grrrl interrupted

[Cinemaster]

I just spent like half an hour typing up a response to this and then i sent it, it refused to post for having too many smileys, and i lost it all. [img]mad.gif[/img]
I'm going to type it up again, but it's late, im tired, i may ramble slightly and go all ungrammaticallisific at times.

Girl Interupted is a so-so film, not great, not terrible, standard Hollywood fare. Would it have been better if a woman directed it?

Firstly, is the original source material (novel?) all that great?. Is there anything in it that would particularly inspire a woman director to want to make it?. It does not seem to me to have anything particularly unique, interesting, intelligent or empowering to women to say. It almost makes women comprehensible to men, which is of course impossible and therefore demonstrates its lack of complexity [img]smile.gif[/img]

But lets assume a woman out there with a track record wants to make the film.
Lets also assume that despite a probable 20/1 ratio of male to female directors,meaning a high chance of someone with a better studio pleasing box office success track record applying, she manages to get the job. Will she make a better film? maybe.
But, will this film be accessible SOLELY to women, will this woman make a womans film exclusively for women with no perspective for the male audience to grasp onto at all? completely alienating a MASSIVE audience proportion and creating what is in box office terms a total flop?
Im not saying it will but it's a possibility.

Now can a man successfully direct this film? making a film for women that men can understand and relate to also? even though he is not a black female police officer or whatever? The simple answer is yes, if the script contains what it is supposed to, and if it doesn't, why make the film at all?

Im all for role reversal experimentation on this one.
The (decidedly uncultured) females of my family adore the JERRY BRUCKHEIMER! produced Coyote Ugly, whereas i have good things to say about Mary Hannon's helmpersonship on the heavily mysogynistic American Psycho.

As with all things in life, balance is good.
(except s.e.x, where more is better)

As to the women in film issue i just don't see it.
Hollywood doesn't "hire directors", in the sense that they have you hanging around to direct stuff they give you. a director makes a film, be that director male or female, if it is good it is noticed, if it is noticed you get given more work, if you are massively successful at the box office (in my opinion the ONLY thing studios care about) you get a LOT more work. It is in no way a sexist system, or a racist or ageist one, it is SOLELY AND EXCLUSIVELY a capitalist one. If SUSAN Spielberg, the fictional black lesbian filmmaker, had made duel and jaws and jurassic park etc, she would be as successful as STEVEN Spielberg.

Three closing thoughts of varied seriosity [img]smile.gif[/img]

What female director would have cast winona Ryder AND Angelina Jolie? That combination alone was worth the price of a cinema ticket, and a dvd rental, and a dvd purchase and the cost to replace the pause button on my dvd remote.

In my experience (and that ALONE, i have never been to Hollywood, i dont know about over there, im talking from MY EXPERIENCE) most of the women i know here in London in the film industry (quite a lot)would have NO interest in directing, they all consider it some kind of insane undertaking that only a STUPID MALE would take on their shoulders, while they save the film quietly from the curtains of production and design

And finally:
You are of course correct Queen Frostine, you WERE the perfect choice and would have made a far superior film i'm sure.

[GREATwarEAGLE]

Starting to feel like this topic is being beaten into the ground, despite being interesting.

Just like to provide one other example. HOWARD STERN'S PRIVATE PARTS. A pretty big surprise critical success. Directed by a woman. I very much enjoyed the movie. But I'm not a big Stern fan. I think his ignorance and immaturity heavily outshine his humor. I do listen to his show from time to time.

[Queen Frostine]

cinemaster: i don't like that hint of sarcasm i detect in your voice.

I can't talk about women in the film industry either, not really because i have never worked in it. i can talk about being a girl who WANTS to work in the film industry and feeling frustrated because there are so few women DIRECTORS out there to inspire me. i see amazing films, and all i have wanted to do, from the age of 7 was make one of those. and then i find that they were ALL directed by men and i start to feel afraid becuase if there has never been a giant amazingly talented (and recognised for that talent)superstar director who was a woman. so how can i possible even begin to imagine ME even being able to at least make a living doing what i love??
CINEMASTER says that <BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> save the film quietly from the curtains of production and design
</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE> WHAT?? i mean this may be true but FUKC!! suffragettes died so we could have equality and women are still happy to be good and quiet save the film QUIETLY, even as producers (i know there are tons of women doing that). WHY ARE THERE NO DIRECTORS!!??? maybe mean and women ARE different. maybe it is harder for women,, crazy hours, incompatible with a family, difficult to be in charge of so many people (!!!????????) I DON'T KNOW! someone tell me...

all that stuff you said about girl interrupted and how if it was directed by a woman it might have alienated half of it's potential audience. does that mean because one flew over the cuckoo's nest was directed by a man and about men women will not like it. no. if it had been directed by a woman it would just have had more soul instead of making girls with mental problems out to be just kind of hot and actually not that crazy at all. i dunno, the film was average, i don't really want to talk about it any more. that's not the point.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> If SUSAN Spielberg, the fictional black lesbian filmmaker, had made duel and jaws and jurassic park etc, she would be as successful as STEVEN Spielberg.
</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>
i beg to differ:steven was persistent and owes much of his success to veterans of the industry taking him under their wing and givinghim help/money/advice. and people take girls less serious, swear on my fcuking life it's true. people would not have put as much faith in susan. if a woman had made ET or Hook, the industry would never have let her do anything else but kids flicks and romantic comedies. that's what they think girls are good at.

i haven't seen american psycho or coyote ugly so i can't comment.

i'm really sleepy and think i haven't actually said anything that will prove my point, in fact i don't even remember the point i was trying to prove. maybe you should ignore everthing i just said.

START A RIOT

q.f.

p.s. why would only a man have cast both anjelina and winona.

[Paul Mack]

As I said before it's slowly changing, Julie Taymor can pretty much have any film she wants now and is not pigeonholed in the least.

Based on what's happening in Hollywood and in the rest of the world as far as women director's are concerned...this conversation is going to be irrelevant in five years.

Later,
Paul

[Queen Frostine]

i don't believe you

[Paul Mack]

LOL,

Trust me...they didn't think two African-American actors could also win Oscars(Best Actor, Best Actress) five years ago. But it happened. Three years ago it would have been completley crazy to see a woman director nominated at all. But Julie Taymor was nominated for Frida...if you look at stats, more and more women are getting green lit.

Just like the Film vs. DV argument, this one is going quickly by the wayside.

Later,
Paul

[Cinemaster]

How,where,why,when but?????
Why does this keep happening? There was NO sarcasm in my voice. I said nothing offensive or even definite as opposed to opinion based.
I thought i'd put a great deal of time and effort into answering your original question from my viewpoint and offered some points for consideration.
In real life i wear a black suit and a black trenchcoat and my face is very intense looking and some say angry and "broody" and people assume i dont like them, but why does it happen on the feckin internet? [img]smile.gif[/img]

As to the "save the film quietly" stuff.
I didnt make the women i know work like that, they just do, perhaps sensibly. It seems to me from a womans perspective its just typical for a man to want all the attention and to do the big posey director thing. But jusst because there isnt a big superstar director woman out there is no reason to believe that it cant happen. i hope it does, i hope YOU do, im NOT being sarcastic!

As to girl interrupted, my point was not that a woman director WOULD alienate the audience, its posssible but i was mainly leading into my point about how there are examples of it working better the other way.I also maintain theres a **** of a script difference between girl and cuckoos nest.

As for the susan spielberg shtick, maybe youre right, from the perspective of one book "easy riders- raging bulls" it reads like spielberg and a group of other major directors sort of broke down the walls of old hollywood in the seventies and took over, buts thats just one books version. it does seem more likely that the fossilised old guys of golden age hollywood helped ease them in.

i reccommend coyote ugly and american psycho [img]smile.gif[/img]

the ryder/jolie comment was the non serious one, im sure a woman would have cast them, but not by deciding which two hollywood actresses she wanted to see kiss [img]smile.gif[/img]