50 Films Made By Women – Part 10 of 10

As we reach the halfway point, take a gander at the following female directed films, featuring football, time leaps, stardom, unlikely alliances. And of course much, much more. Enjoy. 

Beyond the Lights (2014) – Gina Prince-Bythewood — Jonathan Holmes

I’ll be the first to say that going into this film, I didn’t have much high hopes. And then I saw the film, and was completely blown away by both Mbatha-Raw’s performance and what this movie had to say about entertainment, image and fame. She plays Noni Jean, an emerging pop singer who is on the verge of super-stardom. The pressure and the image of being the next big thing in music is too much to bear, and attempts to commit suicide, but is rescued by Kaz (Nate Parker), a rookie cop with political ambitions set on by his father (Danny Glover). It all sounds generic, but writer/director Gina Prince-Blythewood doesn’t go for generic: she takes us into the workings of packaging a pop star for mass consumption (aka: turn the starlet into a object of desire), originality or integrity of said star be dammed. At the end of the day, this is still a love story, and it wouldn’t be any good if the chemistry between Mbatha-Raw and Parker didn’t have a spark. They have that, and give great performances as two people trapped by the demands of their parents’ dreams for them.

Harlan County, USA (1976) – Barbara Kopple — Steve Schweighofer

I truly feel that without Barbara Kopple, we would have no Laura Poitras (CitizenFour), Gabriela Coperthwaite (Blackfish), Amy Berg (Deliver Us from Evil) or Jehane Noujaim (The Square). Every woman who made – or ever will make – a hard-hitting documentary film owes Kopple, who went to Brookside Mine in Kentucky to cover one thing and ended up staying for a year, coming home with something entirely different. The UMWA began a strike against Duke Power’s Eastover Mining Company and Kopple filmed the ensuing struggle between the 180 workers and the mine, the company, the corporate parent and ultimately, the state. She doesn’t bother with narration because the action speaks for itself. She explores the hardscrabble existence of the workers whose already poor wages free-fall behind the inflation rate and who deal with daily dangers of their working conditions and future perils such as black lung disease waiting round the corner. Her camera captures numerous interviews and maneuvering from both sides of the line as well as the picketing. She films the State Police clearing the way for scabs, the armed strikebreakers shooting at the miners and their families, including the funeral of a young minor shot during a confrontation. The thing about Barbara Kopple – she never blinks. Kopple won the Oscar in 1977 for Best Documentary feature. She won a second in 1991 and has also done some series TV (OZ and Homicide: Life on the Street), but it is Harlan County, USA that put her, feature documentaries in general, and female documentarians, in particular, on the cinema map.

A Question of Silence (1982) – Marleen Gorris — Paddy Mulholland

What have you done in the last 34 years for the feminist cause? Likely nothing compared to the case put forward in Marleen Gorris’ psychological and societal inquiry, and blackly comic courtroom drama A Question of Silence. Its issues may today be commonplace to those of a more intelligent persuasion (you may be surprised how few of us there are), but A Question of Silence exists in acknowledgement of the radicalness of its argument and its enormous scope – Gorris’ approach is incendiary, and rightfully so, identifying the tiniest of sparks and reinterpreting it as the mightiest of blazes. She intends to turn our faces to the fire that’s been raging behind us for far too long, and the sense of purpose behind this film imbues it with a dynamism and an immediacy that few films can claim. Of particular note is the sensitivity with which she relates vital feminist codes of communication, and the movement’s rejection of the inherent misogyny within language. What’s a female-focused list without a film that focuses not only on females, but on feminism!

Home for The Holidays (1995) – Jodie Foster — Henny McClymont 

In Home for The Holidays, a comedy directed by Jodie Foster, the actress who started her career at 3 years old, showed that she belonged behind the camera. Foster seldom took safe choices, she has always faced the fear of the unknown, giving an example to young women wishing to follow in her footsteps. Home for the Holidays reminds us that family isn’t chosen rather given to us, so we learn to deal with people we would otherwise avoid. The movie shows the struggles of being a single parent, being gay, being homophobic and all together the struggle to love the people that sometimes make us cringe. Home for the Holidays is a Thanksgiving reunion from hell, in the Dramedy style that Foster subsequently reused in The Beaver albeit lightened by the Turkey stuffing garnish. Claudia (Holly Hunter) guides us through the story. A single mother of a teenage daughter, just fired from her job, travels back home for Thanksgiving, as does her gay brother (a mid-fugue Robert Downey Jr), who behaves like tomcat high on catnip – that’s catnip snorted through a twenty, by the way. There are also fantastic turns from the excellent Anne Bancroft and Charles Durning as their, somewhat dysfunctional but still doting parents. Foster brings the movie from emotional explosion to delicate relationship with a surety that lets you know she’s been there herself. There were 16 years between this movie and her next directing credit. Her next feature is due this year after only a relatively short 4 year hiatus. Let’s hope she picks up the pace, as such fine talents are rare in today’s Hollywood.