would feel comfortable going back and asking for support in that way again.

And the dream is that you don’t have to! The dream is that you crowdfund, and then you make something, and then that work speaks for itself, and then there’s a system of people who fund movies that fund your movie. But the system is so broken right now. And unfortunately even these really well established filmmakers, I see crowdfunding, and I’m like, “Oh, fuck me! If you’re crowdfunding, what 13 | FC3K

am I gonna do?” And so again, with the chaos of this business, it’s like the machines are always going. I have my independent filmmaking machine. Maybe something that I make, someone will see and they’ll want to give me a job or help me make my next thing, but then also I’m working with a machine LA and if I could get on an open writing assignment, if I could just do a pitch for this company and a script for this company and then that comes out in the trades eventually. And so, the machines are always churning, but I think people are growing frustrated with the independent film machine because it has, like, stopped. Those wheels with the larger Hollywood apparatus, they’re no longer aligned.

Well, Madison, this has been really wonderful.

Is there anything else about you or your work that we missed that you wanted to chat about?

Well, I guess, the one thing that we didn’t talk about that I do talk about kind of lot is that I do make an effort, and I think it’s important, that I put myself in my work for a lot of reasons — I do like performing, and I do like the challenge of writing for myself and performing characters that I’ve written. But, I also know that bodies that look like mine don’t often get to be the lead characters of the things that they’re in.

And I talk a lot about something called the “Fat Gap”, which is the gap between the percentage of characters on TV and film that are fat versus the people in the world who are fat who are watching those characters. And it’s enormous.

There’s just this chasm between what is actual and what is presented on screen, and so I like to bring it up because I think that there have been so many strides in recent years–and the work is not close to done– but we are seeing a better reflection of the real makeup of the world in terms of race, in terms of gender identity, gender expression, sexuality. At least, in the projects that I’m seeing, I really see that stuff, but also I see a lot of shows that are obviously making a push for “diversity”, that do not have a single fat person in it. And it’s just this weird final frontier of representation and unfortunately for reasons that are tied up in ancient colonialism, racism, and misogyny we have attributed fatness to a lack of will-power and laziness. It has become a moral failing to have a body like mine. And I disagree with that so completely. I’m very proud when I show something like Post-Citrus, and at

the festivals that I did, every screening I’d have a fat person come up to me and be like, “I’ve never seen that before. I know exactly what that character is talking about. I’ve had that happen to me, but I’ve never seen anyone say it.”

Obviously so many of us are going through it.

And so, I like to mention it, especially to other filmmakers, because this is something you can be thinking about too. Because fat people are so eager to see ourselves on screen in ways that are not a punchline, or a cautionary tale, or even like a sassy best friend who has no life outside of that protagonist. Sometimes, we can be the lead and it doesn’t mean that your piece has to be about fatness at all. Post-Citrus is my first and hopefully my last film where fatness is front and center. Everything else I do I just wanna put fat people in these roles and let them live their lives. And this is a conversation that everybody in every marginalized group has, right? Like queer people, we’re tired of coming-out narratives and homophobia narratives.

People of Color are tired of the narratives that, yes, include them, but also play on really harmful stereotypes or histories. We don’t need those anymore. We have enough. We can just have people being people. And so I love seeing those conversations that are happening. I do feel like body-size is being left out of that conversation still. It makes me happy to put myself in this stuff because I like doing it, but also I like the idea that a fat person might watch that and think, “Oh, I guess I could do that too.” Or a thin person might watch it and be like, “I hadn’t thought… I hadn’t thought about fat people in years!” But, seriously, we all love someone who is fat. They’re in our families; they’re in our workplaces; they’re in our friends; they’re everywhere. But on TV, we have just become accustomed to, like, being fine with them not existing at all.

Madison Hatfield has proven herself to be a person to watch in both the independent and mainstream film industries! Her work has such a unique vision and style that is solely her own.

And I cannot wait for you all to see her upcoming film I Could Dom, as well as whatever she does next! Stay tuned for updates on Madison, and give her a follow @madhat31 •

I

Nomadland

Vanguard Mule

n honor of Fern’s stint at the beet farm in Nomadland, I’ve created a beet juice-bourbon mule. Traditionally, mules are named after the region in which the main spirit is from (think Moscow, Mexico, Kentucky) so I’ve named this after the van that carries Fern across the country, Vanguard.

The beet juice and ginger beer combines to give this drink an earthy flavor that makes me think of the way that nomads really embrace the land in which they live. Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS • • • •

2 oz bourbon 1 oz lime juice .5 oz beet juice ginger beer

Stir the bourbon, lime juice, and beet juice with some ice until cold. Strain over pebble ice, and top with ginger beer.

Lady Bird

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The Sacramento Daquiri

his refreshing cocktail is perfect to sip on while enjoying Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird. Daiquiri’s are normally associated with super sweet overly fruity frozen drinks, but the original recipe is actually a really lovely drinkable cocktail. I think most coming-ofage films are thought of as being super gushy and sweet as well, but Gerwig is able to ground us in our feelings and produces a wonderfully complex story. The raspberries incorporate a bit of California, as well as making the cocktail reminiscent of Lady Bird’s pink hair! I hope you enjoy this beverage pairing.

INGREDIENTS

*Drink pairings based on films covered by the Film Club 3000 podcast

• • •

2 oz rum 1 oz lime juice ¾ oz raspberry simple syrup

Combine the ingredients in a cocktail shaker and shake! Strain into a coupe or rocks glass (or any cute glass you like) and garnish with fresh raspberries.

Crafted by Cameron Linly Robinson 15 | FC3K

Just A Girl, Not Yet A Woman Growing Up In A Sofia Coppola Film

BY RACHEL DWORNICK

S

ofia Coppola is a contemporary filmmaker who allows you to see the world — emotionally, and also quite often literally — from a woman’s point of view. Her protagonists, though usually white, heterosexual, and privileged, transcend female subjectivity; while beautiful on the outside, these characters reveal the ubiquitous unattractive parts of girlhood on the inside. What I appreciate about Sofia Coppola’s films is that they explore the realest moments in a young woman’s life and allow their protagonists to have the space to express themselves in a very realistic way that feels almost “anti-girlboss” by embracing femininity rather than rejecting it. In Fiona Handyside’s book “Sofia Coppola: A Cinema of Girlhood,” the author elaborates upon the postfeminist theory in modern culture, noting that “rather than developing a counter-cinema feminist aesthetic of ‘destroying pleasure’, Coppola invents a quintessentially postfeminist aesthetic which takes femininity seriously and offers sustained, intimate engagements with female characters.” Girlhood is a spectrum that Coppola visually brings to life and that resonates with young women today. In her films, she plays with the idea of girlhood, very carefully, and the inner struggles of growing up female.

From cinematography that feels introspective and personal — to melancholy music to drive

the dreaminess of her characters’ mood and atmosphere, or punk rock songs to embrace their rage and rebellion.

When I first watched The Virgin Suicides, Sofia Coppola’s debut film, I was enthralled with the aesthetics: dreamy and feminine, but equally tragic. Coppola captures innocence without naivety — in The Virgin Suicides, the Lisbon sisters know exactly what they want, and that is to escape from female societal pressures. The film’s narrative is a retelling of events through the neighborhood boys (now adults) who are obsessed with these beautiful sisters, romanticizing them down to every minute detail and imagining how a girl should be. The sisters were sexualized as young teenagers, especially Lux (Kirsten Dunst), with fantasies of the girls dancing around in bikinis or living hypothetical lives with the boys. They loved them, or at least the idea of them. While the suicides still haunt them, they continue to ignore that these girls were human beings — repressed and isolated in their environment. The youngest sibling, Cecilia, felt it the most; after she first attempted suicide at just 13 years old, the doctor tells her, “You’re not old enough to know how bad life gets,” to which she responds, “Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a 13-yearold girl.” This is the most we get from the girls’ point of view; we’re not meant to really know

them or why they decided to end their lives so young, because what they feel and desire is not important to the narrator. The Lisbon sisters are a mystery to the boys and to the viewer — it is essentially what it feels like to live in the male gaze. Their girlhood was romanticized as if it was a beautiful memory, forgotten to be a mystery. It was like Sofia Coppola said the quiet part out loud: that girlhood is not beautiful, we just want to believe that it is.

The cinematography choices in Sofia Coppola’s films feels like a photo album of her character’s life.

We get glimpses of their private spaces, like a bedroom, to see their dreams, desires, and ultimately the feeling of being lost. An example of this is in Lost in Translation when Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) is bored in a Tokyo hotel bedroom, sitting on the ledge looking out the window. The perspective between the city and the window shows the lack of human connection she yearns for. This was the film that earned Coppola the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as well as a nomination for Best Director, among many other accolades. The film was unlike any other mainstream Hollywood movie at the time; it is subtle work more focused on experience than plot. A lot of the story’s premise is about a found relationship between an older washed up actor, Bob (Bill Murray), and a young woman, Charlotte, who is questioning her recent marriage, as they both feel isolated in a foreign country. Their time spent together may have not been long, but it was meaningful and helped them grow as individuals. The film takes inspiration from Coppola’s own experiences traveling to Japan in her 20s and feeling so far from her regular life; she has said that the jetlag was so extreme that Tokyo felt like a dream. Lost in Translation has both a male and female protagonist, but with Charlotte’s character there is much more depth to the quiet introverted girl on screen beyond her looks. When characters around Charlotte contrast her personality they seem to take up more of the frame, which can feel true to life in those scenarios.

Other main themes of girlhood that drive Coppola’s female characters are fashion, fame, and wealth.

Marie Antoinette and The Bling Ring share similar elements of idolization and living a life of luxury.

Whether it was 1770 or 2010, Coppola showed her viewers the expectations of what a young girl’s desires should be versus what they really were. The teenage queen, Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst), is coming of age but forced to leave her Austrian identity behind to embrace a new one in France. She struggles with her political responsibilities and just wants to 17 | FC3K

experience the lavish lifestyle of being a royal.

Shoes, dresses, ribbons, parties; Marie and her friends love to spend their time enjoying the finer things in life as the men deal with the war.

Marie Antoinette is shown entirely from the female perspective, unlike Coppola’s other films to this date. Despite being speculated by her immature actions, Marie doesn’t sacrifice much and continues to chase after what she enjoys.

The Bling Ring similarly centers around five fame-obsessed teenagers — four girls and one boy — who break into celebrities’ homes and steal their possessions to essentially simulate being a celebrity themselves. Both films have a sympathetic lens toward when your privacy becomes public. These characters’ actions are perceived through public opinion, but Coppola offers another side to the story through each person’s own point of view. Coppola understands the pressures of societal norms that are expected for female adolescence, where we’re always searching for the pinnacle of the “ideal girl.” In The Bling Ring Leslie Mann’s character wants to teach her girls to search for admirable qualities in Angelina Jolie; her daughter and Bling Ring accomplice Nikki (Emma Watson) list qualities like “her hot bod” and “her husband.” Sofia Coppola is making a point that young girls are actively searching for the aesthetics rather than the quality of famous or successful women.

In 2022, we got an Elvis Presely biopic made

by Baz Luhrmann; it was flashy, rambunctious, and epic. A year later we saw Elvis’ story from a more quiet and leering perspective through Priscilla, Elvis’ ex-wife, as the eighth film

by Sofia Coppola. Elvis (2022) and Priscilla (2023) contrast each other so much but they share similarities with how little Priscilla was a part of Elvis’ life. In Priscilla, as it was based off of Priscilla Presley’s memoir “Elvis and Me”, reflecting on her formative years stuck in Graceland. Although Coppola does not look at Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi) through rose-colored glasses, Priscilla (Caliee Spaeny) was completely dazzled by the heartthrob of every girl’s dream at the time, but being with a famous artist didn’t turn out how she pictured it to be.

It is very clear when we first meet Priscilla that she is a child, drinking Coca-Cola through a straw while doing her homework at a diner in Germany. She gets introduced to Elvis when she’s 14 years old, while he’s 24 and enrolled

in the military. Elvis takes a liking to her and they begin to date despite her parents’ concern of the age difference and that he’s a celebrity.

As Priscilla falls deeper into this intoxicating relationship, she starts to lose pieces of her identity and shapes herself in the image of what Elvis wants her to look like. Her natural brunette hair is now jet black with big features making her look older. She’s not allowed to be friends with the other high school girls or talk to the female employees at Graceland. She’s not allowed to get a job per Elvis’ wishes. He’s allegedly having affairs while in Los Angeles and that takes a toll on her mental state in Memphis. All these beautiful things start to slowly slip into a haunting reality. Priscilla is completely alone and isolated in Graceland as it becomes a metaphorical prison. Most of the film shows Priscilla in the house studying, sitting on the couch, or playing with her dog.

She’s hidden away from everyone and everything, only existing as Elvis’ bedroom companion whom he doesn’t even desire sexually. After she graduates high school, they eventually get married and she has their daughter a short period afterwards. Priscilla did not feel like the main character in her own story until the third act of the film. She started engaging in conversations with other people, taking karate classes, and dressing more maturely; she went back to her natural hair, wore less makeup, and even started wearing pants. Priscilla finally ends their marriage and leaves Graceland behind, entering her adulthood with a sullen but hopeful goodbye. The strength Pricsilla had to divorce a powerful man for someone who had no income or agency, showed much empowerment in leaving a toxic relationship. To me, this film captures the transition of dependence to independence, from girlhood to adulthood. I’m not sure if anyone could have told the story of a lonely girl growing up in a big empty mansion better than Sofia Coppola. •

SOFIA COPPOLA BY MADELINE SAINTSING

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F

Lost in the Sauce

Lost In Translation

or Sofia Coppolla’s film Lost in Translation, I thought we should incorporate some Japanese spirits and flavors, so I made a sake sour with wasabi simple syrup. But don’t worry, it isn’t spicy. The wasabi actually cooked down to make a really umami flavored sweet syrup that lifts this cocktail into a kind of ethereal feeling. Honestly, this is a very strange cocktail, but I think it is the perfect drink to enjoy as you watch two unlikely companions grow close in a completely different country.

INGREDIENTS • • • • •

2oz sake 1 egg white .75 oz grapefruit juice .5 oz lemon juice 1 oz wasabi simple syrup

Seven Beauties

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Mistaken Beauties

his is my version of a Negroni Sbagliato (which roughly translates to “mistaken”). Instead of Campari, I’ve used a much lighter blood orange liqueur which gave this cocktail a really nice sweetness without all of the bitterness of Campari. You must drink a truly Italian cocktail with Lina Wertmüller’s Seven Beauties, so I had to do a negroni riff! This cocktail is perfectly balanced for your viewing of both the farcical comedy, as well as the dark drama that this film contains.

INGREDIENTS • • •

1 oz blood orange liqueur 1 oz Cocchi Storico Vermouth di Torino Prosecco

Stir together the blood orange liqueur and the Cocchi with ice until chilled. Strain over a large rock, and top with Prosecco. Garnish with an orange peel.

Crafted by Cameron Linly Robinson

LINA WERTMULLER BY MADELINE SAINTSING

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Something About Julie Dash

BY KEMARI BRYANT

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GRETA GERWIG BY JULIE GILDEN

The Oscars Need To Wake Up

BY SCOTT ROGERS

T

here’s been a trend over the last few years where some of the most acclaimed and well respected directors of all time have released a film that feels like it could only be made with the knowledge and introspection that a well seasoned director has cultivated. In 2019, Quentin Tarantino released Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, in 2021, Paul Thomas Anderson released Licorice Pizza, in 2022, Steven Spielberg released The Fabelmans, and this year, Martin Scorsese has released Killers of the Flower Moon. Whether it’s a semi-autobiographical reflection on your relation to film and how that impacted your family, or a meditation on your place in the history of film and American history as a whole, these stories feel like they could only be nailed by some of the greatest directors of our time. These have been recognized

by The Academy, showering them with nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and a litany of other awards.

Despite all this, however, everytime one of these films has come out, there has been another film to come out in each of these years that has completely stopped me in my tracks. They’ve been films that I found myself thinking about endlessly— at my desk at work rewatching my favorite scenes.

Each of these films have been directed by women, and more impressively, they’ve been one of their first films. These films are Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), Titane (2021), Aftersun (2022), Petit

Maman (2022), and Past Lives (2023). Each of these films has struck a tender chord with not only me, but with audiences and critics alike. And yet, each of these films have gone unnoticed and unappreciated by the Oscars.

Scorsese and Spielberg are some of the talents of their generation, and they deserve every bit of recognition they’ve received. The issue, for me, doesn’t stem with them but rather with the Oscars themselves. It was such a breath of fresh air when Parasite (2019) won [Best Picture], especially the year after the embarrassment that was Best Picture winner Green Book (2018). It felt like the Academy was rewarding something new and daring with Parasite. It’s a film that deals with wealth disparity in such an uncompromising way compared to Green Book, a film that wouldn’t have even been a progressive take on race 50 years ago. There was a huge sigh of relief seeing Parasite win the biggest award in Hollywood, not even to mention the fact that it was the first foreign film to win Best Picture. For me, that breath has been deflated over the last few years, not because films like Nomadland (2020), Coda (2021), and Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) were poor films, but because time and time again the Academy has refused to recognize bold new voices. With Past Lives releasing this year 23 | FC3K

before the Oscar nominations have come out, I really hope that writer and director Celine Song gets the recognition she deserves.

Charlotte Wells’ absolute gut punch of a debut, Aftersun, is a masterclass in unfolding emotional manipulation on screen. The film follows a woman named Sophie (Frankie Corio), who is recalling a vacation she spent with her father (Paul Mescal) decades earlier. For the majority of the film, it’s a bit unclear where exactly Wells is taking you. Is this a slice of life reflection on childhood, or are we going to see more towards the end and maybe follow Sophie’s adulthood a bit more closely?

Within the last 10-15 minutes of the film, everything comes into place, recontextualizing all we’ve seen and the relationship with her dad. It’s a film that rewards repeat viewings. Wells’ talent as a filmmaker is in full force as she utilizes a mixture of gorgeous cinematography and “home footage” style vhs tapes. Her mastery over the pacing and unpacking of information is something that would be impressive from an established director, but its jaw dropping coming from a first timer.

Like Aftersun, Celine Song’s Past Lives is similarly a deeply personal, semi-autobiographical film. It follows Nora (Greta Lee), a Korean girl who moves to America, leaving her best friend Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) behind. Many years later, they reconnect as they’re verging on adulthood.

They end their connection there, until decades later when Hae Sung visits Nora in New York City.

The film meditates on what true connection is, who we decide to spend our lives with, and how closely we can know our significant others. Celine Song grapples with so many heavy themes that push this so much further than your standard “love triangle” romantic drama. As Nora’s partner Arthur (John Magaro) tells her late into the film, “You dream in a language I can’t understand. It’s like there’s this whole place inside you I can’t go.”

Celine’s ability to confront these monumental feelings and put them to film is incredibly admirable, and it creates an engrossing experience.

I wish I had an answer for why a film like Aftersun went so under-appreciated at the Oscars, but I just come up empty handed. Paul Mescal was (deservedly) nominated for best actor, but that was all. Its subtle devastation doesn’t make you feel warm and fuzzy. Yes, I cried in Everything Everywhere, but I also left the theater with a deep sense of appreciation and passion for my family, friends, and those who matter to me.

I left Aftersun feeling wrecked with the idea of recontextualizing something from decades prior, only now realizing what was happening.

Charlotte Wells’ ability to have complete command over your emotions and ability to tell such a personal story is something that I believe should be admired and celebrated. This devastation isn’t a feeling that the Oscars love to celebrate, though. The Oscars clearly aren’t afraid of emotion, but so often there needs to be an underlying sentimentality and warmness. The

film needs to be inspiring to some degree. Or if it’s not, it’s because it’s following a real event that was just as heartbreaking, so we can pat ourselves on the back and say “Hey, look how far we’ve come!”.

A perfect example of this would be 30 years ago with Driving Miss Daisy (1989) winning when Do The Right Thing (1989) wasn’t even nominated.

Foreign films are still less likely to be acknowledged by The Academy. Established and emerging auteurs such as Julia Ducournau and Celine Sciamma are yet to be recognized, but have still found great critical success. Ducournau won the Palme d’Or for her 2021 film Titane, and Sciamma has been nominated for dozens of awards for her films at Cannes, TIFF, and even The Golden Globes.

These festivals and awards tend to be a bit more open minded about who gets nominated and often wins. I never would expect a film like Titane to be nominated for Best Picture; it’s a film critic David Ehrlich described as “​​hard to tell if you’re watching the most fucked up movie ever made about the idea of found family, or the sweetest movie ever made about a serial killer who has sex with a car”, but its frustrating to watch such a daring and emotional story go completely ignored by The Oscars.

Especially when films like Green Book (2018) or Don’t Look Up (2021), despite critical crucifixion, are still what The Academy love to celebrate.

Terms have been created like “oscar-bait” because they often can be so predictable. Attach a celebrity to a historical sob story, give a good performance (often with a lot of makeup effects), and it’s a surefire bet to get a Best Actor or Best Actress nomination. Titane and Petite Maman are both films that I could not imagine being further from being “oscar-bait”, the latter being a film about confronting who your parents are/were as people, not just your parents. It’s very similar to Aftersun in

that way, and just as emotionally devastating.

These films are so outside the Oscars typical picks that I feel it would be unrealistic for me to expect them to garner a nomination, but I do wish the Oscars weren’t so scared to recognize something so intensely striking.

I love The Fabelmans (a lot), Killers of the Flower Moon (also a lot), and all the films mentioned at the start of this, but they don’t feel fresh to me. It is so often emerging names that are creating films that stick with me for months and months, handling topics I hadn’t seen before. Not only is it a new batch of filmmakers that I’m finding some of the most exciting in the industry, but time and time again it’s women filmmakers who are pushing boundaries and telling stories that I’ve never seen. There will always be examples of the Oscars picking the bold options, but I wish those moments weren’t so few and far between. I truly hope that Celine Song gets the recognition she deserves at this year’s Academy Awards. The Oscars are in desperate need of a shake up, and I hope they can do that by starting to recognize the incredible films coming from women filmmakers, and more emerging filmmakers as a whole.

Since I started writing this, many publications have put out their top films of the year.

It’s been a true joy to see Past Lives end up at #1 in IndieWire and Rolling Stone, and in the top 3 for Vanity Fair, Roger Ebert.com, BFI, and land high on dozens of other lists. It gives me hope for this Oscars season! •

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Highway Hypnosis: Lily Gladstone and Duration in Certain Women

BY TANNER BENSON

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s we creep into Oscar season, nomination campaigns start to arise. Interviews, press junkets, podcast and talk-show appearances, and photo-ops all begin to infiltrate our feeds. The campaigns for the major categories are much more evident — especially for the acting categories.

I’ve had my eye on one particular campaign over the last year — Lily Gladstone.

Like most of the movie-going world, I fell in love with Gladstone in Certain Women, the Kelly Reichardt vehicle that skyrocketed the Blackfoot actor to critical acclaim. Gladstone’s turn in Scorsese’s behemoth, Killers of the Flower Moon, is earning her well-deserved praise, and a sure Oscar nomination. Variety even predicts Gladstone to win.

In an interview with Reichardt, Gladstone discussed her experience working on the Killers of the Flower Moon and developing the character of Mollie, a commanding Osage woman who falls in turbulent love with Ernest Burkhart (played

by Leonardo DiCaprio). When asked how the opportunity to audition first came to her, Gladstone responded, “I think Marty watched Certain Women, Kelly.”

As Gladstone continues to rake in the awards for this latest work, I wanted to reminisce about what endeared her to us in the first place. So, I took a proverbial drive, not down memory lane, but from Belfry, Montana to the town of Livingston.

Set in Montana, Certain Women gives the viewer time and space to identify with and attach themselves to its characters. The film, like most of Reichardt’s work, depends on duration—long takes, extended silence, music without time signatures, all contribute to the atmospheric vibes of her films. In conjunction with powerful actors, such as Gladstone, these formal elements create exceedingly emotional experiences, even though it appears as though nothing happens.

SPOILERS AHEAD for Certain Women Gladstone’s ability to communicate non-verbally makes her especially suited for a Kelly Reichardt movie. We first meet the Rancher (Gladstone’s unnamed character) in a barn.

We observe her booted feet shifting weight back and forth on a hay-covered stable floor.

Delicately posed horse legs communicate the animal’s comfort with its caretaker (Fig 1).

From an anonymous distance, we watch the Rancher perform her morning duties, hardly catching a glimpse of her face (Fig 2). She finally exits the barn and walks towards the camera; just as she gets close enough to see her face, the framing cuts her off at the shoulders. This intentional framing subverts an historically misogynist art technique that dissects women’s bodies, often severing their heads and limbs in favor of showing patriarchally desired body parts.

Here, however, Reichardt’s framing playfully teases us and our fascination with this mysterious figure. We finally get to see her face, drowsily lounging in her bed watching some vintage Space documentary with her dinner plate resting on her chest.

This delayed character introduction establishes a strong sense of place and being. We deeply understand where this character comes from, her dutiful work-ethic, and her solitary way of life. Up to this point, Gladstone serves as a body, carrying out anonymous work that could have been done by anyone. But once we see her face, the camera lingers — extended long-takes, close-ups on Gladstone’s face allow her to flaunt her restrained power as an actor.

While the Rancher lives an active life, full of duty and performance, the images that define Gladstone’s performance show her seated and observant; in the back of a dimly lit classroom, smiling coyly across from Kristen Stewart at the diner, but most of all, at the wheel of her rusty Chevy pick-up.

Driving is a major theme in this story. The young Montana lawyer, Elizabeth (played by Kristen Stewart), drives several hours each way from Livingston to Belfry to teach night classes.

Overworked and overstressed, she complains to the Rancher at a diner each week after class.

The Rancher provides Elizabeth with a soft, welcoming ear to vent her worries and com-

plaints. The Rancher asks questions, and the camera lingers as she listens. We glimpse her soft smiles as Elizabeth opens up. The delayed shot-reverse shot technique lets us in on the Rancher’s budding crush on Elizabeth; through her blushes and smiles we feel her awkwardness, her desperation to be loved, and her pure delight in another young person’s company in the old, cold town of Belfry. Every week, the Rancher watches Elizabeth’s taillights drive off into the dark Montana night, living only for the Fig. 1 next week’s class.

On the third week, the Rancher rides her horse into town. Feeling courageous enough to show herself to the young lawyer, and making a small romantic gesture, she takes Elizabeth on a frigid night-ride to their weekly diner date. Elizabeth is hesitant, but we are unable to tell if this is due to the cold or to the amorous undertones.

However, Elizabeth’s reticence to reciprocate any romantic feelings keeps the Rancher (and the viewer) on edge. The Rancher’s fantasies run as wild; hope and fear coexist. It epitomiz- Fig. 2 es the suspense of queer courtship—unsure whether making the first move will bring harm or open the door to love. And though Kristen Stewart’s face is most prominent on the film’s poster, this portion of Certain Women is centered on Gladstone’s character, and hinges on her subtly affecting performance.

We spend a lot of time with the Rancher as she drives. Durational shots pointed at her face as she travels to and from night classes occupy a great deal of screentime. We don’t get any overt Fig. 3 emotionality, however. What we get is time: time to hope, time to reflect, and time to project. One night, the Rancher shows up to class, point of no return, taking the big leap; will her as usual. Expectant and childlike. When a new interest be requited or were all these hopeful teacher walks in, informing the class of Elizaweeks for naught? She parks and waits, fixes her beth’s departure, the Rancher leaves straighthair in the rear-view mirror (Fig 3). Reichardt’s away to seek her out. She drives through the lingering camera and Gladstone’s delicately night to Livingston, trekking the same treachcrafted performance imbue this cute, human erous drive that Elizabeth complained so much moment with weighty expectation. As she stares about. In the morning, after sleeping in the at herself longingly in the mirror, a familiar blue cab of her truck, she pesters nearby law offices car passes behind, and pulls into the parking lot. trying to reach Elizabeth. After much ado, she The Rancher takes one last breath and gets finally gets an address. out of her car. She and Elizabeth talk about the Driving to the Livingston Business Offices, drive. Only a few words are shared between we get a long take of the Rancher’s face as she them, but the tragic beauty lies in what remains musters up courage and reflects on her doubts. unspoken.

She takes a deep breath and sighs as she pulls “I just knew if I didn’t start driving, I’d never into a parking lot. Her eyes scan the lot, but not see you again,” the Rancher confesses, bracing just for practicality’s sake—there is an anxiety for the unknown. behind her eyes, and resolution too. She’s at the 27 | FC3K

Elizabeth only stares. Her stone-faced, perplexed expression says all the Rancher needs to know.

“Well,” the Rancher starts again, with a crack in her voice and tears in her eyes, “gotta go feed now. The animals will be wondering where I’m at.” She turns away, walks back to her truck, and pulls away. As she leaves, she watches Elizabeth through the building’s glass door—not even a look. Elizabeth’s life remains totally unaffected.

And then, the greatest, saddest gift that Certain Women has to offer. For more than a minute and a half, we watch the Rancher’s face as she leaves Livingston (Fig 4). She drives, breathes, sucks her lips, but never cries. We feel her embarrassment, her heartache, her cowgirl stoicism doing all it can not to erupt into pieces.

Gladstone’s power lies in her ability to convey powerful emotion through subtlety. And the film gives the spectator time to get lost in it, lulled into emotion through a sort of highway hypnosis.

Gladstone continues to prove herself a powerhouse at delivering emotionally taxing performances with acute subtlety. In Killers of the Flower Moon, she conveys the grandeur and humility of Mollie, the exploited woman who spends most of the film sick in bed. While her role in Killers does not offer her as much to work with, necessarily, it comes as an exuberant outlet for Gladstone to tote her talent across our screens. While the Burkardt love story comes with many issues, Mollie frequently looks at the meager Ernest with deep love and compassion.

Her stiff demeanor comes off as wariness, rightfully so. But there are moments of vulnerability in Mollie’s story that, if given more screen time, would have escalated the movie to deeper emotional heights. She is largely inactive throughout the film, and although it depicts a great Fig. 4 misdeed to the Osage – Mollie, as a character, is left to the devices of those around her.

Certain Women gives the Rancher immense hesitance to say you’re proud of somebody, but it agency – all that happens in the narration is means a lot that you feel that. And of course, you because of the Rancher’s courage and desire to had so much to do with this. There are not many act. What remains after all this, is the fact that people who can create a character that gives an Lily Gladstone can take active roles, or passive actor like me a chance to show what I can do. And roles, and with her gentle strength, she stays in that was what Marty needed.” our minds for a long time after the screen goes The time we spend on the Rancher’s face allows dark. us to get lost in her dreams. We mourn an entire During her recent conversation with Relifetime of hope and potential, of love and comichardt about Killers, the director reticently panionship in the bleak emptiness of the Monexpressed pride in Gladstone’s success. The tana countryside. • actress responded gracefully, “I understand the

AND THE FILM GIVES THE SPECTATOR TIME TO GET LOST IN IT, LULLED INTO EMOTION THROUGH A SORT OF HIGHWAY HYPNOSIS.

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GRETA GERWIG BY MADELINE SAINTSING

Promising Young Woman

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2021 Jam Jar Sweet Shiraz

his South African Shiraz features super bold and rich jam flavors (blackberry, blueberry, strawberry) with a creamy, chocolatey texture that’s cut with a nice amount of acidity that pair perfectly with Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman. It’s sweet, almost too sweet…

The Hurt Locker

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Just Straight Bourbon

truly believe the best beverage pairing for Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker is just good ol’ straight bourbon. This spirit is thought to be a manly drink, yet in actuality it’s one of the sweetest spirits, and it’s honestly quite drinkable on its own. If you’ve never tried, I would say give it a shot! It might make you rethink masculinity… It’ll also help calm your nerves as you watch the bomb squad tackle these terrifying circumstances.

The Piano

2022 Wairau River Sauvignon Blanc

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his New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc highlights the tropical fruit flavors and minerality often found in these types of wines.

As you drink, you can almost taste the ocean water as it washes in over the grapes. It really makes me think of that image of the piano sitting out on the beach as the ocean tide comes in. Complex and beautiful, just like Jane Campion’s The Piano.

Crafted by Cameron Linly Robinson 31 | FC3K

“Girl” Movies A Journey Through Romantic Comedies (For Women?) By Women!

BY CAMERON LINLY ROBINSON

WHAT IS A ROMANTIC COMEDY?

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his may seem like a silly question, but not just any funny movie about people falling in love falls into the category of “rom-com”. No, this is a precious genre set aside for a specific class of cinema. The “romcom” features some very specific tropes that set it apart from your regular old romance, drama, or comedy.

Here’s a short list of what a true “rom-com” must contain:

7.

Two people (our leads) who for all intents and purposes do NOT belong together (or so it seems at first)— be it that they don’t get along, are trapped in different times, are from different social classes, or any myriad of hilarious reasons that the world may be keeping them apart 6.

Our two leads should be attractive and likable (in their own right) 5.

But they both must have some sort of fatal flaw or missing piece of their life… something that the other can fulfill or help them overcome 4.

There’s got to be some crazy situation or circumstance that leads to both comedic and romantic tension 3.

Normally, there’s a “falling in love” montage 2.

The film MUST have a happy ending– they’ve got to end up together (bonus points if their previous partners also end up together) But one thing is absolutely required for a film to be a true “rom-com”.

1.

All in all, the most important distinction is that the central plot and, more importantly, the comedy of the film must arise due to the romantic tension between the two lead characters.

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here can be subplots of the characters trying to run businesses, get promotions, go to college, etc. but the central thing that we’re all there to see is the love story. The subplots may add to the comedy, but the comedy must always arise from the characters’ responses to their budding relationship; be it them running from the romance, thinking that they’re in love with someone else, or even not knowing the person that they love is actually someone that they see everyday.

It’s funny! It’s romantic! The romance is comedic, and the comedy is romantic — get it?! I’m sorry. I digress…

These are the pieces of a perfect “rom-com”.

And, while this genre always has a place in pop culture, time and time again these films get written off as being “Girl Movies” devoid of meaning and artistry. However, just because a film is centered on romance, certainly does not make it just for women. Furthermore, this genre has been dominated by male filmmakers since its beginnings. In this article, I want to take us through the history of these films, and focus specifically on the “rom-coms” that were created by women, for women (okay… well, really for everyone).

company bought the distribution rights to the film in an attempt to get into the glamorous world of Hollywood and did absolutely nothing with them. So, to this day The Heartbreak Kid cannot be found on any streaming service or in any store (nope, not even Amazon). So, while I would love to be able to really discuss this film and its impact on the “rom-com” genre, all I have to go on is the plot synopsis that I was able to find online. This film actually received a lot of critical acclaim— even getting some Oscar nominations for the lead performances. And it seems that it really did make an impact on those that were able to watch it at the time. From what I can tell, it’s the only true “rom-com” directed by a woman that I can find from the 70s, and it seems to have given permission for the rest of the women in this article to go for some wacky and comedic romantic plots that became a staple of the genre.

It’s truly a shame that Elaine May’s work has been erased from the modern eye because she was truly a trailblazer for women directors at the time. Furthermore, I have a feeling that this piece inspired a lot of the films I’ll be diving into in this article.

The (Now Basically Lost) Beginnings: The Heartbreak Kid (1972) In the early 1970s, it was pretty uncommon for a woman to be directing in Hollywood. In fact, from the beginning of cinema in the late 1800s to the 1970s I was only able to find evidence of about 100 films directed by women (that’s out of potentially 70,000 films, if not much much more).

So, pinpointing the first “rom-com” directed by a woman is practically impossible, and honestly kind of depressing. But, there is one film which entered the scene in 1972 that seems to have popularized many of the tropes I listed above.

Elaine May’s The Heartbreak Kid, written by Neil Simon. This film follows salesman, Lenny (Charles Grodin), who falls in love with a beautiful blonde girl, Kelly (Cybill Shepherd), in Miami. The only problem is that Lenny is in Miami for his Honeymoon with his new wife, Lila (Jeannie Berlin); and Kelly doesn’t seem interested in him, and her father totally disapproves of him. It’s a pretty textbook formula for a classic “rom-com” that seems to explore missed opportunities and the fear of newlywed life, all with some great comedic Neil Simon dialogue.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to actually watch this film because it’s basically been erased from the public eye. In the 1970s, a pharmaceutical

Pre-Modern “Rom Com” Romantic Comedies Oh, the 80s… movies from this time always have such a specific feel and atmosphere. I almost feel like I should write a whole separate article about “rom-coms” from the 1980s, but meanwhile there’s one specific film that I want to discuss here. Martha Coolidge’s 1983 instant classic, Valley Girl, tells the story of Julie (Deborah Foreman), a teenager from a wealthy family in the Valley who accidentally falls in love with Randy (Nicolas Cage), a troubled bad boy from Hollywood, despite her friends’ disapproval.

While this film doesn’t quite embrace the high concept, crazy situation that this genre will soon be known for, Valley Girl is definitely a classic Romantic Comedy, with the central plot and humor stemming from the strange relationship that develops between this mismatched couple.

And our happy ending comes when Julie realizes that she loves Randy despite the ways in which their lives do not align. It is truly hilarious, and very romantic… in a super twisted 80s, Martha Coolidge kind of way. Something to note about this film and Coolidge as a director is that Valley Girl was her second feature film, and its predecessor, Not a Pretty Picture, is about as far away from a “rom-com” that you can get. In her first film, Coolidge blends documentary and narrative 33 | FC3K

filmmaking to explore the story of her own sexual assault as a teenager. It is not romantic or funny at all. But, it is incredibly experimental, and I think Coolidge always had an interest in the dark twisted experimental opportunities in filmmaking. So, it makes a lot of sense that Valley Girl is not your typical “rom-com”, yet it’s probably one of the most interesting and celebrated films on this list. It also subverts our expectations and both criticizes and mocks our main characters, while also showing the vapid and superficial feelings of teenagehood in a really positive light–something that is certainly a staple of “rom-coms”.

Honorable Mentions: Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) / dir Amy Heckerling Big (1988) / dir. Penny Marshall Nora Ephron’s 90s In 1993, Nora Ephron stepped out from the “rom-com” writer’s room and put on her Director’s hat with Sleepless in Seattle. Having written one of the most acclaimed and beloved Romantic Comedies of the 1980s, When Harry Met Sally, Ephron dazzled everybody with her distinct directorial style and aesthetic. Sleepless in Seattle follows two strangers, recently widowed Sam (Tom Hanks) and recently engaged Annie (Meg Ryan). The plot begins when Sam’s son, Jonah (Ross Malinger), calls into a radio talk show and asks for advice on how to help his father find a new wife. This charms many women across the country, but most importantly Annie, who begins to question her own connection to her fiancée. Annie, a journalist, decides to write a feature on the radio show in an attempt to learn more about Sam, because— though she tries to deny it—she can’t help but

think that he may be the one. I will admit, this film leans severely towards a drama — especially in the first half, but the central romance and overall plot is comedic, and the way in which the characters meet is meant to be funny and ironic, so I’ll allow it to be considered a “rom-com”. Also, this film is filled with jokes poking fun at the “rom-com” genre as a whole and remains totally aware of itself and films like it. Nora Ephron is able to so brilliantly mock those “chick movies” while also creating such a moving love story, and with her smart writing, wonderful casting, and succinct shots she gives us permission to love these movies too.

Sleepless in Seattle would soon be followed by another instant classic (also starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan), You’ve Got Mail. Once again, Ephron explores a romance that is formed at a distance. However, rather than two people on opposite sides of the country who have never really spoken, we follow two people who speak everyday online– yet have never seen each other (or so they think)– who incidentally live blocks away. Where Sleepless in Seattle was Ephron’s attempt to poke fun at Romantic Comedies, this is her fully embracing them, and subsequently defining many of the stereotypes we see time and time again.

Meg Ryan plays Kathleen, an independent bookstore owner, opposite Tom Hanks as Joe, who owns one of the largest bookstore chains in the world — Kathleen’s biggest competition. Online, they email back and forth everyday, but they never share any personal details about themselves. Instead, they discuss their feelings, books, ask for advice (without specifics) and basically

totally fall in love. In person, they cannot stand each other. It isn’t until they make plans to meet that Joe realizes who she is, and then must decide how to move forward.

The story shifts once the two of them, in person, actually begin to become friends, and even start to like each other romantically. The resolution deals with forgiveness and acceptance, and of course they end up together! Kathleen even has the wonderful and memorable line “I wanted it to be you so badly.” It’s really an incredible, gushy, hilarious romance that paved the way for many many more films in this genre.

Ephron’s work always contains an element of magic, something that many films have incorporated since. There is this distinct love of love, and each of her romantic films contain this air of divinity and fate. Her characters find each other because they have to. They are meant for each other, and no matter how much they try to deny it, they must be together. While this sounds very cheesy (and perhaps it is a little), Ephron is an expert at grounding these moments both with stellar visual storytelling and by capturing some incredible performances. You simply cannot deny Nora Ephron’s lasting impact on the craft of creating the perfect “rom-com”.

definitely over the top, they kept audiences interested and sold tickets. There are a few women responsible for this new wave of “rom-coms”, in fact there are a lot of women responsible for this.

But before I dive into the films that perfected the formula, I’ve got to mention Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Love & Basketball (2000).

I would accept the argument that this film isn’t really a “rom-com” as it leans pretty dramatic, and you could make the point that the central plot of the film is not the romance, but rather our two leads–Monica (Sanaa Lathan) and Quincy (Omar Epps)– journey to becoming professional basketball players. But, their romance is important to both of their journeys and it is a central part of both the plot and the

Honorable Mentions: Clueless (1995) / dir. Amy Heckerling But, I’m A Cheerleader (1999) / dir. Jamie Babbit The 2000s Admittedly, 2000s “rom-coms” have a special place in my heart, probably because I was a sweet little elementary schooler entering middle school in this era, and for the first time in my life I was made aware of love. If Nora Ephron and the 1990s clarified the Rom Com form, the 2000s perfected it. This decade was really all about the formula. Hollywood has always been a business, and in the 2000s, as we crept closer and closer to recession, the studios needed formulas that worked and, more importantly, made money. Romantic Comedies of the 2000s were all about high concept, crazy situations in which two people fall in love in completely absurd circumstances. And while these stories were

comedy. So, it definitely belongs in the conversation about women directed “rom-coms”!

This film follows two childhood neighbors and friends who both aspire to be successful basketball players, as they go to college for the sport and, all the while, form a romantic relationship.

The stand out of this film is Bythewood’s brilliant visual storytelling when it comes to the comparison between their love for basketball and each other. The most thrilling sequences are those moments of intimacy that we see between Quincy and Monica — them playing basketball in his dorm room, close ups of their hands on each other’s waists, the beautiful blend of romance and sport. These are brilliantly paired with scenes of Monica actually playing basketball, where her teammates and opponents 35 | FC3K

mimic this intimacy. This film loves love, and it certainly loves basketball, and it’s a fascinating depiction of how passion and relationships mix and–at times– are at odds.

2001 gave us Bridget Jones Diary, which is certainly one of the craziest and most hilarious films of the decade. 32 year old Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger), makes a New Year’s resolution to turn her life around after she overhears a childhood acquaintance, Mark (Colin Firth),complaining about her vulgar ways. She begins writing in her journal about her attempts to stop drinking, smoking, lose weight, and find Mr. Right. Bridget begins dating her womanizer boss, Daniel (Hugh Grant), until he inevitably cheats on her and they break up. She eventually becomes interested in Mark, and a love triangle follows, ending in an epic fight between the men for her affection. Director Sharon Maguire has such a great sense for comedic timing, and paired with Renée Zellweger’s performance, this is easily one of the funniest films on this list. But the comedy is met perfectly with such romantic chemistry between the characters. This movie helped perfect the high concept, absurd plots that “rom-coms” are known for, and most importantly, Bridget Jones Diary introduces a twist — something that has also become a staple of the form.

Later on in the decade, we’re introduced to Anne Fletcher — a true “rom-com” MVP who directed two prominent Romantic Comedies in the 2000s, 27 Dresses (2008) and The Proposal (2009). The former follows Jane (Katherine Heigel), a woman who fantasizes about getting married and has been a bridesmaid 27 times. She longs for her boss and thinks he may be interested in her, but things get shook up when her sister comes to town and her and

Jane’s boss hit it off and start dating, then get engaged! Enter dreamy journalist, Kevin (James Marsden) who is writing an article on the couple for his marriage column. But his plan shifts once he discovers Jane’s closet full of bridesmaid gowns. Seeing the potential for a career-shifting article about a woman who is truly “always the bridesmaid, never the bride”, he secretly begins to write about Jane. Of course, it’s a “rom-com”, so they fall in love, and things go south when Kevin’s editor publishes the article and Jane reads it, mortified and betrayed. This film has every bit of over the top “rom-com” goofiness you could imagine, and it’s truly a super fun and nostalgic watch, but the issues with the genre slip through the cracks and it’s almost… too much.

In 2009, Fletcher rectifies all of these issues with The Proposal. From concept to casting, directing to cinematography, this film is a magnificent “rom-com”. Strong willed, and slightly terrifying, editor Margaret Tate (Sandra Bullock) and her assistant, Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) find themselves entangled in a web of lies when Margaret’s green card expires and she tells the U.S. immigration office that her and Andrew are engaged so that she can keep her visa and, more importantly, her job. Andrew agrees to go along with the scheme if she will promote him to editor. The two take a trip to Alaska to visit Andrew’s family for his grandmother’s 90th birthday.

But, of course, it’s a “rom-com”... so they fall in love! And, boy is it fantastic! Fletcher really takes her time with these characters, and she makes us believe that they could actually fall for each other. Their moments of intimacy are almost purely emotional, with

a series of conversations between the two of them at night–Margaret laying on the bed, Andrew on the floor–talking about their lives and feelings and all the while slowly falling for each other. Conceptually, it’s silly and over the top, but it’s so real and powerful and it encompasses everything about the “rom-com” genre that makes it so powerful.

Obviously, the 2000s were very formative for these types of movies, and all of these women (as well as many many more) had a hand in creating these films that we love so much. This is the most memorable era of Romantic Comedies for myself.

And all of these films, as well as the ones mentioned for the previous decade, inspired what was to come for the 2010s to present day.

Honorable Mentions: Bend It Like Beckham (2002) / dir. Gurinder Chadha Something’s Gotta Give (2003) / dir. Nancy Meyers Bride and Prejudice (2004) / dir. Gurinder Chadha 2010s –Present Day If the 2000s were about perfecting the “romcom”, the 2010s were about tearing it apart and questioning the entire conceit of the genre. For the first time, we were getting some truly diverse voices in the public eye, and the movies and stories became more diverse and interesting. We began to truly question and examine what love and relationships are and how they dictate our lives. Now, more than ever, we see “rom-coms” about queer relationships, non traditional romances, and love stories about people that aren’t your typical young, healthy, attractive “rom-com” leads.

In 2013, Nicole Holofcener wrote and directed Enough Said, an unconventional Romantic Comedy that follows two divorcees– Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) and Albert (James Gandolfini) –who begin dating. The story gets interesting when Eva, who is a masseuse, discovers that one of her new clients is Albert’s ex-wife. All of the horrible things that she’s heard this woman say about Albert starts to get to her, and the charming and sweet man that she was falling for starts to seem grotesque. This exploration of love later in life isn’t something that we get all of the time. Eva finds herself surprised by her reaction to Albert’s middle-aged, overweight body, and it’s really charming to see the two of them find someone who makes them feel cared for after their previous marriages. This, paired with the traditional kooky

“rom-com” twists and turns makes for a movie full of heart and humor.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, we have Alice Wu’s The Half of It (2020). This is a sweet, queer, teenage, coming of age, love story about Ellie Chu (Leah Lewis), a young Chinese girl who feels out of place in her small North American town. Ellie is brilliant and makes money by writing papers for the kids at her school. The story begins when her neighbor, a jock, Paul (Daniel Diemer) asks her to write a letter to the girl that he has a crush on. She begins a correspondence with this girl for Paul, and– in a very Cyrano twist–she begins to fall for the girl as well.

While this film explores the queer love story of Ellie and her crush, the more interesting love story unfolds between Ellie and Paul, as they form a real connection and friendship.

Not only do we get a story about a young lesbian discovering herself, we also get a love story centered around love between friends.

Again we have the traditional “rom-com” high concept in a very unusual way. These films, while clearly inspired by the “romcoms” of the past, have incorporated feelings faced by all kinds of people.

Honorable Mentions: This Waltz (2011) / dir. Sarah Polley Posthumous (2014) dir. Lulu Wang The Weekend (2018) / dir. Stella Meghie Happiest Season (2020) / dir. Clea Duvall The Romantic Comedy, or “rom-com” if you will, has stood the test of time. It’s exciting to think about how the genre has evolved over the years, and I can’t wait to see how new stories are able to be told with this timeless formula. Obviously, it will change as time goes on, but there is a very specific aesthetic and feel that a true “rom-com” possesses, and I think these female filmmakers have been at the forefront of creating the Romantic Comedy. They’re not “Girl Movies”; they’re for everyone, but it’s incredible how this genre has given opportunity for women to take charge of their narratives and tell stories that intrigue women, men, and everyone alike. •

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KATHRYN BIGELOW BY MADELINE SAINTSING

WHAT’S A NICE WOMAN LIKE THIS DOING MAKING MOVIES LIKE THAT? On Kathryn Bigelow and Her Body of Work

BY KEMARI BRYANT

“WHAT’S A NICE WOMAN LIKE BIGELOW DOING MAKING EROTIC, VIOLENT VAMPIRE MOVIES?”

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hicago Tribune writer Marcia Froelke Coburn pondered this. The year was 1987 and Kathryn Bigelow had just released her solo directorial debut in theatres, Near Dark. She had co-directed her indie motorcycle gang flick The Loveless years prior in 1981, but this weird little film was her calling card. Near Dark was a hybrid between a Western and a vampire movie, very well received with compliments for Bigelow’s strong directorial vision, beautiful visuals, and an excess of gore. One thing was wrong here, though — Kathryn Bigelow was a woman. How could a woman create something so violent, so excessive, so unconcerned with fitting into a box?

“I think women are very interested in violence. They’re certainly the victims of it a lot, so they’re focused on it. Admittedly, movie-making is a male-dominated industry. And within the codes of who does what material, women are more associated with emotional material and men with the apparatus, the technology, the hardware.”

Bigelow opines in the Tribune interview.

Her path to becoming the first woman to

win an Academy Award for Best Director was full of turns and bends, and the inception point was just left in the world of visual art. Even as she began to forage into the world of film her projects were based in much more abstract art concepts — one of her very early short films was an analyzation of violence through the sphere of cinema, capturing two men in the throes of unsimulated violence as two onlookers comment on the experience. ‘’I think I’ll probably always be making movies with dark underpinnings and a main character who’s trapped in a situation from which he can’t extract himself . . . a fatalism combined with an adrenalin aspect. I’m interested in high-impact, high-velocity movie-making.’’

In 1987 her words were put to print, and 36 years later I can say she was absolutely correct in her calculation. The topic of her films are often boiled down to violence and masculinity, which are fair summations if not myopic. Bigelow explained her filmic interest in the most clear way: fatalism combined with adrenaline. It is almost

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like a mathematic equation that, in addition to Bigelow’s brilliant directorial mind, consistently produces high-octane thrill rides.

There is often a fatalistic quality to the world in which the story is set. Wether it be a near-future dystopian LA or the deserts of Iraq, the overall outlook is grim. There are specific ways in which a director views the world, and adrenaline is an extension of Bigelow’s artistic vision. This is the only explanation for her innate understanding of how to build tension. She toys with the audience’s expectations, leading them through an experience that stutters your heart and shallows your breath. This is where we get the stunning action sequences, and the stunningly real displays of violence. Finally, each one of Bigelow’s films are a study of character and relationships. Their desires are often in opposition to the fatalism of their world — sometimes it is an addiction to things that aren’t good for them, sometimes it is chasing something to no end, and oftentimes forces the character to face the negative aspects their desires may bring.

FATALISM + ADRENALINE + CHARACTER = A Kathryn Bigelow Flick 1995s Strange Days is Bigelow’s expedition into the sci-fi genre. A gem amongst her vast filmography, Strange Days is a vision of

a dystopian future. Instead of thrusting us a century into the future she amplifies the emotional poignancy by offering a different kind of dystopia: a war-torn LA just a few years later in 1999, strife with destruction and riots, a reflection of a world post-Rodney King uprisings. Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes) is a former LAPD officer, now turned to a life of crime as a a black market dealer of SQUIDs — an illegal device used to record memories and physical sensations, and if worn by users allows for them to relive their own memories and memories of others that are sold.

Lenny is a character plagued by two things: the tarnished relationship with his bombshell ex-girlfriend Faith (Juliette Lewis), and his personal addiction to the SQUID device, constantly running from his life to re-live past memories with Faith. As he pines for an uninterested Faith, his best friend Mace (Angela Basset) supports him and secretly pines for him, as well. Lenny is provided a snuff tape detailing the murder of a prostitute that brings him into the fold of a grisly crime conspiracy.

What at first seems to be a standard sci-fi noir unfolds revealing a biting political commentary. Bigelow proves a point here that she is a filmmaker with big opinions that she isn’t afraid to state loudly. George Holliday’s videotape of four police officers beating Rodney King ushered us into a new age where

FATALISM + ADRENALINE + CHARACTER = A KATHRYN BIGELOW FLICK

the hidden crimes of those in power could be exposed by the people. Bigelow’s portrayal of similar content is modern and at the same time prescient, evoking feelings that connect to cases as recent as George Floyd’s murder captured on video for the world to see. She used this as a jumping off point to discuss white complacency when faced with racial violence, corruption in the police force, and the pressure on black people to stand up for black issues despite a lack of support. In the end the film opines people power as the answer to corruption and violence — possibly an oversimplification, but still emotionally resonant nonetheless.

While thematically rich there is no lack of visual risk. The opening sequence features a completely point-of-view police chase scene shot in a oner. Any cuts are hidden seamlessly as the camera shakes and bobs up staircases, across rooftops, with a stunningly impressive 16-foot jump between two buildings. Bigelow worked with the camera team for a full year to build a specialized camera that could be used for the many point-of-view shots throughout the film, reportedly to replicate looking through a human’s eyes as closely as possible.

13 years later Kathryn Bigelow and her crew were fighting temperatures of 120 degrees in the deserts of Jordan, near miles from an active war zone. 2008s The Hurt Locker was a stark evolution in Bigelow’s filmography.

Many questioned her interest in making a film so deeply entrenched in politic when America was in the midst of the very war the film would be commentating on. As the dust cleared what became apparent was that Bigelow was crafting a different kind of war film.

Set in 2004, The Hurt Locker follows a U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal team two years into the Iraq War. Sergeant First Class William James (Jeremy Renner) is sent to the Bravo Company to replace a recently deceased team leader, joining Sergeant J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty).

The complex narrative journeys of her previous work is traded for an intimate character study following this trio of soldiers over the course of their time stationed in Iraq. With each high-pressure moment forced to disarm

bombs threatening to wipe them from existence in an instance they are made to face their mortality and their relationship to their masculinity.

Bigelow fearlessly explores the masculine enviroment that transforms these men into soldiers. Sergeant James is the example of a man whose only life is war, who feels more comfortable as a solider than as a father or husband. His addiction is adrenaline, and the toxic hold that masculinity has over him causes him to push others away, refuse to communicate, and put himself in dangerous situations to come on top as the savior. A sequence shows a close quarter fight between James and Sanborn in the barracks — a portrayal of physical violence as an only means to communicate when they lack the words to speak emotionally.

Through a muscular edit and cameras whipping and zooming to capture every microscopic moment the world of The Hurt Locker is crafted to perfection. This is the film that won Kathryn Bigelow the Academy Award for Best Director, the award for Best Picture, and solidified her historically as the first woman to take home both trophies. For 82 years the best of Hollywood gathered to honor each other, and finally a woman had won.

Film historians have noted the significance of Bigelow’s win directing a film focused on men, and featuring only one woman in the credited cast. She has oftentimes come out and stated how she thinks a director should be judged for their work and not their gender, but still the criticisms flocked. Her pre-The Hurt Locker filmography certainly featured women in leading roles, so why was this work being judged so harshly? One can only assume that a group of individuals believed Bigelow was forced to abandon female-forward narratives in order to be recognized by the Academy, and to eventually win. The Hurt Locker is certainly and uniquely told through a female gaze, and is an essential part of Bigelow’s singular understanding of the link between masculinity of violence — the lack of women was undoubtedly a part of that.

Zero Dark Thirty is Kathryn Bigelow’s masterpiece. While certainly controversial, 41 | FC3K

it is a display of her distinctive craftsmanship.

Her talents lie in the building of tension, the exploration of character, and wading in murky political waters from an unbiased point of view.

The 2012 film follows Maya Harris (Jessica Chastain), a CIA intelligence analyst, and the decade-long manhunt for Osama bin Laden following the 9/11 attacks.

While The Hurt Locker explored masculinity within the absence of female voices, Zero Dark Thirty centers a woman and explores her devolve into desperation within a masculine system. Bigelow goes even further in her displays of brutality to expose reality, the opening moments realizing explicit torture sequences of detainees. Maya wears oversized suits and a black mask in her first appearance, covered in a masculine costume that represents her assimilation into the present culture.

Throughout the film we experience Maya descend further into madness as she makes the search to find Osama Bin Laden personal — over the years she loses a close, and possibly singular, friend in Jessica Karley (Jennifer Ehle), a senior CIA analyst who dies in a terrorist bombing in the midst of her own desperate search. It is of note that one of the only people Maya is seen developing a close relationship with outside of work is Jessica, the only other woman amongst the team. Maya certainly is seen to have relationships with her male coworkers such as Officer Dan Fuller (Jason Clarke) and analyst Jack Fuller (Harold Perrineau), but her relationship with Jessica is shown to be deeper than all the rest.

After her death her memory lives on through a picture on Maya’s desktop, a testament to Jessica’s importance to her.

Chastain beautifully explores nuance in Zero Dark Thirty, never limiting herself to paint Maya’s emotional world with vague generalizations, but instead choosing to use a wealth of rich colors and broad strokes to create a fully realized person. She has big moments to explore her range, of course — all of Bigelow’s elements are present, and there is no lack of action and tension amongst the pathos. What really makes this a brilliant character study is the juxtaposition of the two.

The last 45-minutes are a grand spectacle, the pinnacle of everything Bigelow had built upon in her career until that point. She perfects her formula by providing the audience with an anxiety inducing portrayal of the May 2, 2011 raid where

Osama bin Laden was killed. Though most of the film takes place on the fringes of action, moreso concerned with the individuals who work behind the scenes interrogateing rather than the soldiers with their boots on the ground, in the final act we are firmly placed in the middle of this mission. It makes sense — this is our main character’s primary concern, thus it is given the upmost importance.

Bigelow crafts this sequence with methodical care. Energetic camera work meets a snappy edit, never quite giving you the time to catch up as the soldiers occupy the urban compound. But what Bigelow does most boldly here is explore the nuance of the situation — she portrays the brutality of the US soldiers, how they shoot women and children who pose no apparent threat, and shoot their bodies several more times even when they’re dead. While a seemingly heroic moment in our history, Bigelow is wise enough to not paint the US as strictly a hero. Even in the way she portrays the CIA’s brutal torture of detainees she poses the question: at what cost?

This is made most clear in the film’s closing moments. After the mission is successful Maya boards a military transport. She is alone, the pilot informs her, her name is the only one on the flight manifest. “Where do you wanna go?” he asks. The question hits her, she turns and we watch her reflect on it.

She slightly shakes her head no, and then the tears begin to fall. A soft piano plays as she comes to the realization that it’s all over. A fight that consumed her life was now come to an end, and all that’s left is herself. A brilliant piece of acting work from Chastain, one that expertly crystalizes the thematic point of interest of the film.

Kathyrn Bigelow has proven time and time again her craftsmanship. Not many directors are so unafraid to explore sticky themes with nuance, and to dip into different genres freely.

She has made vampire movies, action flicks, thrillers, war films, and despite it all one thing is clear: it is a Kathryn Bigelow film, and no one — man or woman — can make a movie like Kathryn Bigelow. •

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AGNES VARDA BY HARRIS SINGER

Vive La Varda!

In Honor of the Queen of the French New Wave

BY SAM SPAULDING

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f the 134 Honorary Oscar Recipients, only 5 have been awarded to documentary filmmakers. Of those 5 rare honorees, only one ever has been presented to a woman. In 2017, Agnes Varda received the award at the age of 89 years old after over 50 years of making films. While she received the award for her documentary contributions, Varda is known for being an auteur who has worn many hats (as well as now iconic brightly-colored knit shawls) over the course of her career. She is known to many as a pioneer of the French New Wave, again the lone woman among names like Jean-Luc Godard and Alain Resnais. However, Varda’s career spans decades past the New Wave. Her last film, Varda by Agnes, marked her 24th feature length film, and debuted in 2019, the same year Varda passed away. Her films range and blend narrative, documentary, and experimental styles that defy traditional awards categories or movements. Her non-traditional story lines and avant-garde approach to plot result in films that defy genre and resist categorization. Many of her films were made and produced independently in her home studio that she established with husband and fellow filmmaker, Jacques Demy. They showcase Varda not only as a director, but as an editor, writer, and cinematographer (sometimes all within the same film). For such an accomplished and varied filmmaker, anyone familiar with Varda’s work can see why it’s taken so long for American media to recognize her contributions; even to solely look at her career as a documentarian feels reductive. An honorary Oscar in that field is perhaps more of a long-awaited commemoration to Varda’s singular voice in cinema.

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In 2017, the Academy had been facing much public criticism at their lack of inclusion, most famously the #OscarsSoWhite on Twitter, calling out the lack of non-white nominees and industry professionals attending and being honored at the Oscars. In the same year, Harvey Weinstein was expelled from the Academy and the #MeToo movement was stressing the importance of space for women to safely work on and off screen in Hollywood. The Academy started to respond by making a conscious effort towards diverse representation, breaking their previous records for POC nominees, and by Varda being the first female director to receive an honorary award. While western media has still just begun examining the contributions Varda has made towards progressing cinema as an art form, it is crucial to understand that these contributions are indelibly tied to Varda working from the female perspective.

Varda embodies the very idea of gender and class diversity in film by making these themes topically and visually present throughout all of her work. Instead of studying film and trying to emulate her male contemporaries, Varda did not take an interest in film until her early 20s and made projects for her own enjoyment. Where she focused her lens was largely informed by her upbringing as a daughter of immigrants and by living in France through World War II. She was emboldened by the feminist movement and rising class consciousness, opting to capture how this impacted life around her without being hindered by a need to adhere to classical film standards, which was greatly emphasized in film schools at the time. Instead of trying to create commercial successes, what resulted is an entire catalog of films that showcase themes that were never so explicitly talked about on screen before, constructed specifically through a woman’s gaze.

After experimenting with some short art films and getting the hang of the medium, Varda released her first feature film, La Pointe Courte (1955) at age 27. La Pointe Courte is a meandering and intimate look into life in the small fishing town the movie gets its name from. Half of the film is centered on various townspeople; here Varda hones what will become part of her signature style of weaving documentary footage into a narrative film.

The black-and-white handheld footage she

employs centers on real villagers such as merchants and dock workers going through the motions and daily activities such as tying fishing nets or walking through the cobblestone streets by the coast. It is through this table-dressing that Varda lays out the second half of her film; a glimpse into a married couple struggling to decide whether to stay together or divorce. At the center of this conflict are the gender roles of the 1950s. Women are expected to do the domestic work and men are expected to work and provide for their family. Varda’s savvy decision to frame the portrait of this couple’s struggle within “business as usual” goings-on in the town invites the viewer to question the systems at play that impact their everyday existence. The film’s female protagonist, Elle (Sylvia Monfort), gives voice to real concerns women were facing at the time. She contends with the reality of taking on domestic roles like mothering and cooking, while also hoping for romance to continue to be present in her relationship.

Pollution and policing are also present in the story, creating challenges for the general townspeople.

Film scholar and historian Georges Sadoul deemed La Pointe Courte the first film to mark French New Wave filmmaking.

Indeed, employing actors and non-actors together and utilizing a location as a character in a film was groundbreaking. However, just as groundbreaking was Varda’s incorporation of the post-war climate and how it affected even the smallest of towns through awareness of environmental strain and gender inequality. She would continue to be inspired by the lives of those around her, basing her most successful film, Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962), on a newspaper article from her local paper. Social struggles would also remain prevalent in her work. Varda visited California in the late 1960’s for some fresh inspiration. There she became acquainted with the Black Panther movement and created a short documentary since their actions and philosophy were not well known in France. French New Wave author Richard Brody describes her films as concerned with “personal experience, political insight and activism, an ardent vision for landscape, an

intense curiosity about the lives of others, and frank confrontations with intimacy, romance, and love”. Many of her film’s protagonists are women contending with topics like pursuing their dreams in a male-dominated world, and the limits of what personal freedom can actually look like.

In One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (1977), all these themes are present and surround the topic of abortion. In France at the time, it was still illegal for women to have an abortion and the topic itself was completely taboo. The protagonists of this film are two women from completely different social backgrounds and ambitions, yet are inexplicably bound by profound and lifelong friendship. The film is Varda’s love letter to the hippie movement and an ode to the necessity of female friendship. Through the rebellious counterculture represented in the film, the women are able to find communities based on liberation and equality that accept them completely. Throughout the film, the characters are completely autonomous and their decisions are viewed with empathy, their motives never questioned or minimized. Varda also put to screen the physical transformation of pregnancy and shows one of the characters breastfeeding at a time where it was rare to show nudity in a nonsexual way.

Agnes Varda’s films are more than just stylistic and technical feats. They are a testament to the artistic possibilities waiting to be discovered when women make art for themselves

and tell stories centered around themselves and their communities. The world’s within her films are vivid and often devoid of shame, inviting the viewer to observe with openness and curiosity rather than impose themselves into the narrative. Though she never had much commercial success (she chose to never explicitly pursue it), it’s about time filmmakers and critics alike acknowledged her extensive contributions to the art of independent filmmaking. By awarding her an honorary Oscar and retroactively crediting her hand in conceiving the French New Wave, a female auteur becomes canonized in film history. Modern filmmakers including Greta Gerwig, Miranda July, and Kelly Reichardt are among the vast list of artists who credit her as an inspiration. To celebrate her films is to celebrate independent and experimental endeavors, new and more honest types of roles being available to actresses, and to legitimize the excellency of female directors, writers and editors. Viva Varda! •

AGNES VARDA, DECEMBER 1997 (JIM GARRET VIA GETTY IMAGES)

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They Should’ve Been Contenders Throughout the Academy Awards’ ninety-six years there have only been seven women nominated for Best Director, which means there are sure to have been some snubs. These four women are directors who were in the conversation, but never made it any further.

PENNY MARSHALL

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hen some hear the name Penny Marshall their minds may immediately think of the charming actress who starred as Laverne DeFazio in the beloved sitcom Laverne and Shirley — but Penny Marshall also conquered another medium as a director in the world of film. Often overlooked, Marshall has brought us beloved classics such as Big and A League of Their Own — the former having made history as the first film directed by a woman to gross over $100 million in the US. The biggest snub toward her work would have to be the lack of recognition by the Academy for her direction of 1990s Awakenings. Awakenings stars Robin Williams as Dr. Malcolm Sayer, a neurologist who discovers beneficial effects of a new drug able to awaken catatonic patients after decades. Robert De Niro co-stars as one of the patients, given another chance at life. The film was a critical and commercial success, garnering three Academy Award nominations — Screenplay, Supporting Actor (for De Niro), and Best Picture, only the second film directed by a woman to be nominated for the prize. However, despite all the attention, Marshall was not able to garner a nomination herself.

KERRY HAYES/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX

ILZE KITSCHOFF

GINA PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD

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ina Prince-Bythewood has never been nominated for an Academy Award. With a career spanning from the early nineties to today, her work time and time again proves to be powerful from an array of television series to Love & Basketball (featured in this very magazine!) to The Secret Lives of Bees, she has proven herself to be adept behind the camera. She has a unique ability to give her characters–particularly her female characters–this unmeasured sense of humanity and relatability, all while making them powerful and strong. And with the box office success of her 2022 film, The Woman King, there was some hope that she would finally earn some recognition from the Academy. And still… nothing. The Woman King follows the Agojie, a group of women soldiers in West Africa as they fight to protect their kingdom, Dahomey. This film is truly the accumulation of Bythewood’s career. She’s proving her mastery in all accords, and the public had an overwhelmingly positive response to this story.

The fact that she wasn’t nominated for her work, is a testament to how the Academy doesn’t take women directors seriously–and definitely doesn’t take Black women seriously. It’s a total shame, because this work deserved more!

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CASI MOSS/A24

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LULU WANG

n 2020, the year the Academy took huge leaps and awarded its first ever non-english and foreign film for Best Picture (Parasite, dir. Bong JoonHo), it failed one of our greatest women filmmakers working today, Lulu Wang. In 2019, Wang released The Farewell, a film following Billi Wang (Awkwafina), a Chinese-American woman living in New York who goes to China to see her family after her grandmother’s terminal cancer diagnosis. The family decides to keep her grandmother in the dark so that she can enjoy the remainder of her life. This film is a beautiful exploration of the complicated family structure often found within families that have partially immigrated, on top of a “coming home” narrative and all of the drama that ensues within a family dynamic, on top of a character’s struggle with the reality of death and loss. Its nuanced complexities feel both groundbreaking and so relatable.

Between overwhelming positive critical response, an optimistic festival run, and very successful box office numbers, this film was primed and ready for awards season. Yet… while The Farewell did receive some recognition from the American Film Institute, The Gotham Awards, Critics Choices Awards, and the Golden Globes, Lulu Wang and her film as a whole went completely unnoticed by the Academy Awards with zero nominations.

AVA DUVERNAY

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va DuVernay’s 2014 film, Selma, about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the events surrounding the 1965 Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights march garnered her widespread attention within Hollywood as well as the mainstream.

After working for decades in TV and Film, DuVernay seemed to be getting the recognition that she deserved, with critical acclaim for the film– and particularly her directorial vision and visual storytelling.

However, her contribution to Selma went unnoticed by the Academy Awards, and though the film received nominations for Best Picture and Best Original Song, DuVernay did not receive a nomination.

Additionally, this film was the only film directed by a person of color to garner a nomination at the 87th Academy Awards (aside from the Best Foreign Language Film category). One year after the historic win of 12 Years a Slave, which was the first Best Picture winner with a Black Director, Steve McQueen, we saw the pendulum swing in the opposite direction with one of the least diverse awards ceremonies in recent history. It’s an upsetting reality that directors like Ava DuVernay, who are working at the height of their craft and making movies that receive such high praise, continue to go unrecognized because of their race or gender.

COURTESY OF PARAMOUNT PICTURES

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JANE CAMPION BY MADELINE SAINTSING

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ane Campion, aged 39 years, released The Piano in 1993 to universal acclaim.

The film, the Bronte-inspired tale of the mute Ada (Holly Hunter) fighting to express herself in her relationships with her distant husband Alisdair (Sam Elliot), and the passionate Baines (Harvey Keitel) centered in the New Zealand colonial frontier with her daughter (Anna Paquin). Her greatest concern is retrieving the titular piano, which she sees as the sole means of her self-expression, abandoned

by Alisdair and held for erotic ransom by Baines. However, as Baines and Ada further entangle themselves into each other, a mutual affection and desire bridge their distance until they form a romantic relationship, only for Alisdair to discover the affair with intense consequences. The film, and Campion herself, have in the intervening three decades become established as significant in the history of cinema, with Campion becoming the second woman nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards.

Campion began her feature career with her debut Sweetie (1989), a film about dysfunctional sisters butting heads as they pursue romantic relationships, after a decade of work in shorts. Sweetie sets up several of Campion’s key preoccupations, from aesthetically communicating feminine subjectivity to women seeking romantic and erotic fulfillment in oppressing worlds by creating their own interior worlds. Those qualities align her works with the Female Gothic, a literary movement influential to Campion, which she elaborated upon with overt feminist discourses. Her sophomore effort, the biopic of Janet Frame An Angel at My Table (1990), would further establish the erotic inclinations of her work, while also establishing a new one, namely her story’s historical placement. She would next make The Piano, considered by some her most significant work.

The Piano offers one of the more complex variants on the motif of romantic and sexual fulfillment for women, wherein Ada engages

in eroticism with Baines to regain access to her piano, which she sees as her only means of meaningful self-expression. As her relations with Baines become more intense, she realizes she loves him, or at least finds her encounters with him increasingly rewarding, contrasted with the way which Alisdair treats her, wherein he expects her to provide all of the affection in their relationship and remains closed off to reciprocating her desires. Even in terms of shots, Ada and Baines share more and lengthier shots sharing the frame as opposed to Ada and Alisdair, let alone shots where either pairing shows affection to one another. Note for example the attempts at consensual sex, both warmly colored, yet Ada and Baines are united whereas Ada and Alisdair are separated via framing of their faces with limited exception. Further, in their earliest encounter between the three on the beach, when Alisdair asks Baines what he thinks, Baines comments on her being (“She looks tired,” he says) while Alisdair is focused on her appearance (“She is stunted,” he retorts curtly), one showing more interest in her as a person than her as a body.

Ada is stuck between two men who dominate over her, yet as the narrative progresses we see one, Baines, try to understand her better and put her on somewhat equal footing with him.

Ada remains defined by relations to love and sex, yet she chooses active desire, both given and received, to cool apathy. Ada previously created her interior world to escape the hardships of patriarchy via her piano but found someone who she could share her world with, finding true fulfillment. Note how when she finds fulfillment in Baines, she removes a key from the titular instrument as a sign of her love. Even when she attempts suicide by drowning herself with it, she frees herself to be with Baines, abandoning the piano to the sea with her prior desires. The Piano, like her subsequent work, hones in on the difficulty in finding fulfillment as a woman within a patriarchal society and the ways desire articulates and propagates itself.

Afterward, Campion made several films

Jane Campion and The Piano 30 Years Later

BY ROBERT KARMI

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centered on women seeking fulfillment, either in modernity or history. The Portrait of a Lady (1996), her immediate follow-up to The Piano, centered on the increasingly duplicitous social life of a recent wealthy heiress (Nicole Kidman). In The Cut (2003) studied a sexually repressed New York English Teacher (Meg Ryan) having a candid affair with a police officer (Mark Ruffalo) investigating a serial killer. Bright Star (2009), dramatizes the romantic pining of Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish) and the poet John Keats (Ben Wishaw).

The Portrait of a Lady and Bright Star form an especially interesting duology, both explicitly interested in how class creates detriment in romantic entanglements from two extremes, one of wealth and the other of poverty.

Outside of these works, Campion also made two films which sought to deconstruct masculinity, one explicitly about how men look at women, and one about how men interact with each other. Instead of compromising her feminist vision, it compliments it; feminism isn’t exclusively interested in women, but also in how men suffer under patriarchy as well.

The prior, Holy Smoke (1999), follows a cult de-programmer (Harvey Keitel) on the job as he himself becomes brainwashed by his charge (Kate Winslet) into engaging in sadomasochistic sexual powerplays while deconstructing his own gender presentation and internalized misogyny. Yet the most well-known of the two, as the second more masculine-inclined work is her second film to garner a nomination, and her first to win, Power of the Dog. Power of the Dog stars the domineering Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch), a deeply closeted rancher, as he subjugates his brother (Jesse Plemmons) and his recently acquired wife (Kristen Dunst) and son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) to torment. He becomes especially fixated on his new nephew and begins an especially cruel mentoring of the boy, the implication being he had been likewise subjugated to similar experiences. As their bond becomes more entangled and strange, the layers of violence become multifaceted and deeply enthralling.

The film feels culminative towards Campion, a return from a long absence in cinema while she worked on the television series Top of the Lake (2013) and its sequel series China Girl (2017).

A period piece set on a frontier, a story about how economic frugality influences marriages and relationships, dysfunctional families trying

to co-exist, and the creation of interior worlds by oppressed characters to fulfill themselves all run rampant in the film. Yet unlike most of her prior work, the film centers almost exclusively on masculine perspectives (the wife does have some narrative pull, but very little) and how men relate to each other. The parallel between Power of the Dog and The Hurt Locker, films made by women about men who win Oscars, is apparent and frustrating.

Campion remains quiet about her next project, although she has courted several projects in the last decade which could finally materialize. After her triumphant return, it is unlikely Campion will remain quiet for long.

Even if she were to retire suddenly, she has undeniably paved the way for other women in cinema. While she wasn’t the first feminist to make movies or the first to privilege women’s desires, many subsequent women have come forward declaring her essential. Sofia Coppola, Julie Dash, Sarah Gavron, and Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović have all praised the film, voting for it in the most recent Sight & Sound Poll, where it placed 50th overall. Over thirty years into her career, Campion creates highly idiosyncratic, deeply personal films inarguably her own. Since The Piano, she has remained a pivotal figure within discourses of women’s cinema and one of the strongest auteurs depicting feminine sexuality. Cinema is a better place for having her in it, and we’ve been living in the aftermath of her work ever since. •

COURTESY OF MIRAMAX

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Watchlist 3000

E

November/December 2023

very issue we will leave you with a list of movies to watch compiled from suggestions given by our Contributors.

Add these movies crafted through the unique view of women auteurs to your watchlist to find some of the best of cinema’s offerings.

CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 (1962) / DIR. AGNÈS VARDA DAISIES (1966) / DIR. VĚRA CHYTILOVÁ MIKEY AND NICKY (1976) / DIR. ELAINE MAY TICKET OF NO RETURN (1979) / DIR. ULRIKE OTTINGER LOSING GROUND (1982) / DIR. KATHLEEN COLLINS SMOOTH TALK (1985) / DIR. JOYCE CHOPRA PARIS IS BURNING (1990) / DIR. JENNIE LIVINGSTON DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST (1991) / DIR. JULIE DASH THE WATERMELON WOMAN (1997) / DIR. CHERYL DUNYE EVE’S BAYOU (1997) / DIR. KASI LEMMONS THE VIRGIN SUICIDES (1999) / DIR. SOFIA COPPOLA AMERICAN PSYCHO (2000) / DIR. MARY HARRON LOVE & BASKETBALL (2000) / DIR. GINA PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD BRIDGET JONES DIARY (2001) / DIR. SHARON MAGUIRE

ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW (2005) / DIR. MIRANDA JULY WAITRESS (2007) / DIR. ADRIENNE SHELLY SPEED RACER (2008) / DIRS. LANA WACHOWSKI, LILLY WACHOWSKI ZERO DARK THIRTY (2012) / DIR. KATHRYN BIGELOW GIRLHOOD (2014) / DIR. CÉLINE SCIAMMA RAW (2016) / DIR. JULIA DUCOURNAU I AM NOT A WITCH (2017) / DIR. RUNGANO NYONI GREENER GRASS (2019) / DIRS. JOCELYN DEBOER AND DAWN LUEBBE THE FAREWELL (2019) / DIR. LULU WANG LITTLE WOMEN (2019) / DIR. GRETA GERWIG THE BODY REMEMBERS WHEN THE WORLD BROKE OPEN (2019) / DIRS. KATHLEEN HEPBURN AND ELLE-MÁIJÁ TAILFEATHERS ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI (2020) / DIR. REGINA KING SHIRLEY (2020) / DIR. JOSEPHINE DECKER TITANE (2021) / DIR. JULIA DUCOURNAU TURNING RED (2022) / DIR. DOMEE SHI WOMEN TALKING (2022) / DIR. SARAH POLLEY AFTERSUN (2022) / DIR. CHARLOTTE WELLS NOTHING REMAINS (2022) / DIR. KATHRYN FERGUSON CLOCK (2023) / DIR. ALEXIS JACKNOW

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ARTISTS

VICO SANTOS @THEVICOSANTOS

MADELINE SAINTSING @SAINTSINGIN_IN_THERAIN

JULIET GILDEN @JULIETS_PAINTINGS

HARRIS SINGER @HARRIS.SINGER.ART

BAILEY POWELL @BAILEYPOWELLDESIGN

CONTRIBUTORS TANNER BENSON received his MA in Critical Film Studies from the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

KEMARI BRYANT (he/him), Editor-in-Chief of Film Club 3000, went to the University of North Carolina Greensboro for Musical Theatre. He was recently seen touring North America in The Book of Mormon. Along with acting, Kemari is a writer, director, and filmmaker; and he is a true cinephile! Follow him on letterboxd @kemaritb.

RACHEL DWORNICK is a New York City based Editor and Color Assistant for Film and Television. Post-Production and storytelling is an art she’s been passionate about from a young age. Rachel enjoys films about girlhood, camp, and horror – especially if they are all combined! Her hobbies usually involve photography, reading books and magazines, or watching a broadway show.

You can check out her work at racheldwornick.com.

ROBERT KARMI graduated from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington’s film program with bachelor’s and master’s degrees emphasizing critical studies. One professor opined Karmi was omnivorous in his study of cinema, leading to the title of his review blog Omnivorous Cinephilia. When not working on entering a doctorate program, Karmi writes about whatever film subject interests him through multidisciplinary theoretical lenses. He is also on Letterboxd.

CAMERON LINLY ROBINSON (she/her), Managing Editor of Film Club 3000, received a BFA in Acting from the University of North Carolina Greensboro. She is not only a film lover, but a writer, director, producer, and filmmaker. Cameron is excited to create this platform for longer essays of film discussions and critiques!

Follow her on letterboxd @cam_jam.

SCOTT ROGERS was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, and graduated from UNCG with degrees in Media Studies and Communications. He loves all kinds of films, from big blockbusters to B-Grade horror movies, from Steven Spielberg to Brian Yuzna. He translated his love of film into a career in video production. His letterboxd is @msrogers.

SAM SPAULDING (she/her) studied Media Studies at UNCG with a concentration on film and production. Her favorite movies range from incomprehensible horror flicks to wholesome animation (bonus if they’re independent). When she’s not writing about film you can find her reading at a local coffee shop or learning how to make stained glass. Her letterboxd is @sspaul97.

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“IF THERE’S SPECIFIC RESISTANCE TO WOMEN MAKING MOVIES, I JUST CHOOSE TO IGNORE THAT AS AN OBSTACLE FOR TWO REASONS: I CAN’T CHANGE MY GENDER, AND I REFUSE TO STOP MAKING MOVIES.” – KATHRYN BIGELOW

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