Actually, a lot. Writers are often told to write that page turning opening scene to hook the reader, because that is the first thing they read in your script. Prior to reading the ubiquitous “fade in”, the title is actually the first thing a reader sets their eyes on. How does it make them feel? Do they want to read past the title page? What does it say about the content of your film? Consider your movie poster. Your potential audience will see a title combined with an image to help them decide if they will watch it or not. Given that a title is an integral part of the marketing, make sure it sands out.

Marketing departments spend a handsome budget devising titles to evoke a particular mood in target audiences. Never submit a script titled “Untitled Project” or “Working Title” even if you’re really established. It’s lazy and unpolished. A bad title at least shows you’ve made an effort. You spend considerable time to name your baby, so why not your script? How would your child be perceived if he was called Thaddeus? John? Dayton? Same kid, very different perceptions.

There are a number of approaches you can use to find the right title for your script. Above all, make it memorable and neatly compliment your story.

MAIN CHARACTER: This is probably the easiest. “Jerry Maguire”, “Milk”, “E.T.”, “Spiderman”,  “Shrek” and “Amelie” are common examples. You can even add a twist to further bait the audience. Examples include “Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?” or “Malcolm X”.

MAIN CHARACTER’S ROLE: An alternative to using the main character’s name, is their occupation. An example of this is “The Machinist” rather than the Trevor Reznik story. “The Queen” can be arguably more powerful than “Elizabeth Windsor”. “The Wrestler” says something more about the film than “Ram”.

PLOT/ THEME: A good title should give the audience and indication of the plot or themes covered “A Few Good Men” and “Atonement” give a  hint of the theme, although we’re not clear it’s about the military or Victorian England, respectively. “Escape From New York”, ‘Kill Bill”, “Dead Poets’ Society”  or “Toy Story” encapsulate the plot in the title.

MAJOR EVENT: This relates to the plot, but a major event can also act as a powerful title. Examples include “Independence Day” and “World Trade Center” (place and event).

PLACE: Peter Weir’s “Picnic At Hanging Rock”, “Australia”, “Sunset Boulevard”, ‘District 9″, “Fargo” and “Pearl Harbor” are examples. The first example depicts a plot and place, while “District 9″ is more elusive.

SIGNIFICANT DIALOGUE: A seemingly innocuous piece of dialogue that makes sense once the movie has been seen. An example includes “First Blood”.

GENRE: A title should also relate to a film’s genre. Consider “Jaws”. It wasn’t called “The Shark” because “Jaws” was more immediate and better conveyed the action genre. A comedy should have a funny title such as “40 Year Old Virgin” or “Knocked Up”. In these cases the entire plot is also conveyed. “I, Robot” suggests a science fiction movie, while “Paranormal Activity” indicates a supernatural thriller.

A PLAY ON WORDS: The only examples I can think of are “Preaching To The Perverted”, “Shaun Of The Dead” and “Legally Blonde”. Catchy and all help sell the films. They may indicate a parody to the original.

SOURCE MATERIAL: Often the film adaptation carries the same name as it’s source for continuity. It’s a powerful tool of the branding process to create familiarity, awareness and mental relationships. “Harry Potter” is a prime example as is “Closer” which originated as a stage play of the same name by Patrick Marber. A notable deviation is “There Will Be Blood”. This title is more obscure than the bolder title of Upton Sinclair’s novel “Oil”. The film title adds an element of mystery, death and saga, whereas “Oil” could be a story about acne.

OBSCURE TITLES: These are generally reserved for non-studio films to create an air of exclusivity to perhaps more high brow audiences who love to be challenged by what a film’s title actually meets. Consider the recently released film “Invictus” about Nelson Mandela’s shepherding of the Springboks to World Cup Rugby victory. Invictus is a Latin word meaning “unconquered”. Imagine if it was simply called “Mandela” or “Springboks Rule”? The Latin title adds prestige and so much depth to the film because South Africa winning the World Cup in 1995 was meant to unify South Africa. In 1995, rugby was more than a game. It was meant to conquer the evil ghosts of apartheid.

PARADOXICAL TITLES: Consider this year’s multi Academy award winning film “Slumdog Millionaire”. It’s diametrically opposed imagery causes instant intrigue.

NONSENSICAL TITLES: Examples include “Like Water For Chocolate” which doesn’t mean anything per se, but relates to the content of the film.

Since first impressions are critical, make your title puts your script’s best foot forward. Make your title have multiple layered meanings. Make it work hard like every other aspect of your script. Don’t consider it an afterthought.

On November 16:

1384  Jadwiga was crowned King of Poland, although she was a woman.

1532  Francisco Pizarro and his men captured Inca Emperor Atahualpa.

1840 New Zealand officially became a British colony.

1896  Joan Lindsay, Australian author (Picnic at Hanging Rock), was born.

1914 The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opened.

1938  LSD was first synthesized by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel.

1940  the Nazis closed off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world.

1945 UNESCO was founded.

1953 Griff Rhys Jones, Welsh comedian, writer and actor, was born.

1973  Brendan Laney, New Zealand born Scottish rugby player, was born.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

i want this book!

Due to circumstances beyond my control (work), I didn’t get the chance to see that many films this day. I did, though, have an unpleasant encounter with a member of the film jury, which – if not anything else – convinced me that the winner of the festival’s jury prize will be left entirely to chance and incompetence. I wish the festival leaders had considered their jury choices a bit more carefully. More on this later.

I first became aware of Belgian director Jaco van Dormael with his 1993-film Toto the Hero, which generally got rave reviews and which I liked. I seem to recall that I felt it put an unnecessary sentimentalism to the world of the child protagonist, but I think that was part of its theme. Not having seen the film since its cinema run 16 years ago, I don’t want to compare it with his latest work, which was my first film of the day.

Mr. Nobody is by far his most ambitious project to date. It cost close to $50 million and features at least B-list Hollywood actors. It is filmed at several locations; Belgium, the famous Studio Babelsberg in Germany, in Canada and at several other places. Most of the money, though, must have gone to the impressive special effects which are very, very good. Very complicated fx shots integrate seamlessly with the “real” world and a number of editing tricks and film styles are on display.

The film is not only ambitious from a financial or technical perspective. The story seeks to sum up the entirety of the universe’s existence, and not only this universe. It is at times a period film, a science fiction story and a contemporary love story. It is about storytelling, parallel universes, time travel, religion, immortality and death. Most importantly it is about love.

Jared Leto plays the grown up version of the protagonist Nemo Nobody and he does it well. I think this is his first leading role in a film of this magnitude. Then again, there are not that many films of this scope. In a way I felt the film was never quite only itself, but borrowed from a number of films and from the history of film. Perhaps it had to, but I felt at times that the director had seen the works of other directors he admired and tried to emulate them and, by combining their tropes, hoped to find something personal enough to call his own.
There is a bit of Darren Aronofsky’s the Fountain here, but on an even bigger thematic scale. Kubrick’s 2001 is quoted in some images. In a scene depicting humanity’s pre-existence, the moments before we are conceived, Van Dormael used the Melanesian music from Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line while at the same time putting this music to images of white and black children playing innocently together in a heavenly innocent state. So, in other words, welcome to the beginning of The Thin red Line! The basic concept of splitting destinies – of turning into several future versions of oneself – based on a choice made while standing by a train, is found in the less ambitious Gwyneth Paltrow vehicle Sliding Doors. The drowning in a car scene reminded me of Lars Von Trier’s Europa (By the count of ten you will be dead, as Max Von Sydow laconically narrates in that film). In a way Mr. Nobody is two and a half hours awaiting said count. I could go on, but you get the point.

It is not easy to sum up what this film is about. When the protagonist is forced to make a faithful choice at the age of nine (I think), he is separated into two persons, depending on which choice he makes. Within these two possible characters comes a further three choices – which makes it six characters(?) – based on his choice of girlfriend as an adolescent. One version of himself turns out to be a lecturer in astrophysics, who sometimes enters the action to lecture the viewer about the history and philosophy of the universe. He says there are seven dimensions in the universe; six of these are spatial, while the seventh is temporal. He then poses the question of whether the temporal – time – inhabited more than one dimension. (I take this from memory, so forgive me for any inaccuracies!) To complicate matters further, another one of these personalities takes up writing, creating a fictional world that in the film is presented as just as real as the non-fiction worlds. This fiction takes the action to space (to Mars) and the future. However, another future is also depicted in the film, a future where the protagonist is the last mortal human alive (and thus, the last who remembers love and lust; you don‘t need children if you live forever…) There is a point to this, but I won’t discuss it here, so as not to spoil the film.

While the plot of the film seems incredibly advanced and ambitious, to its credit, we are never lost and most times understand perfectly where we are in the story and what is depicted. Actually, I had no problems with the science fiction elements of the tale. They are well thought and very well executioned. It is in the way the film revolves around the concept of love that I feel it loses itself a bit; it becomes a bit too much.

One kind of love that is decisive for Mr. Nemo Nobody is the child’s love for his parents. Another kind of love is the puppy love between nine year olds, then the lustful love between adolescents and finally the emotional, during and at times hard and stressful love between spouses. Put together, this becomes a whole lotta love, as the song says. Now, if the love theme had been presented a bit more smartly, I wouldn’t have any problems with it. (While it is presented in a complicated tale, this doesn’t make the kind of love on display any more “intelligent” or new to the viewer). Especially irritating is the extremely cliché ridden music the director has chosen for the soundtrack. There are just so many times you can hear Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream… Almost every scene has music that has been used so often before in films that it brings you as a viewer out of the film’s universe and at least I began pondering boredom and references rather than the action taking place before me.

Another unfortunate effect of the music has to do with its placement. When the protagonist as a young boy sees a girl his age, nine, swimming, a lusty soul-number is played, thus turning her into a kind of sex object. This is disturbing and can’t have been the director’s intention. While he wants to tell us that the protagonist falls in love at this moment, there must surely be better ways to sonically enhance this element!

Then there is the fact that all of Nemo’s love stories revolve around three girls that he meets as a young child. I find it a bit far fetched that these same girls shall also be his only interests in adolescence and in marriage. The film is, then, not only about premeditation, but about an emotional stiltedness, as if Nemo doesn’t really evolve during the film and this is the reason for his future being so clearly delineated into his separate possible selves. The name Nemo, by the way, does not refer to the captain of the Nautilus. You’re better served by reading it backwards.

In closing, I’ll venture to say that the word ambitious will surely be used in pretty much every review of this film. (It wasn’t finished in time for Cannes, so it hasn’t been shown that many places yet). While it is certainly intricate, it ultimately doesn’t convince me. While I’m perfectly willing to take any leaps of logic that the film requires of me, I’m not sure that it ultimately adds up. I have a strong feeling that there are internal discrepancies within the fantastic logic. This should have been worked out a bit better, but I think I will need to see the film a second time to really pinpoint these errors. (And the ones I could point out would ruin the ending, so I’ll refrain).The problem is that, as much as I admired the film for what it’s trying to do, it was just a bit too long and ultimately not all that it could have been, so a second viewing will probably not take place in the immediate future. But if you are in the mood for a lengthy love story told in a brilliant technical style and with a basic sience fiction concept underlining it all, by all means take a chance on the film! I think it deserves an audience and it is without doubt a much better film than The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which was half the rave at this year’s Oscars, and which it also shares some sensibility with. Being the better film of the two, I’m also sure that it won’t find half the audience of Fincher’s unfortunate detour into drivel and mediocrity.

While Mr. Nobody may be flawed, it is at least interesting enough for me to have given it more attention and space than most films. This is more, much more than I can say for the next film I had the misfortune to attend this day. I guess I should have seen the warning signs; it being French the clearest.

Un Lac – A Lake – is a minimalist work about an epileptic boy, his sister and family in an unknown wintry location. This is the second film as writer/director for Philippe Grandrieux, his fourth as director. On this film, he also serves as cinematographer, so he is an auteur in the real sense. The problem is that he is just not a very interesting one. Most of the actors are, for some reason Russian, and it is filmed in France and Switzerland. And the landscape does seem wonderfully oppressing and beautiful at the same time. That is, if any of the images had been in focus. (The images of the brother and sister found to the left are pretty much the only two clear images of the film)

Grandrieux uses a handheld camera style that is extreme in its use of closeups and movements following the characters so closely that we are supposed to see the world as they themselves do. The mother of the family is blind, though it took me some time to decipher this. Many of the scenes are filmed in near darkness and the ones that are not are foggy and out of focus. The brother has a close relationship with his sister, possibly incestuous, but I was never able to tell for sure. His epileptic fits grows in frequency. He is at times very happy for no apparent reason, at times he is moody. One day he is by the cold lake that seems to be the only contact with a wider world. A young man arrives. He says his name is Jurgen. Soon this man starts a relationship with the sister and finally they sail off on the same lake. This is the film. Or what I managed to see of the film.

Do not misunderstand me. I have no problems with challenging films, be it in narrative or in film style. This film, however, is ridiculous, very boring and unbearably pretentious. The dialogue is almost non-existent. Perhaps this is a good thing, for when they speak, they speak platitudes. “You are my sister”, the brother says. Then he adds: “I am your brother”. Yes, well, you had me at sister…

Of course one can read something symbolic out of the minimalist setting and action. The more minimalist a work is, the easier to regard it as symbolical of something. But here even the symbolic meaning is trite and clichéd. Perhaps the director wants to deal with archetypes, with a biblical simplicity. If so, he fails miserably. Is he interested in hidden pockets of humanity, of humanity’s place in an unforgiving and uncaring nature? Well, he doesn’t come even close. Perhaps he wants to talk about female sexuality and awakening. If so, he says nothing new and certainly nothing of interest. – If you want an arty film about this, watch Picnic at Hanging Rock again! You will be grateful for it. Do not waste your time with Un Lac. With the basic setting of these characters in this kind of nature, you have to be pretty incompetent not to make it even slightly interesting or even beautiful even in a harrowing sense. Unfortunately, competence has no place here.
It strikes me that writing even disparagingly about the film, I make it sound better than it is. Give me a camera, this location and these characters and I would have made a better film. Look away, there is nothing to see here! By the way, this was a film I had high hopes for and that I really wanted to like. More the fool me.

Picnic at Hanging Rock – 1975

my birthday movie

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1890 Monkeyshines 1891 Dickson Greeting 1891 Edison – Newark Athlete, Part I 1893 Men in Blacksmith Shop 1894 Annie Oakley shooting at targets 1894 Edison – Chinese Laundry – November 26, 1894 1894 Edison – Kinetoscope Films from 1894-1896 1895 Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (The Lumière Brothers) 1895 Edison – The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots – August 28, 1895 1895 L’Arroseur arrosé 1895 The Dickson Experimental Sound Film 1896 Bataille de Boules de Neige (Louis Lumière, 1896) 1896 Edison – The Kiss 1896 Fred Ott’s Sneeze 1896 Louis Lumiere – New York,Broadway At Union Square 1896 Rip Van Winkle 1897 Edison – Admiral Cigarette advertisement 1898 Turkish Dance, Ella Lola 1899 Cripple Creek Bar-room Scene (Edison) 1899 Edison – Bicyclist tricks 1900 Edison – Grandma’s Bad Boys 1901 Edison – Boxing Woman 1901 Edison – Circular panorama of electric tower – Pan-American Exposition, 14 August 1901 1901 Edison – The Martyred Presidents 1901 What Happened on Twenty-Third Street, New York City 1902 Le voyage dans la lune 1903 Life of an American Fireman – Edwin S. Porter 1903 Move On 1903 NYC Ghetto Fish Market 1903 The Great Train Robbery Part 1 – Thomas A. Edison 1904 Westinghouse Works Part 1 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire 1909 Princess Nicotine 1910 Jack Johnson -vs- James Jeffries 1914 Cabiria Giovanni Pastrone 1914 Charlie Chaplin – The Kid Auto Race 1914 Der Golem or, The Monster of Fate 1914 Gertie the Dinosaur 1914 The Exploits of Elaine 1915 The Birth of a Nation 1915 The Italian 1916 Intolerance 1917 The Immigrant 1919 Broken Blossoms 1920 The Cabinet of Dr Caligari 1920 The Mark of Zorro 1921 Charlie Chaplin – The Kid 1921 Manhatta 1921 The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse 1922 Buster Keaton – Cops (1 of 2) 1922 Nanook of the North 1922 Nosferatu 1923 Le retour a la raison – Man Ray 1923 Safety Last! 1923 Salome 1924 Body and Soul 1924 Buster Keaton – Sherlock Jr 1924 Buster Keaton – The Navigator 1924 Peter Pan 1924 The Thief of Bagdad 1925 Battleship Potemkin – Odessa Stairs Massacre – Pram 1925 Battleship Potemkin – Son Shot 1925 Charlie Chaplin – The Gold Rush 1925 The Freshman 1925 The Lost World 1925 The Phantom of the Opera 1925 Theodore Case Sound Test – Gus Visser and his Singing Duck 1926 Flesh and the Devil 1926 Son of the Sheik 1927 Buster Keaton – The General 2 1927 It – Clara Bow 1927 Metropolis – Montage 1927 Oktober – 1 1927 Sunrise 1927 The Jazz Singer 1927 Wings 1928 Charlie Chaplin – The Circus 1928 Steamboat Willie 1928 The Cameraman – Breaking the Bank 1928 The Wedding March 1929 Luis Bunuel – Un chien andalou Part 1 1929 Man with a Movie Camera 1929 St. Louis Blues 1929 The Broadway Melody 1930 All Quiet Along the Western Front – Trailer 1930 Morocco 1931 Charlie Chaplin – City Lights 1931 Dracula 1931 Frankenstein 1931 Fritz Lang’s M, ending, 1st part 1931 Le million 1931 Little Caesar 1931 The Champ 1931 The Public Enemy 1932 Freaks 1932 Grand Hotel 1932 Love Me Tonight 1932 Shanghai Express 1932 The Music Box 1932 Trouble In Paradise 1933 42nd Street 1933 Duck Soup 1933 King Kong – ending 1933 She Done Him Wrong – Mae West 1933 Snow White 1933 The Emperor Jones 1934 It Happened One Night 1934 It’s A Gift 1934 Little Miss Marker 1934 Tarzan and His Mate 1934 The Goddess 1934 The Man Who Knew Too Much 1934 The Thin Man 1935 A Night at the Opera 1935 Bride of Frankenstein 1935 Mutiny On The Bounty 1935 Naughty Marietta 1935 The 39 Steps 1935 Top Hat 1935 Triumph of the Will 1936 Camille 1936 Modern Times 1936 My Man Godfrey 1936 Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor – Part 1 1936 Rose Hobart 1936 Show Boat 1936 Swing Time – Trailer 1936 The Great Ziegfeld 1937 A Star Is Born 1937 Hindenburg disaster 1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – hi ho 1937 Stage Door 1937 The Awful Truth 1937 The Life of Emile Zola 1937 Way Out West – ‘Blue Ridge Mountains’ 1938 Bringing Up Baby 1938 Love Finds Andy Hardy – Trailer 1938 Olympia 1938 Porky in Wackyland 1938 You Can’t Take It with You 1939 Destry Rides Again 1939 Gone with the Wind 1 – kiss 1939 Gunga Din 1939 La Règle du jeu 1939 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 1939 Ninotchka clip 1939 Stagecoach 1939 The Wizard of Oz 1939 Wuthering Heights 1939 Young Mr Lincoln 1940 Charlie Chaplin – The Great Dictator 1940 Fantasia 1940 His Girl Friday 1940 Pinocchio 1940 Rebecca 1940 The Bank Dick 1940 The Grapes Of Wrath 1940 The Philadelphia Story 1940 The Shop Around the Corner 1941 Citizen Kane – Final Words 1941 Meet John Doe 1941 Sullivan’s Travels 1941 The Lady Eve 1941 The Maltese Falcon 1942 Casablanca 1 – play it again 1942 Cat People 1942 Holiday Inn – White Christmas 1942 Jam Session 1942 Random Harvest – She’s Ma Daisy 1942 Road to Morocco 1942 The Battle of Midway 1942 The Magnificent Ambersons 1942 To Be Or Not To Be 1942 Tulips Shall Grow 1942 Woman of the Year 1942 Yankee Doodle Dandy 1943 Meshes of the Afternoon – Part 1 1943 Shadow of a Doubt 1943 Stormy Weather 1943 The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp 1944 Arsenic and Old Lace 1944 Double Indemnity 1944 Going My Way 1944 Henry V – Trailer 1944 Laura – Trailer 1944 The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek 1945 Blithe Spirit 1945 Brief Encounter – end 1945 Detour 1945 Les Enfants du Paradis 1945 Mildred Pierce – Trailer 1945 Roma Citta Libera 1945 Spellbound 1945 The Body Snatcher 1945 The Lost Weekend 1946 It’s A Wonderful Life – ending 1946 La Belle et la bête 1946 My Darling Clementine 1946 Notorious 1946 The Best Years of Our Lives 1946 The Big Sleep 1947 Black Narcissus 1947 Brighton Rock 1947 Crossfire 1947 Miracle on 34th Street 1947 Out of the Past 1948 Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein 1948 Bicycle Thieves 1948 Hamlet 1948 Letter From An Unknown Woman 1948 Mr.Blandings Builds His Dream House 1948 Red River 1948 The Red Shoes 1948 The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre 1949 All the King’s Men 1949 Kind Hearts and Coronets 1949 The Heiress 1949 The Third Man – ending 1949 Twelve O’Clock High 1949 White Heat – Top of the World 1950 All About Eve 1950 Gerald McBoing-Boing 1950 Harvey 1950 In A Lonely Place 1950 Rashomon 1950 Sunset Boulevard 1951 A Place in the Sun 1951 A Streetcar Named Desire 1951 An American in Paris 1951 Duck and Cover 1951 Flying Padre – Stanley Kubrick 1951 Strangers on a Train 1951 The African Queen 1951 The Day the Earth Stood Still 1951 The Thing from Another World 1952 High Noon 1952 Hurlements en faveur de Sade – Guy Debord 1952 Ikiru 1952 Magical Maestro 1952 Singin’ in the Rain 1952 The Bad and the Beautiful 1952 The Greatest Show on Earth 1952 The Quiet Man 1952 Umberto D 1953 From Here to Eternity 1953 Le Salaire de la peur 1953 Let’s All Go to the Lobby 1953 Mr Hulot’s Holiday 1 – start 1953 Roman Holiday 1953 Shane 1953 Stalag 17 1953 The Band Wagon – That’s Entertainment 1953 The Hitch-Hiker 1953 The Tell-Tale Heart 1953 The War Of The Worlds 1953 Tokyo Story 1953 Ugetsu 1954 A Star Is Born 1954 Carmen Jones 1954 Creature from the Black Lagoon 1954 Dial M For Murder 1954 House in the Middle Pt 1 1954 La Strada 1954 On The Waterfront 1954 Rear Window 1954 Sabrina 1954 Seven Brides for Seven Brothers 1954 Seven Samurai – Akira Kurosawa 1954 The Caine Mutiny 1954 The Dam Busters 1954 White Christmas 1955 Blackboard Jungle 1955 Kiss Me Deadly clip 1955 Les Diaboliques 1955 Marty 1955 One Froggy Evening 1955 Pather Panchali 1955 Rebel Without A Cause – knife 1955 Richard III 1955 Rififi 1955 The Night of the Hunter 1956 Around the World in 80 Days – Trailer 1956 Don’t Knock The Rock – ‘Tutti Frutti’ 1956 Giant 1956 Invasion Of The Body Snatchers 1956 The Court Jester 1956 The Killing 1956 The Searchers – Trailer 1956 The Ten Commandments – Trailer 1957 12 Angry Men 1 1957 Bridge On The River Kwai 1 1957 Jailhouse Rock 1957 Le notti di Cabiria – Fellini 1957 Paths of Glory 1957 Pyaasa 1957 Rock You Sinners – Brighton Rock 1957 Smultronstället 1957 Sweet Smell of Success 1957 The Seventh Seal 1957 What’s Opera, Doc 1957 Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter 1957 Witness for the Prosecution 1958 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 1958 Mon Oncle 1958 The Defiant Ones – Trailer 1958 The Vikings 1958 Touch of Evil 1958 Vertigo – The Stairs, first time 1959 Anatomy of a Murder – Trailer 1959 Ben Hur – Trailer 1959 Les quatre cents coups 1959 North By Northwest – The Airplane 1959 Shadows 1959 Some Like It Hot 1960 A bout de souffle 1960 House of Usher 1960 La Dolce Vita 1960 Psycho 1960 Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – Trailer 1960 Spartacus 1960 The Alamo 1960 The Apartment 1961 Breakfast at Tiffany’s 1961 Dog Star Man – Prelude 1961 Judgment At Nuremberg 1961 Jules et Jim 1961 West Side Story 1961 Yojimbo 1961The Hustler 1962 Dr No 1962 How the West Was Won 1962 Lawrence of Arabia 1962 Lolita 1962 O Pagador de Promessas 1962 Ride the High Country 1962 The Manchurian Candidate 1962 The Music Man 1962 To Kill a Mockingbird 1963 8 1-2 – dream 1963 Charade 1963 Dog Star Man – Part II 1963 Shock Corridor 1963 The Birds 1963 The Great Escape 1963 The Nutty Professor 1963 The Servant 1964 A Hard Day’s Night 1964 Bande à part 1964 Deus e o diabo na terra do Sol 1964 Dog Star Man – Part III 1964 Dr. Strangelove 1 1964 Empire – Andy Warhol 1964 Goldfinger 1964 Mary Poppins – Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious 1964 My Fair Lady – Wouldn’t It Be Loverly 1964 Zulu 1965 Darling 1965 Dr. Zhivago 1965 For A Few Dollars More 1965 Repulsion – Catherine Deneuve 1965 The Sound of Music 1966 A Man For All Seasons – Trailer 1966 Alfie 1966 Blow-up 1966 Fahrenheit 451 1966 Georgy Girl 1966 La Battaglia di Algeri 1966 Persona 1966 The Endless Summer 1966 The Good The Bad and the Ugly 1966 Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf 1967 Belle de Jour – Luis Bunuel 1967 Bonnie and Clyde 1967 Cool Hand Luke – boiled eggs 1967 Far From The Madding Crowd 1967 Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner 1967 In the Heat of the Night – Trailer 1967 Mouchette 1967 Playtime 1967 Stop, Look and Listen 1967 The Graduate 1967 The Jungle Book – I Wanna Be Like You 1968 2001 Space Odyssey 1 – start 1968 Bullitt 1968 Carry on Up the Khyber 1968 If… 1968 Night Of the Living Dead 1968 Oliver! 1968 Once Upon a Time in the West 1968 Planet of the Apes 1968 Rosemary’s Baby 1968 The Producers – Springtime for Hitler 1968 Why Man Creates 1969 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 1969 Easy Rider – ending 1969 Goodbye, Mr. Chips 1969 Kes – cane 1969 Midnight Cowboy – I’m walking here 1969 The Italian Job – doors 1969 The Sorrow and the Pity – bourgeois 1969 The Wild Bunch 1969 Women in Love 1970 Five Easy Pieces 1970 Love Story 1970 MASH 1970 Multiple Sidosis 1970 Patton 1971 A Clockwork Orange – droog fight 1971 A Touch Of Zen 1971 Fiddler On The Roof – To Life 1971 Get Carter 1971 Harold And Maude 1971 Shaft 1971 Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song 1971 The French Connection 1971 The Hospital 1971 The Last Picture Show 1971 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory – Pure Imagination 1972 Aguirre the Wrath of God 1972 Cabaret 1972 Deliverance – ‘Dueling banjos’ 1972 DT 1972 Frenzy 1972 Last Tango in Paris 1 1972 OffOn 1972 Sleuth 1972 Solaris 1972 The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie 1972 The Godfather – offer 1972 The Poseidon Adventure 1973 American Graffiti 1973 Badlands 1973 Coffy 1973 Don’t Look Now 1973 Enter the Dragon 1973 Frank Film 1973 La Nuit americaine 1973 Mean Streets 1973 Sleeper 1973 The Day of the Jackal 1973 The Exorcist – Pt.1 1973 The Sting 1973 The Wicker Man 1974 A Woman Under the Influence 1974 Blazing Saddles 1974 Chinatown 1974 Foxy Brown 1974 The Conversation 1974 The Godfather, Part II 1974 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – ending 1974 The Towering Inferno – Trailer 1974 Young Frankenstein – Puttin’ on the Ritz 1975 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – ending 1975 Barry Lyndon 1975 Dog Day Afternoon 1975 Flåklypa Grand Prix – 1 1975 Jaws 1975 Monty Python and the Holy Grail 1975 Nashville 1975 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest 1975 Picnic At Hanging Rock – Trailer 1975 The Return Of The Pink Panther – Karate Kick 1975 The Rocky Horror Picture Show – Damn it Janet 1976 All the President’s Men – Trailer 1976 Car Wash 1976 Marathon Man 1976 Network 1976 Nuts in May 1976 Rocky – Adrian 1976 Taxi Driver – Talking To Me 1976 The Omen 1976 The Outlaw Josey Wales 1976 The Pink Panther Strikes Again 1977 Abigail’s Party 1977 Annie Hall 1977 Close Encounters of the Third Kind 1977 Eraserhead 1977 Killer of Sheep 1977 Looking for Mr. Goodbar 1977 Powers of Ten 1977 Saturday Night Fever 1977 Soldaat van Oranje 1977 Star Wars Episode IV – A New Hope – Deathstar1 1978 Dawn Of The Dead – mall 1978 DDD 1978 Every Which Way But Loose 1978 Grease – Summer Nights 1978 Halloween 1978 Midnight Express 1978 National Lampoon’s Animal House 1978 Pennies From Heaven 1978 Superman The Movie 1978 The Deer Hunter 1978 The Last Waltz – The Weight 1979 Alien 1979 All That Jazz – Bye Bye Life 1979 Apocalypse Now – Napalm in the morning 1979 Mad Max and Feral Boy 1979 Manhattan – start 1979 Monty Python’s Life of Brian 1979 Stalker – Tarkovsky 1979 Star Trek The Motion Picture 1979 The Black Stallion 1979 Woyzeck – Herzog 1980 Airplane! 1980 Atlantic City 1980 Flash Gordon 1980 Gregory’s Girl 1980 Heaven’s Gate 1980 Mon oncle d’Amerique 1980 Raging Bull 1980 Superman II 1980 The Elephant Man 1980 The Empire Strikes Back 1980 The Long Good Friday – ending 1980 The Shining – Here’s Johnny 1981 Chariots of Fire 1981 Das Boot 1981 Gallipoli 1981 Mommie Dearest 1981 Raiders Of The Lost Ark 1981 The Cannonball Run – 1 1981 The Evil Dead 1981 The Postman Always Rings Twice 1982 Blade Runner 1982 Boys from the Blackstuff 1982 Conan The Barbarian 1982 ET 1982 Fast Times At Ridgemont High 1982 First Blood 1982 Fitzcarraldo 1982 Gandhi 1982 Koyaanisqatsi 1982 Made in Britain 1982 Poltergeist 1982 Porky’s 1982 Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman 1982 Sophie’s Choice 1982 Star Trek II – The Wrath of Khan 1982 The Draughtsman’s Contract 1982 The Thing 1982 The Thing 1983 A Christmas Story – Oh, Fuuudge 1983 Return of The Jedi 1983 Scarface 1983 Terms of Endearment 1983 The King of Comedy 1983 Trading Places 1983 WarGames 1984 1984 1984 A Passage To India 1984 Amadeus 1984 Dune 1984 Ghostbusters 1984 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom 1984 Once Upon A Time In America 1984 Paris, Texas 1984 Police Academy 1984 Repo Man 1984 Stop Making Sense 1984 Stranger Than Paradise 1984 Supergirl 1984 The Karate Kid 1984 The Killing Fields 1984 The Never Ending Story – Trailer 1984 The Terminator 1984 This is Spinal Tap 1985 After Hours 1985 Back to the Future 1985 Brazil 1985 Clue 1985 My Beautiful Laundrette 1985 Out of Africa 1985 Ran 1985 Teen Wolf 1985 The Black Cauldron 1985 The Breakfast Club – dancing 1985 The Color Purple 1985 The Goonies 1985 The Official Story 1985 Weird Science 1985 Witness 1985 Young Sherlock Holmes 1986 9 1-2 Weeks 1986 A Better Tomorrow 1986 A Room with a View 1986 Betty Blue 1986 Big Trouble In Little China 1986 Blue Velvet – start 1986 Caravaggio – Derek Jarman 1986 Ferris Bueller’s Day Off 1986 Flight of the Navigator 1986 Hannah and Her Sisters 1986 Hoosiers 1986 Jean de Florette 1986 Labyrinth 1986 Little Shop of Horrors 1986 Manon des Sources 1986 Mona Lisa 1986 Platoon 1986 Rita, Sue and Bob Too – Bananarama 1986 Short Circuit – Trailer 1986 Stand By Me – 1 1986 The Fly 1986 The Money Pit 1986 The Name of The Rose 1986 The Singing Detective 1986 Top Gun 1986 When the Wind Blows 1987 Der Himmel über Berlin Wings of Desire 1987 Dirty Dancing 1987 Fatal Attraction 1987 Full Metal Jacket – drill sergeant 1987 Harry and the Hendersons 1987 Naayagan 1987 Planes, Trains and Automobiles – waking up 1987 Robocop 1987 The Last Emperor 1987 The Princess Bride 1987 The Untouchables 1987 The Witches of Eastwick 1987 Throw Momma from the Train 1987 Withnail and I – Camberwell carrot 1988 A Fish Called Wanda 1988 Akira 1988 Big 1988 Child’s Play 1988 Coming to America – bride 1988 Dangerous Liaisons 1988 Die Hard 1988 Distant Voices, Still Lives – Trailer 1988 Mississippi Burning 1988 Rain Man 1988 The Accused – lawyer 1988 The Last Temptation Of Christ 1988 The Naked Gun 1988 Who Framed Roger Rabbit 1989 Back to the Future II 1989 Batman 1989 Born on the Fourth of July 1989 Cinema Paradiso clip 1989 Dead Poets Society – ending 1989 Do The Right Thing – 1 1989 Glory 1989 Henry V 1989 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade 1989 My Left Foot 1989 Sex, Lies and Videotape 1989 Uncle Buck 1989 Weekend at Bernie’s 1990 Back To The Future III 1990 Dances With Wolves 1990 Edward Scissorhands 1990 Ghost 1990 Goodfellas 1990 Home Alone 1990 Miller’s Crossing 1990 Nuns on the Run 1990 Pretty Woman 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1990 The Hunt for Red October 1991 Beauty and the Beast 1991 Boyz n the Hood 1991 Cape Fear 1991 Daughters of The Dust 1991 Delicatessen clip 1991 Fried Green Tomatoes 1991 Robin Hood Prince of Thieves 1991 Terminator 2 1991 The Commitments 1991 The Silence of the Lambs – fava beans 1991 Thelma and Louise 1992 A Few Good Men 1992 El Mariachi 1992 Home Alone 2 1992 Howards End 1992 Leolo 1992 Malcolm X 1992 Peter’s Friends – song 1992 Reservoir Dogs 1992 The Bodyguard 1992 The Crying Game 1992 The Last of the Mohicans 1992 The Player – Trailer 1992 Unforgiven 1993 Carlito’s Way 1993 Falling Down 1993 Farewell My Concubinet 1993 Groundhog Day 1993 In the Name of the Father 1993 Jurassic Park 1993 Naked 1993 Philadelphia 1993 Schindler’s List 1993 The Fugitive 1993 The Piano 1993 The Remains of the Day 1993 The Wrong Trousers 1993 Three Colours Blue 1993 What’s Eating Gilbert Grape 1994 Chungking Express 1994 Clerks – corpse 1994 Drunken Master II – Final Fight Scene (Part 1 of 2) 1994 Ed Wood 1994 Forrest Gump 1994 Four Weddings and a Funeral 1994 Il postino 1994 Leon The Professional 1994 Muriel’s Wedding 1994 Pulp Fiction – dancing 1994 The Madness Of King George 1994 The Shawshank Redemption 1995 Braveheart 1995 Heat 1995 La Haine 1995 Nine Months 1995 Richard III 1995 Se7en 1995 Sense and Sensibility 1995 The Usual Suspects 1995 The White Balloon 1995 Toy Story 1995 Twelve Monkeys 1996 Brassed Off 1996 Fargo 1996 Jerry Maguire 1996 Romeo and Juliet 1996 Secrets and Lies 1996 Shine 1996 The English Patient 1996 Trainspotting 1997 As Good as It Gets 1997 Boogie Nights 1997 Good Will Hunting 1997 L.A. Confidential 1997 La Vita è blla 1997 Nil By Mouth 1997 The Full Monty – ending 1997 Titanic 1997 Waiting for Guffman 1998 American History X 1998 Elizabeth 1998 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas 1998 Festen 1998 Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels 1998 Lola Rennt 1998 Rushmore 1998 Saving Private Ryan – D-day Scene (1-4) 1998 Taxi 1998 The Big Lebowski 1998 The Truman Show 1999 American Beauty 1999 Being John Malkovich 1999 Fight Club 1999 Magnolia 1999 Office Space – 1 1999 The Green Mile 1999 The Matrix 1999 The Sixth Sense 2000 Amores Perros 2000 Billy Elliot 2000 Chocolat 2000 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 2000 Dancer in the Dark 2000 Erin Brockovich 2000 Gladiator 2000 Meet the Parents 2000 Memento 2000 Quills 2001 Amelie 2001 Donnie Darko 2001 Kandahar 2001 Legally Blonde 2001 Lord Of The Rings 2001 No Man’s Land 2001 The Royal Tenenbaums 2001 Wit 2002 Bowling for Columbine 2002 Chicago 2002 City of God 2002 Dirty Pretty Things 2002 Spider-Man 2002 Spirited Away 2002 Talk to Her 2002 The Magdalene Sisters 2002 The Pianist 2003 Finding Nemo 2003 Lost in Translation 2003 Monster 2003 Oldboy 2004 Crash 2004 Der Untergang 2004 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 2004 Fahrenheit 9/11 2004 Gegen die Wand 2004 Hotel Rwanda 2004 Million Dollar Baby 2004 Napoleon Dynamite 2004 Shaun Of The Dead 2004 Sideways – Trailer 2004 Tropical Malady 2005 Brokeback Mountain 2005 Good Night, And Good Luck 2005 March of the Penguinsm – Trailer 2005 The Tulse Luper Suitcases 2005 V for Vendetta 2006 Borat – Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan 2006 Lage Raho Munna Bhai 2006 Little Miss Sunshine 2006 The Lives Of Others

The blog has been quiet for a while and will probably remain so. Other than the tedious, unlucky Job Search, I’ve been trying to limit my internet time.

Books

I’ve added two to the pile: Best American Travel Writing 2009 and BLDGBLOG book. As you’ll notice, I’m linking to Powell’s instead of Amazon. See previous post for reasons why.

Best American Travel Writing is co-edited by Anthony Bourdain this time around and bears the traits of his interests – the darker places of the world, intrepid adventure and food. It’s been quite good so far with few stories skipped unlike previous editions.

The BLDGBLOG book was written by Geoff Manaugh of BLDGBLOG and has so far been quite wonderful, which isn’t all that surprising given how continually delightful and thought-provoking the blog the continues to be.

Movies

I can’t recall the last time I posted about movies. Here’s a list from my recently watched Netflix ones:

4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days – spectacular, moving, and brutal
Fitzcarraldo – watching today
Aguirre: The Wrath of God – insane
Something Wicked This Way Comes – light entertainment
Picnic at Hanging Rock - well-designed ambiguity
Army of Shadows – top-notch film about the French partisans in WWII; not blindly jingoistic or heroic as American films about the war tend to be – just ppl doing a dirty, brutal, thankless job and typically being killed for it
The Man Who Would Be King - fun adventure in Afghanistan in the 19th c
The Lookout – excellent movie with always excellent Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Man on Wire – captures the delight and insanity of being human
The Deer Hunter - surprisingly engaging 3 hour film about life, love, and war
Mongol – beautiful scenery of the Mongol steppe, okay story
Snow Angels – Sam Rockwell being great in a tiny film about love in a small town

I’m kind of on a Werner Herzog bender in my queue the next few movies. Depending on job prospects and itchy feet, I might not get around to them for another month or so. We’ll see. I highly recommend 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days. It’s about a young woman in a difficult situation in Ceausescu’s Romania. It seems that it is part of an emerging Romanian cinema trend that I will need to check out. I loved the lingering shots, even with the main characters far away, or offstage. You can see similar shots in Army of Darkness and even Picnic At Hanging Rock. Picnic At Hanging Rock amazed me in how it could get the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up without having anything particularly frightening happening. I don’t know if it was the cinematography, the story, the music or the combination of all three but it work. If I were to recommend anything I would say those three are my top picks of the month with The Lookout also well worth watching.

Internet / Other

Los Angeles Cycling Map is still going along unsuccessfully. It probably doesn’t help that I’ve put no effort into marketing it other than begging Timur for a plug.

Late Night TV: I’ve been watching. It’s how I end my day. Conan and Jimmy. It’s nice to laugh before going to bed. Most of the jokes in Jimmy’s monologue fall flat but he’s good at riffing on them and even gives cue cards of the worst to audience members. One of the best moments recently has been Shatner on Conan. Sorry, unable to embed the video.

And I built a fence along my folks’ driveway. Tore down the old, salvaged what good pieces of wood I could, dug holes, and got it to stand. This kind of relates to some thoughts I’ve been having after reading the excellent Matthew Crawford article ‘The Case for Working With Your Hands‘ (via Michael Ruhlman). More on this later probably.

Lover Dress Performance Collection

Black and White snap shot of my mother

Here is an old snap shot of my mother I found. Just love the high necked dress she is wearing and reminded me of the amazing Lover lace dress from the Performance collection! I was first drawn to Lover many years ago before the duo brought out their infamous Black Magick Collection. It was during a visit to my local clothing store that I stumbled across the most amazing cute pink coat teamed with large red or black buttons. The coat was from one of Lovers first collections and there was something deliciously quirky and Mini mouse about the design that made me fall in love with the label! I know that sounds like an odd description but it really had that feel to me!

My love affair contiuned when the iconic Black Magick collection came out. I often wonder if the Lover duo Susein Chong and Nic Briand are sick to pieces of that collection (and whether they still get a million requests to make it!) I was lucky to be one of the first who developed a fondness for the french lace dresses, tunics and ruffle dresses as years later on I was offered double and triple the prices I paid for all the items and still have people hound me to sell it to them!

I know I harp on about stories but I personally believe it is the stories behind each Lover collection which made the Label as popular as it is today (There is a cult following just look at any fashion forum and you will see what I mean!). With each collection came a Lookbook with references to music, art and culture whether it be the Picnic at Hanging Rock or Nirvana… Each collections seems to ring a chord with different personas we seem to adopt thoroughout years…the shy school girl….’grunge’ music fan….the romantic Flower child…. And it is through these stories and connections that will continue to make it one of the most amazing Australian Labels ever created!

I have been going through a big scary film phase at the moment. It’s a genre of film I’ve never really explored or thought about but having now watched a few of the classics I can say I am hooked.

As a means of showing how each of the scary films came across to me I will compare them to a popular Radio 1 DJ.

Why? Because…you know…

Jaws – Chris Moyles: 100% entertainment, unpretentious, lively, crowd-pleasing, funny, memorable, quotable. Oh, and is dissed by people trying to be cool.

Misery – Jo Whiley: Classic, doesn’t age, slick production, tense conversations with fellow actors/dj’s, no filler.

Psycho- Edith Bowman: nice pace, a bit off, attractively shot, held in high regard, long serving.

The  Birds – Annie Mac: intense, a little strange, original, beautiful.

Picnic At Hanging Rock: Nick Grimshaw: no real reason for it to be good but somehow is entertaining, occasional lulls, a little creepy.

The Shining  – Zane Lowe: intense, kind of dark, freaky, in your face, fast, exciting.

Wolf Creek – Tim Westwood: unhinged, unpredictable, freaky, uncensored, no pandering.

Boo!

Luce x

I decided to make this list, because often looking at consensus and canonical lists, the film is dominated by films exploring or interested mostly in male protagonists. This is no surprise, as most filmmakers are men and we still live in a largely patriarchal world. Art especially seems to still have a masculine slant, though there have been a lot of changes in the last few years. I am hardly an expert, and my own knowledge of film still feels too limited to put together anything that seems like a definite list. For this reason, I’d like to be a flexible list, and I’d like to update it at least once a year.

That’s where you come in, I’d like both recommendations and criticism for some of my choices. I’m not trying to choose films that only celebrate women or femininity, whatever that means… but at the same time, I think some of my choices skirt exploitation and are perhaps too much the “victim” of the male gaze. Also, since this is an ongoing project I’d like any suggestions you might have in terms of presentation, or ordering. As is, I’m only presenting the list in alphabetical order, two at a time. I’m also limiting my write-ups, they will for the most part description heavy, perhaps with a brief idea on why it’s being included. I’m also trying to focus as much as possible, on films that feature a female protagonist rather than a strong female supporting role. It eliminates a few films that might otherwise make it, but I think it comes closer to my own intentions for this project.

I As is, I’m not entirely satisfied with the selection, but I feel that if I’d spend my entire life waiting if I were to see everything I think I should before presenting my list. At the moment, it’s a little too heavy on American film for my taste. It’s especially lacking in Asian cinema, which is dominated by anime. As this is a work in progress, I not only appreciate recommendations, I expect it. Also, there are a few films here that I’m not entirely sure quite fit. If you have any objections, or quibbles with some selections, let me know and hopefully we can discuss it Also, the list is heavily slanted towards a few directors. While it’s clearly because a large part of their filmography explores women in an interesting way, in the future I’d like to keep each director down to one or two films, at the very least, for the sake of diversity.

I’m still not sure what I qualify an “essential” film about women, I hope my list presents a huge cross-section of different kinds of women and experiences, but at the very least I’m looking for films that have at least one female protagonist, which rules out a lot of films that may have interesting or strong female supporting characters and roles unfortunately. I’m also not attempting to paint only a positive portrait of womanhood, I think many of these film reveal many imperfect, even downright cruel women… but that is part of a reality.

For “fun”, part of what inspired the list, the films I personally consider to be about women from both the AFI top 100 list, and the 100 Best films from They Shoot Pictures. Some are tricky honestly, but I think I’m being more than generous… there are a few of these that I think are great films, but are even too much about a couple to really consider it for my own list.

AFI Top 100
6. Gone with the Wind
10. The Wizard of Oz
25. To Kill a Mockingbird
28. All About Eve
24. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
35. Annie Hall
40. The Sound of Music
42. Bonnie and Clyde
44. The Philadelphia Story (It’s been a while since I’ve seen this, I’m not sure)
46. It Happened One Night
47. A Streetcar Named Desire
51. West Side Story
63. Cabaret
65. The African Queen
67. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
74. The Silence of the Lambs
82. Sunrise
83. Titanic
88. Bringing Up Baby
90. Swing Time
91. Sophie’s Choice

They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? Top 100
12. Sunrise
16. L’Atalante
38. L’Avventura
40. Persona
42. Jules et Jim
50. La Strada
56. Contempt
60. Gone with the Wind
61. Au Hasard Bathazar (I think?)
62. The Wizard of OZ
64. Greed
70. Metropolis
71. To Be or Not to Be
72. All About Eve
73. Once Upon a Time in the West
75. Notorious
77. Letter from an Unknown Woman
78. Madame de..
79. Bringing Up Baby
89. Last Year at Marienbad (I think?)
96. Hiroshima, mon amour

A Room with a View (James Ivory, 1986)

Based on the novel by E.M. Forster, A Room with a View, is the story of Lucy Honeychurch’s chaperoned vacation in Italy where she meets an eccentric man who will change her life. Set in the early 1900s, this film is an understated film about a time of change in history, though pressured into a marriage to an uninteresting man, Lucy does have a choice. The values are rigid, and the expectations are heavy slanted to her choosing the man her family has chosen. As a quiet and obedient daughter, the choice between love and duty is not quite so evident, and the film is very much about Lucy’s first experience with real affection and rebellion. Starring Helena Bonham Carter, this is a beautiful coming of age story that uses the pretence of old world culture as the means for a new world, of new opportunities for young women.

A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan, 1951)

Few writers have created as many interesting roles for women as American playwright, Tennessee Williams. A Streetcar Named Desire sees Blanche Dubois, a broken southern Belle, who visits her sister and their brutish husband in New Orleans. Blanche Dubois is fragile, raised as an aristocratic, she saw her family lose their wealth and home in the span of her lifetime. Also, as a young girl, confronted with a shocking revelation about her young husband, her psychological state is hanging by a thread. Blanche is in complete denial of her age and has something of a victim complex. Her sister, though physically stronger, finds herself in a similar cycle of abuse that she cannot escape. Though both are well educated and well raised, they cannot escape their condition, and endure a huge amount of physical and psychological abuse. The film reveals a terrible double standards society harbours about women, especially relating to sex.

Agnes of God (Norman Jewison, 1985)

Set in Montreal, Quebec, during what I assume is the late 1970s/early 1980s. The film makes a point to emphasize the modernity of the situation to estrange the nuns further from what we know as the real world. It is essential that the audience understands the events, potential miracles of God, under the circumstances of secular life. The film is centered around the mystery of a strangled newborn, whose mother is young Agnes, a novice-nun. It quickly becomes apparent that she is not quite in her right mind, and her understanding of the events are blurred and twisted by her unusual perception of the world around her. Enter state assigned psychiatrist Dr. Martha Livingston, to evaluate whether Agnes is responsible for her actions. The film is centered entirely on women, and their own interactions with the church, spirituality and life. It struggles especially with the idea of woman’s place within organized religion, offering many perspectives on a very complex ideological and ethical issue.

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974)

Well into middle age, Emmi finds a second life in a love affair with a much younger man, Ali. When the pair decide to marry, they’re met with a huge amount of ridicule and even disgust, as their relationship is viewed as unnatural by their friends and family. It explores especially Emmi’s interaction with her children, as they claim to be only looking out for her own happiness and well being, when they’re really concerned about their own reputation and ideas about the life their mother should live. Fassbinder creates a very real relationship between Emmi and Ali, it’s tender and giving, while their struggles against both family and society become a very real threat to their happiness. Even after things calm down, the seeds of uncertainty have been planted and they both question their relationship.

All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950)

The entertainment business is cut-throat especially for women, as the pressures to be younger and prettier are always hanging over the head of even the best actors. Margo, brought to life by the ever brilliant Bette Davis, is a woman pushing middle age who bemoans that she is constantly forced into playing women half her age. Her insecurity further emphasized because of a relationship with a younger man, and the up and coming talent. Eve is her main competition, a young woman who cons her way into the theatre and through her manipulation gets her shot on the stage. Few films offer as many strong roles for women as this, as well as giving a legitimate outlet for their insecurities in the cut throat world of entertainment. Even in it’s supporting cast, the film offers through characters like Miss Casswell (Marilyn Monroe), the expected roles different women are supposed to live up to in society based solely on their physical appearance.

All that Heaven Allows (Douglas Sirk, 1955)

Before a very recent resurgence in popularity and appreciation, Douglas Sirk has always been dismissed because of the melodramatic nature of his films. Looking at little closer, he is perhaps the greatest director of “women’s” pictures Hollywood has ever seen, and the nature of the critical dismissal of his work probably lies deeper than appearances suggest. All that Heaven Allows made it’s impression though, especially on filmmakers like Almodovar and Fassbinder, the latter who did a loose re-imagining in his film Ali: Fear eats the Soul, nearly 20 years later. All that Heaven Allows is a middle aged woman living alone in “suburban bliss”. She hires a gardener to tend to her garden, and falls in love with him. She is met with a huge amount of scorn and criticism from her neighbours and family, and the pressure is so overwhelming that she breaks off her relationship. The film is especially interesting in context of a growing number of suburban housewives who had everything they were expected to want, but still felt an unhappy void that they could not explain and was not understood by mostly male psychologists of the time.

Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)

A visually intense film about a young woman inspired by the death of Princess Diana to go out and the world and make people happy. Shy and eccentric, she connects with them in often unexpected way, making their lives better with often the simplest gesture. This sudden outburst of emotion and ambition, eventually connects her with a man, though only from afar… the film soon becomes a quest for her own happiness and the potential of a relationship. One of the most popular foreign language films of the last decade, there isn’t much to say that hasn’t already been said. Though at times overbearing, Jeunet’s style is perfectly suited to the magical world that Amelie inhabits, and no actress could have filled the role with the same offbeat beauty and charm as the wonderful Audrey Tautou.

Baby Doll (Kazan, 1956)

Another Tennessee Williams penned work, this is his only original screenplay, and perhaps the best adaptation of his work. The young “Baby Doll”, finds herself married to a disgusting older man who fails to live up to his promise to make a better life for her. The premise is simple, essentially sold as collateral by her husband before his death, she was to live to marry this man, but he was not allowed to touch her until her 19th birthday. Just a few days away, her husband can’t seem to wait. The story is further complicated by the Sicilian businessman, who sees his cotton gin mill burned down, and he suspects Archie Lee is behind it. His revenge is to take away his wife, and most of the film is a seduction of the young girl. Naive and virginal, Baby Doll is excited by the lecherous foreigner and his promises of sex and a better life. This film is as much about a sexual awakening, as it is about games of love and life. It’s exploration of a crumbling South seem especially familiar in context of Williams’ other works.

Baby Face (Alfred E. Green, 1933)

Few periods in American film history had so many interesting roles for women as the pre-code era. Many great films came out during this period, some that would still make 21st century audiences blush. None were perhaps as controversial or shocking as Alfred E. Green’s film Baby Face. Starring Barbara Stanwyck, the film is about a woman who finds herself in an undesirable situation and decides to pull her way out from it the best way she knows how, using her sexual appeal. The film chronicles her figurative rise to the top through very literal imagery of her rising up one floor at a time a huge big city skyscraper. The film stresses the hopelessness of her initial situation, and how kindness and good intentions will not pull her out from the bottom. This film was the final nail in the coffin of pre-code cinema, perhaps because it’s blatant sexuality, and the fact that it doesn’t condemn or judge Lily Powers. Though it does offer the idea that perhaps her attitude is reckless, the film does hold her up very highly. What was perhaps especially shocking for 1930s audiences, was how she usurps societal expectations of her gender to suit her own needs. She does not rise the top like a man, but as a woman.

Band of Outsiders (Jean-Luc Godard, 1964)

Though perhaps the story is more about the two friends, Franz and Arthur, determining the protagonist through the idea of the “essential” character, it’s no doubt Odile. Young, pretty and innocent, her inclusion in their little criminal gang is the ingredient they need to go the next level in their adventures. Godard employs the idea that to make a successful film, all you need is a girl and a gun, and there are few girls as charming and likeable as Anna Karina. Like many of his early films, Band of Outsiders is about youth dealing with a world that is new and exciting, though they are unequipped to really understand and cope with it because of a lack of parental guidance. They learn all they know from the movies, and attempt to live the life they say, regardless of consequence. Odile is charmed by their attention, and allows herself to be manipulated into a heist. Though Godard was never short in roles for women, they were always problematic in that he always manages to put his women in a position of weakness, Karina especially lending her talents to the often frail and stupid characters of his films. At the same time, in cases like Vivre sa vie, the choice seems very conscious as a commentary on Hollywood cinema’s gender roles.

Belle de Jour (Luis Bunuel, 1967)

I think Luis Bunuel understood how much sex, especially beyond the confines of missionary copulation within marriage, was in itself an attack on the structures of society he himself riled against for the majority of his career. The mystery of female sexuality especially was alluring, how divisive and chaste it was supposed to be, and how threatening it was to the church and the largely male rulers of society. Séverine Serizy is a young housewife with an impotent husband, who on what seems like a whim decides to be a day-time prostitute. She seems happy with her life, but her husband cannot supply her with the sexual release that she so desires. Bunuel highlights her often bizarre and fetish oriented desire through dream sequences and creative sound editing. The film is about the imagination of sex, and therefore the strength of the mind over the body. It’s an important distinction in understanding true eroticism and for a political and surreal filmmaker like Bunuel, it was more than just about sex, it was about revolution.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (Russ Meyer, 1970)

This might be my most controversial pick for the list, it teeters an incredibly soft line between art and exploitation, and that’s without taking into account it’s portrayal of women as objects, or something more. Meyer will always be a tricky figure in this regard, his reverence for the female form often as empowering as it is objectifying. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is about an all female rock band that finds it’s way in Hollywood. They go from playing the local high school prom to the biggest show on television in no time at all, but their success doesn’t last long. Before long, they fall into decadence and see their friendship and happiness slip away. The film is a re-invention of the novel/film, The Valley of the Dolls, which showcases the darker side of the entertainment business. This film satirizes the self-seriousness of the previous work, while also taking a playful poke at the free love 60s attitudes that seemed to lack any consequential insight. As for it’s portrayal of women, the film has a huge amount of gratuitous violence and more than a few women meet an untimely end. On the other hand, it shows the comforts of female companionship, especially in a lesbian relationship between two of the characters, though that too meets a bloody finale.

Black Book (Paul Verhoeven, 2006)

Was there ever a heroine as exciting, daring and sexy as Rachel Stein? With her classical good looks, Carice Van Houten channels the greatest actresses of the Golden Hollywood, while emulating their male stars’ heroics. Rachel is a Jew in the Netherlands at the height of the second world war, as her hiding place is bombed she suddenly finds herself on the run from the Nazis. After seeing her family brutally murdered, she infiltrates the Gestapo incognito as a singer and dancer. Satirical and tongue and cheek, only a filmmaker like Verhoeven would dare to take a sacred cow of the Holocaust and treat it with anything less than awe-filled reverence, and he even dares to add a few shades of grey to the heroes. Rachel uses her sex and intelligence to get ahead in a world that only wants to tear her down, easily one of the very best characters of the last decade.

Black Christmas (Bob Clark, 1974)

As far as horror is concerned, the slasher subgenre has always been the least kind to women. They are always the victims, and more so than their male counterparts, are judged far more cruelly on a moral level. Black Christmas is perhaps the anomaly, turning the genre’s stereotypes on it’s head far before the genre took fire in 1978 with the release of Halloween. It’s near Christmas and for the past few weeks, a sorority house have been receiving a string of truly disturbing obscene phone calls. After one girl disappears, they contact the police, but it’s quickly dismissed as the antics of a home sick or wild college student. Meanwhile, Jess confronts her boyfriend about an unwanted pregnancy and that she will be having an abortion, which upsets him greatly. Unlike your typical slasher fair, these characters are smart and clever. The tone is not moral as much as it is bleak and cruel, offering little hope to these young women as they’re picked off one bye one. The film stresses the ineffectiveness of the police force, especially in face against sexually motivated crimes. Few horror films are as frighteningly claustrophobic as this, and unlike your typical gore fest the audience feels a huge amount of sympathy for even the most minor characters.

Black Narcissus (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1947)

Films about convents and nuns should be inherently exciting for the film fan. The life of a nun is unnatural, it’s about repressing base desires and existing without an identity. Black Narcissus transplants a group of Anglican nuns from the safety of England to a spiritually dangerous palace in the Himalayas. The new setting not only challenges the comfort of their western life, but their understanding of why they’ve chosen this life. The wind is always remarked upon, a classical tool in literature to signify spiritual and emotional unrest. The nuns are especially challenged by the masculine presence of Mr. Dean, and the sensuous young Kanchi, who betrays their ideas of chastity. One by one, they fall victim to their new life, some requesting transfers, while others fall deeper into insanity. The film’s idea of “insane” is less a mental imbalance, but how far the characters fall from the standard of normality. However, in such a repressed and confined life, normality is an inherent abnormality, raising a whole slew of questions about religious faith and sexuality.

But I’m a Cheerleader (Jamie Babbit, 1998)

Megan is a cheerleader, she’s popular and she’s dating the star of the football team, she is the perfect American girl… but something is wrong and she doesn’t even know about it! Within the first ten minutes, her family and friends have an intervention because they fear she is a lesbian. She is baffled, completely in denial of her attraction, but is promptly sent of to a camp that’s meant to redirect her “confused” sexuality and cure her. Obviously tongue and cheek, this film is both funny and surprisingly tender for a film of it’s type. Megan adjusts well to the life at camp, though she is still confused as to why she is there. Here she meets Graham, a lesbian who does not want to change, but her parents keep sending her to camp after camp in hopes of changing who she is. Megan quickly falls for Graham, and in a subdued but no less surprising masturbation scene, she discovers the possibilities of her true sexual nature. The cast is excellent, especially Natasha Lyonne as Megan, who is beyond sweet but also has a huge amount of emotional depth.

Cat People (Jacques Tourneur, 1942)

A strange thriller horror, Cat People is about the beautiful Serbian born Irena who is now living in New York City. While in the zoo sketching some panthers, she meets a young man who is immediately taken by her exotic beauty and peculiar forthcomingness. They marry not long after their first meeting, and things quickly turn sour. Irena is terrified of a myth from her village that said that if aroused, women would turn into a giant cat and kill the man in her presence. Months of an unconsummated marriage driver Oliver to infidelity, engaging in an emotional affair with his co-worker. This drives Irena to new heights, and she turns from meek young woman to hunter, stalking both her husband and this new woman into the night. Horror has always explored and exploited female sexuality for it’s tension, as even today it seems like an unknowable and mysterious taboo that is the source of danger and fear. Simone Simon as the exotic Irina is both vulnerable and threatening in her environment, subverting the American feminine ideal while also being convinced of her own danger. The atmosphere will have chills running down your spine, as less is always more in this low key horror film.

Christmas in Connecticut (Peter Godfrey, 1945)

The war-time setting is exploited in this Christmas timed screwball comedy, as an exploration for the changing roles of women. Journalist Elizabeth Lane is the country’s most famous food critic, and the stories of her perfect home in Connecticut are published weekly and read by hundreds of thousands. The true story is that Elizabeth Lane not only lives in a small drafty apartment in New York City but can’t cook a lick. When an injured soldier asks to meet her, an elaborate ploy is set up to save her career and she tries to play the role of the perfect housewife. The film is subversive in how it does not let any of the characters do what you would expect, and the eventual revelations are on one hand shocking, but also met with understanding that would only dissipate once again by the middle of the next decade. Stanwyck stars in yet another film on my list, but it’s no surprise, as she brings a particular brand of intelligent wit and sexiness that was unparalleled. Even today, she is the prototype of the modern woman, someone who could take care of herself, and only marries for true love, and never at the compromise of her own ideals and life.

Cleo 5 a 7 (Agnes Varda, 1962)

Cleo is a beautiful French singer waiting for the results from a doctor’s test that might determine if she has cancer or not. Grappling with her own mortality, Cleo’s greatest fears are linked to the loss of her beauty and youth. The film is told within the span of a few hours, and we are brought from place to place as she can’t seem to settle still before she is forced to face her fate. Agnes Varda (alongside perhaps Marguerite Duras, though she mostly worked in other capacities beyond director) was the sole director that was a member of the New Wave, her background was not in les Cahiers du Cinema, but rather photography and documentary filmmaking, which is reflected in the very polished look of her work. Cleo 5 a 7 is one of the strongest reflections of the female experience in the modern world, and I find it especially interesting how it’s often dismissed for it’s shallow protagonist, neither here nor there in film criticism. The film captures the anxiety and the superficiality of her life, but also offers some moments of real tenderness.

Cluny Brown (Ernst Lubitsch, 1946)

Ernst Lubitsch’s final film, is an ode to individuality and the freedom of personal expression. Despite her uncle’s desires, Cluny Brown follows her plumbing ambitions one day while he is out, and this is where she meets on the run professor who falls for her immediately. She is punished for her disobedience and forced to act as a servant in a country estate, a ploy for her to better understand her place in society… as both a woman and as someone in lower society. Time and time again, Cluny refuses to fit into these expectations, not necessarily by a natural sense of rebellion, but the confidence of someone who understands who they are. Though still young and naive, she is unprepared to truly accept that, and as a result falls for a boring pharmacist who doesn’t make her happy and tries to squash all expression she has. Her relationship with Adam Belinski, is the only time she is allowed to express all her innermost thoughts and desires, but she cannot understand the scope of this freedom. He never pushes her, though there is no doubt he harbours jealousy and frustration at her blindness towards his affections. If only all classic romances were as sweet as this, stressing the equality and the freedom of being who you are within a relationship.

Cries and Whispers (Ingmar Bergman, 1972)

The gut wrenching story of a family brought together by the imminent death of one of three sisters, Agnes, who is dying of cancer. Also present is the servant Anna, who has been more of a mother and a sibling than Agnes’ own family. She is the only person capable of warmth as the other characters frigidity stems from a variety of different factors relating to their own self-perception and the nature of their romantic relationships. The intensity of the scarlet walls and their contrast against the white sheets, reveals the very confines of the soul… or as Ingmar Bergman argued, it was an expression of the very literal blood that courses through our veins. The visual style lends to the anxiety and discomfort that the viewer is put through, it heightens the emotional struggle. The cancer is far more than just a disease, it’s an expression of all our fears and desires, our wants for comfort and the worry that we may only have one chance.

Dark Victory (Edmund Goulding, 1939)

Most of Bette Davis’ films in the later part of the 1930s and early part of the 1940s were weepy chick flicks, and perhaps the weepiest and chickiest was Dark Victory. Davis stars Judith, a young and beautiful socialite suffering from painful headaches and double vision, and when she finally goes to the doctor, she is diagnosed with a brain tumour. There is one shot though, a surgery to remove her tumour. The film is melodramatic, but that’s a huge amount of it’s charm. Judith’s plight with life and death, extends far beyond her own mortality but forces her to grapple with her ideas of love and happiness. This is one of Davis’ strongest performances, and she channels the carefree attitude of a socialite, and the eventual psychological grappling that comes with her illness.

Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (Jacques Demy & Agnès Varda, 1967)

Perhaps the happiest film ever made, this jubilant musical is about two singing and dancing sisters living in Rochefort. They both are happy with their life teaching dance and music in their bright apartment overseeing a square. One day both have their lives changed forever as they both meet two men, and fall in love. The film is less about the simple plot as it is about the euphoric feelings of love and passion that pervade every shot. The film is a very French homage to the Hollywood musicals of the 1950s, even featuring Gene Kelly in one of the romantic roles. It seems unbelievable, but husband and wife team Demy and Varda actually best the work they are so drawing from. The bubble gum pastel set and costumes lend to a wholly jubilant environment, this is one of those films that dares the audience not to smile, it’s beyond charming.

Diary of a Chambermaid (Luis Bunuel, 1964)

Luis Bunuel remakes Jean Renoir in the 1964 attack on the bourgeoisie and social cultures. Jeanne Moreau is Céléstine, a maid that has a new job in the country for a group of eccentric and out of touch aristocrats. Céléstine indulges in their fetishes and neurosis as a means of getting ahead. Things take a turn for the worse when the old man dies a child is raped and murdered. This is perhaps Bunuel’s most straightforward film, and a good introduction to his work. It still contains many of his favourite themes and ideas, exploring the seedier side of the human condition and criticizing the ideals and inhibitions put on by society. Jeanne Moreau perfectly embodies the role of the Chambermaid, she is calm, calculated and intelligent, standing above those around, at least for a while… Bunuel demonstrates contempt especially for religion, and through his narrative shows how the religious especially can get away with murder.

Diary of a Lost Girl (G.W. Pabst, 1929)

Louise Brooks is Thymiane, a young innocent girl drapped in white for her communion, on this very day she is raped by the clerk who works in her father’s store. She gets pregnant, and so as not to bring shame to the family she is sent away to a horrid “school” for girls. Pabst reveals the hypocrisy of the situation, and the damnation of female victims because of terrible double standards. Pabst very successfully establishes the fact that Thymiane is not only innocent (the white flowers, dress, her naivety) but also that she is adored by her family. It makes their decision all the more frightening. On the other hand the clerk who commits the crime continues to advance in life while she is thrown at the sidelines of society. Thyamiane’s life takes her down a road of depravity, and she becomes a prostitute because of the hopelessness of her situation. Eventually though, she is able to pull herself out of the situation with the help of a friend and decides to make changes. The film also reinforces message that woman have to help themselves and each other.

Easy Living (Mitchell Leisen, 1937)

With Preston Sturges manning the screenplay and Jean Arthur in the starring role, Easy Living had me expecting something great before the film even started. Though Sturges is no doubt at his best when directing his own films, there is no denying that this film owes everything to his quick-wit and talent for turning chaste Hollywood into something bawdy and unexpected. This film plays with expectations and misunderstandings wonderfully, highlighting a banker who cannot count and an innocent working girl who cannot say no, who’s paths cross by chance and both their lives change forever. I cannot say enough about Jean Arthur who is without a doubt one of the screen’s best comedians, even when she isn’t delivering dialogue, it’s difficult to take your eyes off her. Though this film feels more like a test run for Sullivan’s Travels and The Palm Beach Story, it’s no less one of the great screwballs of Hollywood’s golden age.

Faces (John Cassavetes, 1968)

Though far more of an ensemble piece, the strength of both Jeannie and Maria as characters, make the inclusion of this film essential. This film is not about Hollywood, though it easily could be, the posturing and the acting of everyday life are at the forefront diverting attention from the real life people hiding beneath. As one imagines an actor performing as an expressed desire of wanting to be loved, one can understand the characters in Faces as doing the very same. Instead of trying to please an audience they are working on individuals. Pleasing one man at a time, or one woman. Though the exterior is meant to appease to as many people as possible, the focus is very individual and the results always fleeting. We watch Gena Rowlands laugh and smile, and then we see a crack. A brief moment where she seems to pull her smile a bit, force it, because though laughing and singing, she’s broken inside. The most startling images though are of Lynn Carlin’s face as she’s washed away by the cold shower. All her make-up gone, and her hair flat and wet, she is startling beautiful… and incredibly vulnerable. The affectations she bears around everyone else disappear, as she is left with absolutely nothing but her life. It’s a moment of complete and utter dependability and vulnerability, one that she could never have wilfully consented to.

Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes, 2002)

Borrowing visually and thematically from Douglas Sirk, Todd Haynes brings to life a largely cinematic version of the 1950s, and the crisis that lie beyond the seamless facade. Cathy is the perfect housewife with the perfect life whose life suddenly spirals out of control when she interrupts her husband while he is kissing another man. In one full swoop, the fabric of her identity begins to crumble, as she not only questions her marriage but her happiness and the life she lives. She finds solace in a friendship with her African American gardener, who is an intelligent, charming and clever man. The social taboo of interracial relationships, and divorce prevents her from fully engaging but their relationship does continue to escalate emotionally. Julianne Moore delivers a career performance in the lead role, able to maintain the dignity and artificiality of the film’s needed stylistic embellishments, while offering a wide range of emotional and psychological depth.

Ginger Snaps (John Fawcett, 2000)

This darkly humorous horror film about two sisters who dread the prospect of being normal. Days after her sixteenth birthday, Ginger is attacked by a werewolf on a full moon, which happens simultaneous to her first period. The film equates the monstrosity of classic horror to the hormonal comings of womanhood, the alienation and binding quality it evokes in these young girls. Brigitte and Ginger are far from the typical horror or even cinematic heroines, and that’s a large part of why this film is so exciting. They are morbid, clever and creative, yearning to make their mark with the hopes of escaping their suburban nightmare, even if it means death. Few films capture the terror and pain of female adolescence as evocatively as this, and though my own experience was never as extreme as growing a tale, the film captures that angst and fearfulness better than any I’ve seen. The events that take place put the sisters lives on the line, forcing them to grow up and die. Brigitte’s growth from childhood into adulthood is especially strong, as she is forced to take on new responsibility and take charge of her identity, while Ginger’s more physical changes is not equated with the same mental and psychological development as her younger sister.

Gold Diggers of 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy, 1933)

Abstracting and celebrating the female form, Busby Berkeley’s eye opening and revolutionary choreography are at their best in Gold Diggers of 1933. Channelling the desperation of the depression, the film begins as a new Broadway show closes before it opens… a mouthful. Three chorus girls, no without jobs and a pay check search their minds for any source of income so they don’t starve or end up on the streets. Hearing the rumours that a new show is opening they head on down to the studio, but also help secure some backers money with their womanly charms. The film has the most effective plot and comedy of all the Berkeley musicals. The musical scenes themselves are stunning, most of them channelling a sort of escapist feeling that many people would go to the movies to see during the decade. The exception is Joan Blondell’s number My Forgotten Man, a mournful song about the World War One veterans who were now impoverished, on the street, forgotten and abused by society. This is also the movie that Bonnie watches in Bonnie and Clyde, picking up on the opening number “We’re in the Money”.

Gone With the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)

Scarlett O’Hara might be the biggest bitch the screen has ever seen, and that’s why this film is here. She would not let war or famine or sickness tear her down, and that’s not even touching on the numerous social conditions and expectations that oppressed women at the time. Scarlett lives on a plantation with her family, she is in love with a man named Ashley but soon finds out he is engaged to his cousin Melanie. Infuriated, Scarlett accepts to marry an uninteresting and frail young man who dies during the civil war. She gets married a few times, helps deliver a baby, escapes from a burning city before eventually deciding to marry Rhett Butler, the only man that could love her for who she is. Scarlett’s greed and stubbornness is what keeps her alive during the film, she may be a dislikeable character, but it’s difficult not to admire how she continually perseverance in face of the most difficult physical and emotional conditions. She is a survivor, more so than any other character in the film, though it’s only in those last few minutes that she truly comes to terms with this idea… understanding that she has the will to get whatever it is she wants, she just didn’t know what it was.

Grey Gardens (Ellen Hovde & Albert Maysles, 1975)

The only documentary on the list, Grey Gardens is the name of a decaying 28 room mansion where Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Edie Beale live. Aunt and cousin to Jacqueline Onassis, they both received a lot of press during the 1970s, as they are threatened with eviction unless they clean up their East Hampton home. Told in episodic vignettes, the film reveals the many layers to the two eccentric women’s lives as they ham up to the ever present lens. Both women hang on to their past, often harping about their lost opportunities, while also mindlessly hoping to return to the lives they dropped off decades ago. They live in complete squalor, secluded to a few rooms of their mansion that are filled with garbage and animal feces. Though constantly arguing, the two are protective of each other and untrusting of the outside world. Somewhat pitiful, but largely entertaining the two women seem to enjoy the attention of the lens. They tell their stories and perform their dances and songs as if they were in a Hollywood film. This film was followed decades later by The Beales of Grey Gardens (2006), which took footage unused in the first film, and assembled a further portrait of the two women. Also look out for a 2009 film based on the lives of these women starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange.

Hannah and her Sisters (Woody Allen, 1986)

Three sisters…I have two sisters, which means three daughters, which means three personalities and three different lives. Hannah and her Sisters is about three sisters, maybe not unlike how me and my sisters will grow up to be. There is Lee, the lover of Frederick, a much older artist. She is defined by her relationship with him, and he has shaped her into the woman she is now. Though, as the film begins the cracks are becoming evident, and the two are almost forced to acknowledge the fall of their relationship. Holly doesn’t know who she is, and her ambitions change with the wind. One day she is a writer, the next an actress… she can’t seem to decide. Finally there is Hannah, the perfect sibling that holds them all together. Unlike the other two, she seems to know who she is and what she wants. Nothing that’s perfect lasts though, and soon she sees even her marriage and life begin to fall apart. Like most Allen films, Hannah and her Sisters is quick witted, examining the many questions that drive our lives and our relationships, one of his best films.

Happy-Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh, 2008)

There is an underlying sadness in Poppy’s actions though, I think the conversation Poppy has with her sister, about being happy. Poppy says she is, and I’m willing to believe her… but at the same time, there is that quiver of doubt in her voice, it’s not an easy answer, and it’s not black and white either. I think it’s one moment, among a few others, where there is an unconscious revelation that Poppy is not always acting on pure impulse but is being very deliberate in her actions as a means of helping others. Also speaking to her friend Zoe, she’s told that she can’t make everyone happy, to which she answers, “There’s no harm in trying that Zoe, is there?”. Happy-Go-Lucky is the story of Poppy, a jubilant school teacher living in London who’s cheery demeanour exasperates as many as she charms.

Heathers (Michael Lehmann, 1988)

There are few people crueller than teenage girls, and Heathers exploits these cruel antics for one of the darkest teen comedies. The high school clique of popular girls at Westerberg High are three girls who all share the same first name. Recently they’ve been anointing a new member, the sharp and pretty Veronica who is not sure if being popular is worth the effort of spending time with these cruel and selfish teens. When she starts dating the dangerous, Jack Nicholson-esque Jason Dean, she soon realises she has to be careful what she says… because after wishing the Heather’s deaths, they soon start to show up dead. This film is full on 80s fashion and music, and has the absolutely charming Winona Ryder in the lead role. The film takes high school drama to new extremes, while also creating a thrilling and hilarious language that’s a delicious heightened interpretation of adolescent communications.

Hiroshima, mon amour (Alain Resnais, 1959)

Though the story of two lovers, Hiroshima, Mon Amour is more invested in the story of the woman than her male lover. Penned by writer/filmmaker Marguerite Duras, an actress is in Japan making a film about Peace, and she spends the night with a Japanese man she meets there. Something about him evokes her first love and she tells him the story of that first affair. Hiroshima, mon amour explores the nature of memory, especially in relation to time and place. Hiroshima as a location evokes a drastic global change, not only in the perception of life and death, but time itself. The woman’s own story is heartbreaking, breathtakingly feminine and self-sacrificing, and highlight’s the film’s strength in subjectivite storytelling.

House of Mirth (Terence Davies, 2000)

One of the greatest novels about the struggle of women translates beautifully to the big screen thanks to Gillian Anderson’s eye opening performance and Davies’ restrained direction. Lily Bart is a beautiful socialite reaching an age where she will no longer be young enough to catch a desirable wife to a wealthy husband. Her gambling puts her in debt, and a jealous rival ruins her reputation. The film chronicles how ill equipped women were for the work force, and for someone like Lily Bart who does not have enough money to support herself, nor the skills to take care of herself she feels herself dropping lower and lower on the social scale. A heartbreaking film that reveals the darker side of aristocracy, and the precarious nature of an unmarried woman in the early part of the 20th century.

‘I Know Where I’m Going!’ (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1945)

An understated and simple story about a young woman, Joan, who knows what she wants from life. She knows where she comes from, where she is and where she is going. She has decided to marry a wealthy industrialist at his home in Scotland, in a small place called Kiloran island. The weather strands her on a nearby island, Mull, where Joan meets a handsome naval officer Torquil McNeil. He entertains her stay at Mull, and she finds herself falling for his charming demeanour, though she continues to deny the impulses of her heart, insisting that she needs to get to Kiloran to meet her future husband. A beautiful film, it uses the beauty of the Scottish landscape and culture to highlight the beauty of impulse and the desires of the soul.

Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, 1959)

A box-office smash that was dismissed by critics as a melodramatic soap opera, Imitation of Life has enjoyed a resurgence among critics in recent years and is finally getting it’s due as one America’s best films. Sirk’s rigid formalism and grand emotions have to be seen to be believed, few filmmakers have fully exploited the tools of his craft to manipulate and stretch the potential of cinema. In 1947, Lora Meredith meets a fellow single mother, the black and unemployed Annie. Though also desperate, she hires Annie as a maid, and together they raise their young daughters in their small apartment. When Lora gets her career on the road they move into a bigger home, but the happiness of their early lives begin to fade away. Annie’s daughter Sarah Jane uses her fair skin to pass as white, resenting her black mother and her role as the daughter of a servant, while Lora becomes more and mores detached from her home life as she dedicates her life to her career. Sirk uses colour and mise-en-scene to emphasis Lora’s coldness and Annie’s warmth, while also heightening through his lavish style, the emotional pay-offs.

Inland Empire (David Lynch, 2006)

What is Inland Empire? At the very least it’s about an aging actresses’ crumbling reality in the face of a new film role. Lynch bends reality and objective perceptions in an exploration of the artistic process, and the pressures of the entertainment business for women. Laura Dern is Nikki Grace, an actress preparing for her next big role, a remake of a cursed Polish film. As filming starts, she starts to have doubts as to what is her real life, and what is her film work. Lynch explores old themes and motifs, like female sexuality and Hollywood values through his surreal and jarring visual style. Highlights include a rabbit sitcom, the locomotion and a red lamp.

Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray, 1954)

Often described as a camp classic, the title denies the film it’s passion and anger. The film’s central conflict pits two women against each other, the first is Vienna the owner of a saloon and the second, is Emma Small, the woman who wants her out of town. Headed by Small, the townsfolk pressure Vienna to leave town so that a railroad can be built, but the saloon owner stands tall, not allowing them to infringe on all her hard work. All the tension and action is centered on their hatred for each other, and though both in relationships with men, their repartee is often tinted with repressed and angry sexual politics. It’s rare to see two strong female presences on the screen, and though the two adopt in many ways the roles of men, they are both undeniably feminine.

Kill Bill Vol. 1 (Quentin Tarantino, 2003)

Tarantino’s muse, Uma Thurman, was born to be The Bride. Not quite beautiful but undeniably attractive, her height and confidence are perfectly suited for the role. Kill Bill Vol. 1 is a kinetic and exciting kung-fu revenge film, that is brought to life with Tarantino’s delicious pop art sensibility. The Bride wakes from a coma after being nearly murdered several years before, left for dead, her husband and baby killed, she decides to get her revenge by murdering the group of assassins that failed to finish the job several years before. More than your average female helmed chick flick, this film does not exploit the Bride’s sexuality and cement her very much as a woman, rather than a girl playing a boy’s part in a form fitting suit.

La Cérémonie (1995)

Often called the French Hitchcock, Claude Chabrol used the premise of thriller and mystery plots to explore fundamental human relationships. La Cérémonie is about an intimate friendship between two women that goes terribly wrong. The quiet and shy, Sophie, takes the job as a live-in maid at a country home. She does her job well, and manages to hide a crucial secret (or two) that threatens her livelyhood. It’s at this job where she meets the outgoing and stubborn Jeanne, a woman who works at the local post-office. Both women become close friends, but the influence of Jeanne soon begins to threaten Sophie’s work ethic, and her employers begin to think they may need to hire someone else. This film uses their friendship to explore systems and human power plays, on both personal and higher levels.

The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928)

In 1962, Anna Karina as Nana sits in a Paris theatre and watches The Passion of Joan of Arc. As the Saint prepares for her trial and death, tears run down her face, and Godard cuts to the crying Nana. From one cinematic saint to another, we see a changing world, and a changing view of women. What is still so striking about the Passion of Joan of Arc, is not about it’s religious inspiration, but about the beauty of humanity, especially the range of emotion and the power of human will. Joan’s decisiveness is met with accusations of witchcraft, and lunacy but as the audience, looking into her eyes you see the doubt and fear. She is not sure of her decision, she is only sure in her beliefs. Watch as her face turns to the heavens, imploring for a voice and guidance. This is a woman who communicated with God, who had guidance to lead the French to victory, and now at the time of her greatest need she hears nothing. The power of Maria Falconetti’s performance is enhanced by Dreyer’s adoring lens, keeping her face in almost constant close-up. This is perhaps the most harrowing and profound examinations of faith ever committed to celluloid, a truly unforgettable experience.

Last Summer (Frank Perry, 1969)

Last Summer is a surprising film that paints an honest portrait of adolescence. There is no cutesy nostalgia on display, but a wide range of changing and evolving emotions, a huge amount of insecurity and self-doubt and the wandering adventure of new experiences. The film begins as the story of a budding friendship between Sandy, Peter and Dan. They are on vacation on Long Island, and they have an entire summer ahead of them. Sandy is striking, and immediately draws the boys in. She is the same age as they are, but seems to exude confidence and intelligence. She seems older than she is, something that young woman almost always hold over young man. A fourth teen is introduced, one who seems immediately more vulnerable than the others. Her name is Sandy, and superficially, she is not as attractive as the others and she seems a great deal more insecure. As shy as Rhoda is, her loneliness motivates her to make herself the fourth member of their group. They accept her in part because she won’t go away, but also because they take a cruel pleasure in mocking and exploiting her. They accept her only on the condition that she reveals a great secret about her, and in one of the most stirring monologues I’ve ever seen on screen, she recounts her mother’s death by drowning. The film juxtaposes two adolescent stereotypes through their female characters, as a premise to explore the cruelty of human nature.

L’Avventura (Antonioni, 1960)

There is a huge concern for space in L’Avventura, an obsessive need to distance and alienate the characters through positioning. The land and surroundings often seem more alive than the characters, though serving equally as a metaphor for our cold, detached existence. Is life a series of repetitive and meaningless encounters? How can two islands meet, but for an accidental calling? When Claudia rings the bells in the church, purely by accident, she finds a strong joy in the response from a similar tower across. She looks over and rings again, met by yet another response. There is actually a small amount of joy that hangs around after this scene, even amidst moments of hopelessness. It seems to instigate passion, if only momentarily. She has made contact with the world, at last. Vicci’s beauty is as enduring as the spaces she occupies. Though modernity seems plagued with an indecisive impermanence, on celluloid her face occupies is immortalized. Is art the real key to immortality? Our only root passage into the future? If nothing’s meant to last, why can’t we hold onto those precious moments, instead lingering on the ones we’ve lost, or else the ones we’re going to lose. At it’s heart, this is a film about two women, one who is lost physically, the other emotionally… both trapped alone on their island, never able to escape.

Le Bonheur (Varda, 1965)

Le Bonheur examines in a provocative and singular way the effect of an affair on two women. Varda’s style is detached, filled with games and experimentation, highlighting the unpredictability of life. Francois is a young and handsome carpenter with a beautiful young wife and two beautiful young children. One day he meets Emilie, a girl who works at the post-office and they become lovers. It’s a film about a man who is perfectly happy, and he decides to marginalize his wife’s happiness so that he can have an affair. His mood rarely, if ever alters, but the effect is grim and cold. He destroys in his wife what was different than him… for a man constantly harping about his love for his wife and his mistress, the only thing he really loved or cared about was his own well being and happiness. It’s a film that only a woman could tell, using a great amount of irony and revealing a darker side of double standards. The film is eerily disturbing in it’s unwavering cheery tone.

Les Diaboliques (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955)

Reportedly Alfred Hitchcock wanted to buy the rights to this film, losing out to Clouzot by just a couple of hours. With that in mind, it should be no surprise that this is a thriller/horror with a murder at the core. The wife and mistress of a severe headmaster plot together to murder him and be free of his controlling nature. They set an elaborate plan that also involves ridding themselves of the body in the school pool. When unexpectedly the pool is drained several days later, they’re surprised when there is no corpse. Christina, his wife, is especially perturbed and she feels haunted by her dead husband at all times. The film quickly transforms into a tense psychological thriller, as we watch Christina become increasingly paranoid and increasingly frail. Even after death she is haunted and hounded by her sadistic husband, never able to escape his grasp.

Little Women (George Cukor, 1933)

The episodic nature of this adaptation of the classic novel of young girls coming of age during the civil war lends to a lived in feel, snippets of a life pasted together by a careful matriarch or a grandmother remembering moments of a lost childhood. It is the story of four sisters who are raised by their mother while their father fights during the civil war. We watch as they grow, taking on their identity and learning from the everyday experiences that shape them. It’s a film that’s singularly feminine, emphasizing the importance of the struggles and victories of the home life, and the fears and anxieties that pre-occupy a teenage mind. The film explores their virtues and vices, their healths and illnesses, and of course their failed and successful romances. It’s a beautiful film, one that you wouldn’t necessarily expect from the early 1930s. George Cukor, often noted as the best woman’s director of classic Hollywood, draws star making performances from all players in a cast that includes young Katharine Hepburn and Joan Bennett.

Madame de… (Max Ophuls, 1953)

One of the best directors of the lives of women, Max Ophuls’s best known film is Madame de… the story of a general’s wife who sells her earrings behind her husbands’ back, telling him that she lost them. He soon discovers her deceit and a series of terrible misunderstandings and duplicity begins. The Countess also falls in love with an Italian diplomat, a meeting of chance, and one that will change the course of her life. Like Ophuls’ other films, this emphasizes the circular nature of emotion and living, as well as the unpredictability of human emotion and the strong belief in chance and fate. The ever roaming and spinning camera channels all these ideas, bringing one night into the next because the lovers are only true alive when they are together, everything in between doesn’t exist, or at least doesn’t matter. The Countess’s evolution from spoiled and satisfied to humbled and selfless is an incredible transformation in such a short running time, but because of all of Ophuls’ flourishes and the belief in the transformative quality of true love, the film stands as one of the great screen romances.

Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola, 2006)

Coppola’s film about the Queen of France, captures effectively the frivolity of Versailles court without ever lampooning Marie Antoinette herself. It’s an interesting balance that reveals a very shallow and fruitless existence, but justifies audience sympathy through it’s characters aimless disappointment at their redundant existence. It is reflection of a generation of women lost in a world of glamour, not given anything to think or live for, only their appearance and their superficial needs. It’s fair to see that as a Queen, Marie Antoinette was ineffective and disconnected from the real plight of her suffering people, but she was never taught otherwise… she was raised to make babies, and enjoy a life of decadence in between. This is also a life without privacy or intimacy, as every torrid secret of her private life takes center stage, as her role as entertainer and breeder are of national interest. Coppola’s direction isolates Marie Antoinette from this world, setting up physical and visual metaphors that keep her disconnected from real feeling and real life. The one true key to reality is through her daughter, as Marie Antoinette suddenly has meaning. It’s not so much that she finally lives up to her duty as queen, but is inspired by life itself, and understands the true scope of her responsibility as a leader and mother.

Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli, 1944)

Instead of spectacle and wide ranging conflict, Minnelli’s decision to make a story of the experiences of one family and their everyday struggles truly innovative at the time of it’s release. . He introduced a new kind of musical, where the music is the expression of a emotional states rather than a means of spectacle and escape. The Smith family is a well off family living in St. Louis in 1904, one year before the World’s Fair, and the film’s conflict and drama comes with the everyday conflicts and tribulations that would plague any family. Are the daughters early enough to go to a dance on their own? A scraped knee, a forgotten chore, or a night of new experiences. Though the family ranges from young child to elderly grandfather, most of the film’s focus is on the three daughters, especially the two budding teens who are moving into young adulthood. It’s tender and emotional, nostalgic for memories of perfect childhoods that don’t quite exist. It is hardly a sugar coated look at family life, but the warmth and closeness that is felt in this home makes it seem as though the worst can happen and everything will still be okay.

Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945)

Perhaps Joan Crawford’s best performance, she is Mildred Pierce, a single mother whose husband just ran away with a woman he was having an affair with and is now left to raise her two young daughters on very little money. She dotes on her daughter, giving them everything she can afford, and more but this does not satisfy her eldest daughter, Veda. Even as a child, Veda complains about the lack of money and the apparently insufficient efforts of her mother. Mildred cannot see her daughter for who she is though, and takes the responsibility onto herself by opening a restaurant. Mildred finds success, but when her daughter pretends to be pregnant to extort money from a wealthy businessman, she banishes her from her life and becomes very unhappy. This is a film about a selfless mother, and a woman who raises herself up from nothing to be independent and self-sufficient. Her daughter, on the other hand, is probably one of the most repugnant and selfish characters the screen has ever seen. One of the few film noirs about mothers, it’s an exception well worth seeing.

Mother Joan of the Angels (Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1961)

Inspired by the supposed possession of the Loudou nuns in 1634, Mother Joan of the Angels tells the tale of a Mother Superior possessed by eight demons and the man who tries to save her. By the standards of modern films like the Exorcist, the trials and tribulations that Mother Joan and the sisters go through are rather tame. She doesn’t’t spew profanities, or vomit, or physically transform in any way… it casts a reasonable amount of doubt on the events, but also serves to remind the viewer that even dance and song are forbidden to a pious nun, making even the only nun untouched by evil, an exception that would raise an eyebrow or two. Mother Joan is an enigmatic woman, beautiful and commanding. Her strength is palpable, as is her frustration. She yearns for saintly perfection, but cannot achieve it. Instead she opens her heart and soul to demons, because if one cannot be a saint, we might as well be damned. There is a desire to be seen, to be loved, but her life in a convent prevents that. One even wonders how a woman so young, and clearly troubled could climb the ranks to become a Mother Superior, but I think this is intentional, a hint at her charismatic yearning to be remembered. Mother Joan of the Angels is a great story of unrequited love, romantic and otherwise, and great faith. It puts into question dogmatic practise and religious devotion and practise as repressive, and a shield against the pains and trials of the real world.

Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, 2001)

An intro that draws on a relatively obscure satire on Hollywood, Frank Tashlin’s 1956 film The Girl Can’t Help It, Lynch creates the premise of an unbalanced and unsure life of fraud and uncertainty. The colour of musicals, the appeal of LA and the bright eyes does of budding starlets. It’s a world of candy coloured scapes and dreams that come true, even murder seems little more than a game that people play. One without consequence and filled with romance. Something dark lies beneath the surface though and slowly the layers of illusion are peeled away. Lynch creates a world where reality is only an extension of the subjective mind, where dreams and nightmares are as real and as palpable as life itself. The film paints a dark look at the competitive nature of the Hollywood system, especially in it’s treatment and portrayal of women. The film feels right at home with Bergman’s Persona, as both bend even the lines between body and soul.

My Neighbor Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki, 1988)

Perhaps the best film made for children, My Neighbor Totoro does not rely on pitting children against adult, or on the traditional formulaic villains of most children’s classics. It’s the story of two young sisters who move with their father to a house in the country to be closer to the hospital where the mother is being treated for an undisclosed illness. Both under pre-adolescent, they don’t quite grasp the severity of the situation, but do understand the pain and sadness of the hospital, as well as an absent parental figure. Their day to day lives though, are sparkled with enormous joy and happiness. They are lively children, constant giggling and exploring the world around them. The youngest while exploring the nearby forest, discovers that it is inhabited by forest creatures and spirits and she soon befriends them. The spirits seem to be a guide of comfort for the young girls, bringing hope and alleviating fear in difficult and troublesome circumstances.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Hayao Miyazaki, 1984)

A film set in a dystopian future, where the world has been slowly destroyed by a toxic jungle caused by pollution and nuclear combat. Small pockets of humanity continue to exist, including the Valley of the Wind, where the unique meteorological conditions prevent the toxic spores from spreading. It’s here where Princess Nausicaa lives, a truly remarkable individual, she is a pacifist and believes in understanding the changed environment instead of railing against it. The valley is attacked by the Tolmekian people, who plan to raise “the great warriors”, that brought upon the terrors of the earth. Perhaps the best animated film ever made, it explores the nature of human conflict and our self-destructive nature. Nausicaa is presented as an intelligent, caring and almost matriarchal figure, an almost literal mother earth as she attempts to preserve the world and perhaps reverse the toxicity of the ever spreading jungle.

Nights of Cabiria (Federico Fellini, 1957)

The episodic journey of the Chaplinesque and naive prostitute, Cabiria, is one of Fellini’s best efforts. Cabiria is a streetwalker who leads an extraordinary life, during the span of several nights and days. Among other things, she nearly drowns, gets taken home by a movie star, gets hypnotized and meets a man who may love her for who she really is. Nights of Cabiria is as funny as it is heartbreaking, the story of a woman who doesn’t fit in, not even among the other whores. Many of the sequences see her nearly escape her life, for better or for worse, only to have her expectations dashed. What is so wonderful about her, is what seems like unwavering optimism, though with each day we begin to see cracks of vulnerability, dreams of a different life, stability and happiness. Giulietta Masina stars and delivers a brilliant and layered performance that ranks with Chaplin as the tramp. They both seem to touch on the same emotions and desires with those characters

Pandora’s Box (G.W. Pabst, 1929)

Men find Lulu irresistible, and she can’t help giving in. Unfortunately all the men she has romantic liaisons with meet an untimely demise. It’s never really her fault, and she can’t help it. It’s all in her nature, she’s a force to be reckoned with although she has no express desire to destroy. The film never suggests she’s evil, and in many ways it’s the men around her who are dumb, cruel and they bring their own doom. They treat her badly, and have made her what she is. Lulu is throughout the film a heroine, and the camera loves her like a goddess or a saint. Lulu is a young and beautiful woman who falls under the influence of powerful men, or more aptly… they fall under her spell. She has a huge control over their lives, though her naivety seems to suggest that she is unaware or passive to her manipulative quality and passion. Like Diary of a Lost Girl, Pabst shows how society demonizes and victimizes women. The film’s title referring to the Grecian myth of Pandora, the woman who unleashed all the evils of onto the world, is mostly ironic, a twist on common conceptions about gender identity and culpability. An interesting note is that the film also features what is commonly believed as the screen’s first lesbian character, and like Lulu, she is seen in a light of adoration as opposed to cruel condemnation. It’s interesting that a film decades before the sexual revolution and the rise of feminism, offers such an enlightened view on women and non-traditional sexuality (both same sex relationships, casual sex and even prostitution).

Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975)

An eerie dream-like film about the disappearance of three students and a teacher at hanging rock in Australia. The film is set at the turn of the century, a group of students from a very strict girl’s boarding school go on a picnic at the famed hanging rock. During an afternoon nap, some girls and a teacher disappear into the rock. First an accident is suspected, but eventually the blame shifts on some men, apparent the last people to see the girl’s. Few films are as eerie or as disturbing as this, it’s filled with tension and mysteries of an ancient world. Though subtle, the film is very much about female sexuality, the lure of the virgin and the fear of strong female friendships. The film is deliberate and visually repetitive, scenes and sequences are repeated, and even liberal use of slow motion to deify these girls. The focus on their garments, and movement. How limited they are by their conservative dress, and how freeing it is to abandon their skirt or even their shoes. The rumour that the teacher disappeared in only her underwear was more of a scandal than her missing body. The rock itself is presented as something otherworldly, and more than just disappearing into thin air, it’s as if they’ve retreated back to the earth.

Queen Christina (Rouben Mamoulian, 1933)

There was a time when Greta Garbo was one of the biggest stars in the world, second only to perhaps Charlie Chaplin. Though there are still many of her films I personally need to see, in my experience, this is her greatest film and her greatest performance. Bringing to life the androgynous Queen Christina of Sweden, Garbo brings strength and a commanding dignity to one of Europe’s greatest Queens. During her reign Sweden became a dominant force in Europe, notably because of it’s involvement in the 30 year war. The film though, is more focused on her political marriage and affair with an emissary from Spain. The film handles sexuality in a very fluid way, inviting a huge amount of homosexual subtext. From the famed lip to lip kiss between Christina and a female servant, and the palpable homosexual attraction between herself and Antonio when he believes her to be a man, the film uses the subversion of traditional relationships to complicate our understanding of traditional female roles. The film is notable especially for it’s remarkably powerful final shot.

Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme, 2008)

The film begins as Kym is released from rehab for drugs, this is one of the many she has been in over the course of a decade. Instead of returning home to the peace and comfort of family, she is forced to reckon with her sister Rachel’s imminent wedding. The film is very much about the relationship between three female family members, Kym, her sister, Rachel and their mother, Abby. Kym is very much the black sheep of the family, a drug addict with no apparent affinity for music. She harbours a huge amount of guilt over a childhood accident, and it seems her family hasn’t been able to forgive her either. Kym’s hectic and self-destructive nature has made Rachel feel neglected, and she sees her wedding as an opportunity for the attention to be finally focused on her, and her success. It’s no surprise that the two clash, unable and unwilling to accommodate or understand the other. The mother fits in as the person who doesn’t fit in, the one who pretends nothing wrong and runs away when things get too difficult to ignore. A heart wrenching film, it’s very much about relationships, especially within families and between sisters.

Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965)

Carol is a beautiful Belgian girl working in a London salon as a manicurist. She lives at home with her sister and her boyfriend in a small apartment. One day while having lunch, a handsome man approaches her and asks her out. She rebuffs him and runs away, a pattern is being developed. When her sister and boyfriend go on a short vacation, she becomes ill, and is terrorized by hallucinations of cracking walls and a bear like figure that rapes her. Day after day she falls deeper into madness, and barely leaves her apartment. Basically a one woman show, the film is a deeply disturbing psychological thriller about a woman grappling with her confused sexuality. Repulsed and attracted by men, her repression boils into violence.

Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953)

Princess Ann is on a tour of Europe, her life is heavily regimented and she has little freedom to establish her individual idenity. One night, she sneaks out of her room to explore Rome, but things don’t go quite as she expected. She is found by American journalist Joe Bradley, who finds her a place to sleep for the night, and promises to show her the city. The film rides heavily on the charms of Audrey Hepburn, who is effortlessly youthful and enthusiastic. The 24 hours they spend discovering Rome is magical, and watching the two fall for each other makes for one of the best romances the screen has ever seen. The film depicts the transformation of a woman, we see her letting loose and finding who she is. The film features and unexpected ending, absolutely bittersweet.

Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968)

The middle entry in Roman Polanski’s Apartment Trilogy, Rosemary’s Baby is about a young couple that moves into a new apartment, and shortly thereafter, Rosemary becomes pregnant. The circumstances are strange, as the night of conception Rosemary has strange dreams of herself being raped by a demon as neighbours hold her down. When she awakes, the revelation was that it wasn’t a demon, but rather her husband who didn’t want to miss a night of copulation because of their desire to have children. The film is very much about all the fears and doubts that come with pregnancy, that things don’t always go well, or that something is amiss. Their is even that distrust of those around you that perhaps they don’t have the best intentions in mind, and the film even ventures into a sort of post-partum exploration of the aftermath. Mia Farrow is incredible in the lead role, she looks so incredibly fragile and delicate, but doesn’t let that hold her back when she really is in fear for her and her baby’s life.

Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock, 1943)

Though Alfred Hitchcock was never short on female roles in his films, their presence and portrayal was always somewhat problematic. They were idealized and cold, often suffered at the hands of villains and men. There are some exceptions, like Grace Kelly in Rear Window (more or less), and of course Charlie in Shadow of a Doubt. Young Charlie, brought to life by Teresa Wright, stands out in his filmography as a strong, capable and intelligent woman. She is not the most beautiful of his leads, nor does she aspire to be. She also lacks that femme fatale attitude that draws men in, she seems refreshingly human and without ulterior motive. Perhaps it’s her age, too young to be tossed around by life, she is still trusting and confidant. The film is about the visit of an uncle, who she adores, but soon begins to suspect is a serial killer. She is extremely clever, and evolves emotionally over the course of the film, as she comes to understand the value of life and family.

Silkwood (Mike Nichols, 1983)

Based on the true story of Karen Silkwood, an employee at a Nuclear facility who tried to expose the dangerous safety violations at the plant. By Hollywood standards, Karen Silkwood is not the ideal feminine hero. She lives in sin with her boyfriend, has two children but doesn’t have full custody, and drinks, swears and smokes. However, her empathy and desire for change motivates her to take on the corporate power in seek of change. It’s not a desire for more money or shorter hours, it’s for the fundamental right for safety in the workplace. Her friends are getting contaminated, some of which, are dying of cancer. She herself is exposed numerous times, and even begins to suspect it might be purposeful. The film is very much focused on Karen’s drive, her ambition and the birth of an activist. This is perhaps Streep’s strongest performance, as she brings real weight and life to the character. The interactions between the three (eventually four) occupants of the little house are also fascinating, and we get a great cross-section of interpersonal relationships and the outside pursuits of the character’s interfering with that life.

Spirit of the Beehive (Víctor Erice, 1973)

An all-together magical film about a young girl, Ana, growing up in rural Spanish town during the Spanish Civil War. One day she watches the 1931 Frankenstein film in the village, and is profoundly affected by the film’s imagery and story. She begins questioning her older sister on issues of life and death, and begins to fall deep into a world of fantasy. Her older sister both indulges and exploits this fascination, telling her sister the monster is not dead, but lives as a spirit that is in a nearby barn. She also plays on her sister’s fear of death in several truly surprising and disturbing sequences. Ana eventually discovers a wounded loyalist soldier living in the barn where she believes Frankenstein lives, and thinks he is the monster. However, instead of running away, she decides to take care of him, very much at the peril of her own life.

Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)

Another film where a child disappears into a fantasy world, the young Chihiro, are moving to a new house in a new town. Chihiro is unhappy because she is leaving all her friends behind and resent’s what she perceives as her parent’s selfishness. Along the way they stop at what appears to be an abandoned amusement park, and her parents soon stuff their faces with food, only to turn into oversized pigs as the sun sets. The amusement park comes to life with spirits and creatures when night falls and Chihiro tries to escape but cannot. In her attempt to escape she ends up working for the bathhouse while she attempts to find a way to break the spell that has imprisoned her parents in the body of gluttonies pigs. A wildly imaginative film, it channels the understanding of the world from a child’s POV.

State Fair (Walter Lang, 1945)

State Fair is not one of the all time great musicals, but it’s one of the tender, sweet ones that Minnelli had pioneered just a year before. It’s not about spectacle, riches or stage, it’s about family and the lives of every day people. The magic and tribulations of every day life. Not much happens in the film, at least not in terms of action, emotionally we run through what feels like a lifetime of emotions and every one of them is as sweet and sincere as the last. Living the small time life is leaving young Margy yearning for more. She has the affection of a kind, but boring young man, who she is expected to marry one day and live the same life her mother did. When they go to the State Fair she meets a big city reporter, and they fall in love. A film of strong emotions, the doubt that this is only a short venture that will only leave her more unhappy with her life.

Stella Dallas (King Vidor, 1937)

Stella Dallas uses all her feminine talents to marry up in life in hopes of living the life of luxury. Her husband has a much different idea as to what their relationship should be, and frowns upon her uncouth behaviour and disregard for his personal values. When she has a child to appease him, her life takes on a major change, as she soon finds all her joy from taking care of her daughter. The pair divorce, but thanks to child support and Stella’s care, her daughter Laurel gets the best possible upbringing. Few films show a mother as dedicated and passionate about their child’s life as this, though rough around the edges, Stella Dallas is probably everything a parent should be. The film reaches emotionally shattering proportions when Stella comes to a heartbreaking decision as to what sacrifice she must make in order to make her daughter truly happy in life.

The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)

Melanie Daniels is a socialite who gets what she wants in life, even men. While buying some birds in a pet shop, she meets a man who she decides she must have, and even goes so far as to track him down in an obscure bay city along the cost of California. Though she meant to only take a day trip, she is sidetracked in the town where strange things start happening. It also starts with a surprise collision with a seagull while on a boat. This sets into motion a strange events, as birds all over town start attacking people for seemingly no reason whatsoever. A sort of apocalyptic film, The Birds is very much about female sexuality and relationships. It’s Melanie’s apparent feminine sexuality and modernity that sets in motion the attacks, however, and it seems to be an attack on her very way of life. In a revealing exchange, one character chimes, “Back to your gilded cage Melanie Daniels”, referencing a painting by Evelyn De Morgan, that serves as an allegory for female captivity. The violence railed against Melanie quite literally tears her down, in a sequence that has been compared to a kind of rape. By the end, she is a frail shadow, and calm is restored… at least temporarily.

The Curse of the Cat People (Gunther von Fritsch & Robert Wise, 1944)

It can hardly be called a sequel or even a horror film, but the Curse of the Cat People is perhaps the best Val Lewton’s best film… and his strangest. The only thing that connects this film to it’s more famous predecessor is that we see the two lovebirds from the first film married, and now with a child. Their daughter, Amy, is an extremely imaginative and neurotic child who struggles differentiating her fantasies from reality. She has no friends, and is often teased, even her father thinks she is strange, and fights constantly to make her “normal”. Amy is not completely alone though, she has an imaginary friend, who just so happens to be her father’s dead wife Irena, and an aging actress who lives in an old mansion. The film is very much about a struggle for normality, at least on the part of the parents. They cannot seem to handle the idea that their daughter is not like all the other children, and even fear that perhaps she will be like Irena… who in the first film, because a symbol for “otherness” and a dangerous feminine presence.

The Double Life of Veronique (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1991)

The beautiful film about two women living in two different cities, with two different lives, but are inexplicably connected by something beyond common understanding. They seem to feel and breath the same air, the same emotions, and even have the same passions. Reflective surfaces emphasize the fragmented nature of their souls, and lives, and the eventual break in their connection. The film is very much about the delicacy and interwoven nature of human relationships, how we are inexplicably drawn to other people, even those we may never even meet. Veronique is a woman of strong passions and her sudden decision to drop her career in music leaves everyone baffled. Even she is unsure of what it means, and she seeks to find the answer to the emptiness in her life. This film defies words and explanation, relying instead on strong emotions and strong images.

The Heiress (Wyler, 1949)

Catherine Sloper is a naive and fragile young woman who lives with her domineering father who won’t let her take control of her life. Her personality seems appropriately subdued and muted in face of the grand personalities that surround her. However, at a local get-together, Catherine is wooed and seduced by a handsome and caring gentlemen, Morris Townsend. Her father is suspicious of the courting because his daughter is by his own account plain and uninteresting, he believes the young man only wants her money. Despite her father’s fears, she persists, and this only drives her father to take matters into his own hands. The film is shot with claustrophobic and alienating deep focus, that seems to both tighten the space and push away the figures in the shot. Few characters are allowed to flourish and evolve like Catherine, in what is perhaps Olivia De Havilland’s best screen performance. She is by all accounts a weak person, but through a series of trials and tribulations, is forced to affirm her identity.

The House that Screamed (Narciso Ibáñez Serrador, 1969)

A Spanish horror film set at an all girl’s reform school, Theresa is a new student with a sordid past who soon realises something is amiss in the school. It’s clear from the onset that conventional methods of discipline are not being used in the school, and the students who “run away”, may actually be disappearing. The film it at it’s best when the students are interacting with each other, playing power games in a sort of mock hierarchy. There is a huge amount of sexual tension between the students, and it plays within these roles of power. The film takes a rather subdued approach to a persisting fascination with female sexuality, and female relationships in art. It seems to be especially prominent in horror films, where female desires and anatomy are often the source of the horror itself.

The Misfits (John Huston, 1961)

Though more of an ensemble piece, the film is centered on Roslyn, a voluptuous woman, who is in Reno to get a divorce. Here she meets Guido and Gay who invite her to visit their house in the country. Infatuated at first by her beauty, the two soon fall in love with her, and fight mental games to win her affections. Another character is introduced, the broken down, Perce, who doesn’t quite fall for Roslyn but appreciates her almost motherly doting on his fragile body and soul. The film does live up to it’s title, in that, these are people who for one reason or another are not comfortable in the real world. They take refuge in the country so they can be who they are, without the pressures and expectations of normal society. Their relationships reach an intense catalyst when they go to the mountains to catch some wild mustangs.

The New World (Terrence Malick, 2005)

When we first meet Pocahontas, she is little more than a teenager, and by the time she dies, she is just barely a woman. From blissful ignorance, to that first love, and the eventual abandonment of her family, to the creation of her own, she experiences a lifetime and more of love, relationships and change in just a handful of years. The film is about the clashing of worlds. More than just the discovery of North America by the Europeans, it’s about the encounter and understanding of new experiences, feelings and settings. About how suddenly, a relationship or thought or experience, can complete transform how one understands what surrounds us; our very existence. It’s an incredible journey into the emotional development of a young woman, and one of the most beautiful films ever made.

The Nun’s Story (Fred Zinnemann, 1959)

In 1930 Gabrielle Van Der Mal decides to give up everything she has to become a nun. This means forsaking not only her possessions and family, but even her name, dreams and desires. Her journey is filled with doubt and temptation, as perhaps her desires for cloistered life are motivated not for her dedication to God, but her own wants and desires to pursue a medical profession. She constantly battles with her vows, struggling to remain loyal, chaste, and impoverished, but continues to persist for many years. Her greatest struggle though, is perhaps, a battle with humility. She is too proud to let her talents and identity slip away, which is against the very nature of convent life. When she finally is sent for missionary work in Congo as a medical assistant, she is able to live her dream, but she cannot escape all the fears and doubts as she finds herself attracted to the Doctor there. The film shows a much less romanticized vision of the life of a nun, focusing on the many struggles it brings, as well as how innately unnatural this life is.

The Piano (Jane Campion, 1993)

The Piano is a film as much about passion as it is about love. Though sometimes used interchangeably, the words have different meanings and are explored thoroughly in this film. Holly Hunter plays a mute, Ada, who had the resolve as a six year old to never speak again, and lives her life through her unwavering passions. Her greatest love is her piano: not only her voice, but a reflection of her very soul. People can’t help commenting on her playing, calling it unnatural and penetrating. It disturbs them that someone’s playing could possibly have such an effect on their body and mind. She arrives in New Zealand to meet her husband to be, but she reviles him and all he represents. Her passion attracts a worker, George, who tries to win over her love through her piano. The film demonstrates a strong appreciation for Ada’s strength as a human being, and her resolve, as well as showcasing a relationship built on mutual respect and appreciation. It might have somewhat shaky beginnings, but that is soon rejected because George realises this is just not the right approach to relationships.

The Reckless Moment (Max Ophuls, 1949)

Lucia is far from the prototypical mother figure of the screen. She is cold, distant and even awkward. Her relationship with her children, though not strained, is difficult because of her nature. However, when she discovers her daughter might have murdered a man, she does her best to conceal the evidence, including the body. Things don’t work out as cleanly as she would hope though, and soon she is being blackmailed by an Irish gangster, Martin Donnelly. The film is a fusion between film noir, romance and melodrama. It makes the best of Ophul’s talents in an American setting, using chaotic relationships and chance meetings for one of the very best films of the year. The attraction between Lucia and Donnelly is undeniable, and it complicates the nature of their criminal “relationship”. The film is also very much about the relationship between mother and daughter, and Lucia’s yearning for a husband that is never home.

The Red Shoes (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1948)

A loose adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale of the same name, The Red Shoes is about the struggle between love and art, and it’s effects on Victoria Page, a young dancer. Told in broad strokes, the film maintains it’s fairy tale beginnings in the sweeping theatricality of the visuals and the broad emotions that mask the conflicting and complicated true nature of it’s characters. The urgency of Page’s need for decision is pulled against the two men in her life, one who wants her to give up her dreams for love, and the other who won’t let her love because it will compromise her art. Though logic dictates a healthy balance would be necessary, the nature of the circumstances doesn’t allow this. This is a film about life’s greatest passions, and the greatest struggles of the artist.

The Scarlet Empress (Josef von Sternberg, 1934)

Of all of Josef von Sternberg’s collaborations with Marlene Dietrich, this is perhaps the most opulent and fetishism of all his work. The extravagant nature of royalty suits his baroque sensibilities, and Dietrich, as the soon to be Catherine the Great drifts through this world as a centerpiece of it’s excesses. The film begins as the young Princess Sophia of Germany is brought to Russia to wed the mad Grand Duke Peter, son of the Empress. She has no choice in the matter, and is soon brought into a marriage without love or affection. It’s here where the inklings of greatness are born, where she is forced to take charge of life, and disregard the rules are regulations that hold her back. She uses her beauty and charm to find men and power, and soon has the army on her side. When the Empress dies and her half witted husband becomes Emperor, she uses her influence and power to stage a coup d’etat to win her power over Russia.

The Secret Garden (Agnieszka Holland, 1993)

A brilliant adaptation of the classic children’s novel, The Secret Garden is the story of the newly orphaned Mary Lennox, who is sent to England to live with her uncle. She is a strange child, lonely and forgotten, her childhood was neglectful as her parents were more concerned with their parties and superficiality to pay her any attention. Mary Lennox even remarks she doesn’t know how to cry, as she is so cold and detached from the world that she was brought into. Things don’t change much when brought to live in her Uncle’s castle. She is still alone, her uncle doesn’t want her, and there are no children to play with. Even the servants that surrounded her while she was raised in India, are gone, replaced by the cold European servants who are not capable of serving her every whim. A distraction within the castle, she is sent outside where she meets Dickon, a boy with an affinity for animals who teaches her the nature of wildlife and the gardens. The film progresses as Mary finds the mystery of the castle and is reborn as a child, through the discovery of the secret garden that belonged to her mother and aunt.

The Secret of NIMH (Don Bluth, 1982)

Mrs. Brisby, a field mouse, has a very ill son, and since they will be forced to move soon because of the harvest. She seeks help from a local mouse who seems to run a sort of apothecary, but it is no use and she is sent on a much deeper journey that takes she could have never expected. It’s one of the most adult children’s films I’ve ever seen, disregarding the fantasy of the Utopian visions of Disney for a harsh reality that perhaps is closer to that of the children watching the film’s. It even goes so far as exploring the dangers and cruelty of animal testing, something completely unexpected in a film of this type. Mrs. Brisby is an extremely strong female figure, using her intelligence and endurance to save the lives of her children, while also expanding her understanding of the world she lives in.

The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991)

Clarice Starling is a young FBI trainee who is assigned an interview with the famed Dr. Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter, who turns to help her find clues as to who may be the “Buffalo Bill” serial killer. Treading a fine line between thriller and horror, the film is very much about the torture Clarice endures by her own and Lecter’s mind. Her struggles to prove herself in a world of men are continual, as she feels the need not only to meet the status quo, but exceed all and any expectations that she is faced with. She is also pulled by her femininity, as the men that surround her still see her as a sexual object, and as usual, she fights with the idea that she could potentially use that to her advantage. Lecter plays on those insecurities, and teases her about grappling in the back seats of cars with boys, and a history of her sexual life. The film gets under your skin, revealing all of our insecurities, especially perhaps that of women trying to make it in male professions and atmospheres.

The Smiling Madame Beudet (Germaine Dulac, 1923)

The Smiling Madame Beudet, is known by many to be the prototype of feminist cinema. Directed by female director, Germaine Dulac, the film explores the role of the woman within society, especially the confined role of the domestic wife. Dulac is categorized by most scholars as an impressionist director, the style emphasizes the subjectivity of cinema, focusing on the emotional and psychological interpretation of events, rather than the rational and objective ones. Told from the point of view of Madame Beudet, the film uses extensive symbolism and fantasy to express the frustration of her circumstances. Married to a brutish and crude man, Madame Beudet’s only comforts are her piano, and imagination. However, even the freedom of her music is controlled by her husband. He not only has the key to her piano, but during a short sequence, mocks her impassionate playing to a friend, using it as grounds for “male-bonding”. The abuse she suffers, is almost entirely psychological, as every aspect of her life is controlled and monitored. She is confined to the interior, which is classically the world of women. An especially common metaphor in pre-1970s art, the world of women is manifested as the world of domestication and the home.

Stage Door (Gregory La Cava, 1937)

A cast compromised almost entirely of women, Stage Door is set in a boarding house filled with aspiring actresses just waiting for their breakthrough role. When Terry Randall comes to live with them, she realises that she doesn’t fit in, because of her socialite background and the wealth of her family. The film is part comedy and part drama, and you can expect all the 1930s stereotypes in full force. However, at it’s heart, this is a film about female friendship and the pains of success… it also sheds an unhappy light on the nature of poverty, especially through Kay Hamilton, perhaps the most talented of the actors, and also the poorest. The film is very much about the struggles of the entertainment business for women, the manipulation and how the cost of success usually lies in how far they’re willing to go with lecherous producers.

The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola, 2000)

I don’t think there is anyone to blame in the Virgin Suicides. Not the girls, not their parents, not Trip or any of the other boys. Coppola never tries to put blame, she never tries to sensationalize (although there is no doubt the media does). The reason is essentially unimportant, as it’s the idea of the Lisbon girls and the imaginary world of adolescence that sustains and drives the film. Like most of Coppola’s work, the film is driven my mood and atmosphere rather than plot or character, and in the end the film feels more like a dream than a true account of a tragedy that strikes a small town, which is exactly what it should be. The boys fascination with the Lisbon girls is immortalized by their suicide. Like many cult heroes of today (namely James Dean), they are preserved forever in a youthful, idealized state. They are the image of innocence and youth, and in this they lose their sense of humanity. Reflecting over the film, the only daughter who stands out is Lux. The others symbolically, are almost nameless and shadows… while Lux is beyond human. She is the image of beauty, youth and passion; she’s every boy’s dream girl. She’s not robbed of emotion, but she is robbed of personality and true distinction. * Revision, the youngest sister is also given a significant role, not only through her first suicide but through her journals.

The Wind (Victor Sjöström, 1928)

Letty moves from to West Texas from the East to live with relatives. Charming and modern, her attitude towards interpersonal interactions and relationships is upsetting to many, as the woman see her as something of a harlot and the men are drawn in by her “sex appeal” (it’s strange to describe Letty, or even Gish, as sexy… but essentially, that’s what it comes down to). The physical atmosphere weighs heavily on her, the wind is always blowing, and the sand beating at her. Her small frame seems positively miniscule in the large barren land, and she seems even more insignificant than she is perceived to be. She is unable to remain single and relationships and marriage are constantly pushed on her, and that combined with the elemental framing eventually drive her mad. The film in it’s current state has an alternative ending from the original that is not nearly as bleak as it was intended to be, but the film still packs a punch.

The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939)

This film has worked itself so completely into 20th century lore and culture, it almost seems redundant to repeat the plot. Nonetheless, I’ll indulge the few who have managed to avoid it for all these years, Dorothy Gale lives in Kansas with her aunt, uncle and dog, Toto. She is tired of the mundane and grey life of the farm, and yearns for something greater, a life “over the rainbow”. During a twister, she is knocked out and when she wakes up her house has been pulled into the storm, and is dropped into the magical land of Oz. Contrary to her initial desires, Dorothy spends her entire time in this magical place yearning for home and family. The film channels the innocent imagination of a child, with the exaggerated, but nonetheless palpable fears of villains. Dorothy has always struck me as the prototype of childhood femininity, she is a bit of a tomboy, an adventurer and a dreamer, but is nonetheless very attached to the idea of her familial responsibility and love.

Theodora Goes Wild (Richard Boleslawski, 1936)

There is a scandal in small time America! The best-selling novel in the country is the racy and scandalous pulp, “The Sinner”, and the small town prudes want it banned! Little do they know, the town’s goody two shoes, is the author working under a pen name. When Theodora goes to town to collect her pay check, she is met by jacket illustrator who infiltrates her charade and threatens to expose the whole thing, unfortunately for him, he has some skeletons he would have rather kept in the closet too… Theodora Goes Wild is very much about the wish fulfillment novels and entertainment that dominate an industry for the greater part of the twentieth century. Women were working from home, raising families but led their own double lives through the stories they read and saw on the screen. The film extrapolates this abstract idea, making it concrete, while also pointing a finger at the hypocrisy involved in the outrage.

To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962)

Based on the classic American novel written by Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird brings to life the memories of a woman reflecting on her childhood, especially her relationship with her father. Told from a child’s eye view, Scout is the narrator and the world is experienced through her eyes. The film takes on a nostalgic, but no less affecting look at depression era Alabama at a time of great tension. Her, her brother, Jem and their friend, Dill, spend their days around their neighbourhood on imaginary adventures inspired by the lore of the area, especially centered on the mysterious shut-in Boo Radley. Concurrently, their father is defending a black man accused of rape, an action that draws the ire of the townspeople against their family. Though not as good as the novel, the film channels very much the childlike reverence for the father figure, as well as the building of experiences in the pivotal years of development that leads to newfound maturity and conclusions on the part of Scout.

Trois Couleurs: Rouge (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1994)

Valentine Dussaut is a beautiful model living in Switzerland. One day she hits a dog, and searches all over for the owner. She discovers that it belongs to a bitter, retired judge to eavesdrops on the conversations for his neighbours to feed his disdain for humanity. Much like Kieslowski’s other films, the overlying idea of Red is our interconnectedness. How every human being is tied to another, how chance brings some together, and pulls us apart… or even how people we never have met, or may never meet still affect us on some level. The budding friendship and relationship between Valentine and the judge lead to many discussions about the nature of people, and the very meaning of our lives and interactions. Valentine makes a strong central figure to the film, beautiful and appealing, but still somehow aloof, though connected to the emotional needs of those around her.

Vivre Sa Vie (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962)

One of Godard’s most affecting and harshest criticism of the Hollywood attitude towards actors, he equates the female screen presence with prostitution through the sympathetic and tragic Nana. Told in twelve “chapter”, the film chronicles the quick decent into prostitution and depravity that Nana encounters as she attempts to become an actress, as well as her eventual demise. The episodic nature of the film highlights different ideas and emotions that seem pivotal to Godard’s greater statements, and the film is one of his most personable. Perhaps the film’s pivotal sequence is when Nana is in a theatre, and she is watching La Passion de Jeanne D’Arc, and begins to weep just as a tear runs down the face of the Saint. In that moment, Godard is equating a new saintly opportunity for women, one that is not chaste, that is not perfect, but is filled with the same doubt and condemnation.

Volver (Pedro Almodovar, 2006)

The pulpy, melodramatic and colourful story about women taking care of themselves in a small Spanish town. Raimunda lives with her daughter in a small apartment, but one day comes home to find her husband murdered, by her daughter no less! In a drunken stupor, he tried to rape her, so Raimunda helps her daughter dispose of the body. Meanwhile her sister, a hairdresser who works from home, finds herself with an unexpected guest from beyond the grave. Though the film paints men in quite a negative light for the most part, the nature of the melodrama almost justifies the one-sided look at gender, and there are still some bright lights. The film is filled with vivacious and larger than life whose flaws are as big as their hair. The generational bonds of womanhood are particularly potent, as the mistakes of previous generations live on, and are relived, but the bonds of female friendship and family hold everything together.

Walkabout (Nicholas Roeg, 1971)

Abandoned by her father in the Australian outback, a teenaged girl is forced to grapple with the elements and find civilization with her younger brother in toe. Not very quick to adapt to the new environment, she is forced to regress according to social standards, in order to survive. The film maps her loss of innocence, on the level of blissful ignorance and her growing sexual feelings. On their journey they meet an aboriginal on a “walkabout”, which is a ritualistic return to nature as a means of survival, an important tradition in going from childhood into adulthood in that culture. Very much about yearning, practicality and communication, the two worlds meet on the same journey, and eventually conclude under similar circumstances. There is a physical death, and the spiritual one… both destroyed under the circumstance of hopelessness in face of a changing world.

Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, 2008)

Wendy and Lucy seems right out of the neo-realist movement, even with little press or attention, the comparisons between it and De Sica’s Umberto D have been noted on several occasions. The plot and style is similar, but it’s really the empathy for society’s down-trodden that cements the link between time. Wendy is a young woman on her way to Alaska who has just several hundred dollars, and her dog. Stopping through a small town, her car breaks down, she’s arrested and she loses her dog, Lucy. The film is understated and heartbreaking, showcasing Michelle Williams in what may be the performance of 2008. Wendy and Lucy paints a bleak portrait of American life, one that has more closed doors than open ones. Without a home or a phone, there is no way for Wendy to get a job, and as a lone friend (a security guard muses), without a job it’s impossible to find a job. Amidst a current economic crisis, it’s not difficult to imagine how many lost souls like Wendy are wandering the country looking for work. Reaching to Alaska as an opportunity because they “need people”. The film is more than just about economic hardships, but the emotional and psychological effects of being a societal outcast.

Whisper of the Heart (Yoshifumi Kondo, 1995)

Whisper of the Heart is not simply the story of young love, it is that of the very first spark of emotion felt between two people. It’s confusing, frustrating and exciting. The characters are not searching for love but stumble across it, and without the benefit of time or experience they’re more willing to open up their hearts, without fear of rejection or betrayal. A young girl, probably in middle school, lives her life through the novels she reads. She discovers that a boy has taken out all of the same books and tries to find him, meanwhile she meets an infuriating young man, who eventually turns out to be the very same “Prince of the Books”! The film reaches an emotional climax as Youko Honna asks the boy to play some violin for her, and then joins in to sing. It’s a perfect moment of youthful curiosity, and while the equation of music or art with love is hardly a new one, perhaps there has never been a moment so ecstatically innocent or perfect, capturing the joy and infectious nature of discovery and passion.

Window Water Baby Moving (Stan Brakhage, 1962)

It only seems appropriate to cap off the list with the great “beginning” child birth. The only short film on the list, Window Water Moving Baby is the short experimental film about the birth of Stan Brackhage’s first child. Though graphic in nature, the film is warm and loving, painting childbirth with an almost ethereal appreciation that one could never have expected from a film of this nature. The framing of his adoration for his wife and her beauty, makes even the physical birth very sincere and inspiring, holding a great deal of magic and almost religious reverence for womanhood. This is perhaps the most personal film ever brought to the screen, it’s the film of birth and of life itself.

Random Stats

Most Represented Directors
Agnes Varda (3)
Hayao Miyazaki (3)
Powell & Pressburger (3)
Alfred Hitchcock (2)
David Lynch (2)
Douglas Sirk (2)
Elia Kazan (2)
Jean-Luc Godard (2)
Jonathan Demme (2)
Krzysztof Kieslowski (2)
Luis Bunuel (2)
Max Ophuls (2)
Roman Polanski (2)
Sofia Coppola (2)
Victor Fleming (2)
William Wyler (2)

Number Female Directed Films: 11

By Decade:
1920s (5)
1930s (12)
1940s (13)
1950s (12)
1960s (18)
1970s (8 )
1980s (8 )
1990s (8 )
2000s (16)

Most Represented Years
1933 (5)
1937 (4)
1945 (4)
2001 (4)
1959 (3)
1961 (3)
1962 (3)
1975 (3)
2000 (3)
2006 (3)
2008 (3)
1928 (2)
1929 (2)
1939 (2)
1944 (2)
1949 (2)
1953 (2)
1955 (2)
1964 (2)
1966 (2)
1967 (2)
1969 (2)
1983 (2)
1985 (2)
1991 (2)
1993 (2)
1995 (2)
2005 (2)

Most Represented Countries
United States (54)
France (17)
United Kingdom (7)
Japan (4)
Germany (3)
Spain (3)
Australia (2)
Canada (2)
Italy (2)
Poland (2)

* originally posted as a thread on rottentomatoes forums

Black Narcissus (dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, United Kingdom, 1947) had a very intriguing plot about nuns who try to start a school and hospital in a small Himalayan village.  But there their dreams and vanities are brought to the fore, creating a beautifully shot film with something almost devilish underneath.   Black Narcissus is very much like Picnic at Hanging Rock in that regard, capturing a sort of austere repression that is then punctured by a wild landscape.

The film has an unique visual texture, due to its revolutionary (at the time) use of Technicolor and the great vibrancy of Alfred Junge’s sets (which seem to make their own statement about the lust and dreams of the collective past).  At the end the set is turned into a claustophobic emotional space of violent desire with expressionistic lighting, all tense reds and sickening greens.

The camera style sets up a compositional dichotomy between the great shots of the Himalayan landscape and old palace to some of the most dramatically potent facial close-ups I’ve seen, the lighting beautifully sculpting the character’s face as she recognizes the implications of a previous action or dialogue with an interiorized horror.  And then there are times when dramatically one would think a close-up would occur but the camera is kept at a full shot; when Sister Ruth runs in covered in blood it is not there is no close-up but the vibrant red of the blood seems to suddenly make itself part of the rest of the bold mise-en scene, pulling everything into a chillingly coherent and theatrical whole.

The film is not without its problems: some dialogue exchanges seem rough, almost like the adaptation of Rumer Godden’s novel needed to skip over multiple lines; some of the scene structuring seems dated; and we won’t get into the colonial politics (especially the one ethnographic montage near the beginning).

But overall Black Narcissus is a very engrossing film.

I think a nice basic way to introduce myself a little further would be to post a list of my favorite films.  Here’s the lucky 13, listed in no particular order (though it is funny how Les Carabiniers ended up next to Battle of Algiers given their opposing methods on how to make a political film):

Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988, Italy)

Onibaba (Kaneto Shindo, 1964, Japan)

Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975, Australia)

Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980, USA)

Army of Shadows (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969, France)

All My Good Countrymen (Vojtech Jasny, 1968, Czechoslovakia)

Adoption (Marta Meszaros, 1975, Hungary)

Amarcord (Federico Fellini, 1973, Italy)

Les Carabiniers (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963, France)

Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966, Italy/Algeria)

Allegro Non Troppo (Bruno Bozzetto, 1977, Italy)

Grey Gardens (The Maysles Brothers, 1975, USA)

Ivan’s Childhood (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1962, Russia)

Despite what this list seems to say, I have seen films that were not shot between 1960 and 1980.  With the various new waves, thaws, and other film movements, a lot of things were coming together for film and the whole era has a sensibility of this integration of film form and content (even if the subject, especially for the political films, is one of disunion) that sticks with me.  There is a vague sense of apotheosis that is probably due to the academic canonizing of New Wave cinema, elevated above and made, despite its vagaries, into a coherent whole.  What is film after the New Wave?  A plateau of dialogue?  Sorry, this argument is probably many years too late.

What seemed like a breezy idea for an engineer to net him millions of dollars leaves him on the run for his life and piecing together why hes being chased. Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 01/24/2006 Starring: Uma Thurman Aaron Eckhart Run time: 118 minutes Rating: Pg13 Director: John Woo

The brainy, paranoid science fiction of writer Philip K. Dick has inspired one visionary classic (Blade Runner) and two above-average action movies (Total Recall and Minority Report). Paycheck aspires to follow in their footsteps: An engineer (Ben Affleck, Chasing Amy) routinely agrees to have his memory erased after every job so that he doesn’t know what he’s done. But after the biggest job of his life, he discovers that not only has he refused a $90 million paycheck, he’s sent himself an envelope full of things he doesn’t recognize–and he doesn’t remember doing any of this. As he unravels the plot, he discovers he’s also fallen in love (with Uma Thurman, Kill Bill) and invented a dangerous device for his former boss (Aaron Eckhart, Erin Brockovich). Affleck is bland, the script ruins a cunning idea, and the direction–from the normally dynamic John Woo (Face/Off)–plods along, aimless and bored. –Bret Fetzer

Paycheck (Special Collector’s Edition) is available at Amazon for $5.49. To Order click here
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Other Products of Interest

• Minority Report (Widescreen Two-Disc Special Edition)
• The Sum of All Fears (Special Collector’s Edition)
• Next
• I, Robot (Widescreen Edition)
• Live Free or Die Hard (Unrated Edition)

Twenty years after it swept Australia into the international film spotlight, Peter Weir’s stunning 1975 masterpiece remains as ineffable as the unanswerable mystery at its core. A Valentine’s Day picnic at an ancient volcanic outcropping turns to disaster for the residents of Mrs. Appleyard’s school when a few young girls inexplicably vanish on Hanging Rock. A lyrical, meditative film charged with suppressed longings, Picnic at Hanging Rock is at long last available in a pristine widescreen director’s cut with a newly-minted Dolby� digital 5.1 channel soundtrack.

Situated somewhere between supernatural horror and lush Victorian melodrama, director Peter Weir’s lyrical, enigmatic masterpiece is an imaginative tease. The setting is a proper turn-of-the century Australian boarding school for girls, a suffocating institution built on strict moral codes, repressed sexuality, and a subtle but enforced class structure. As the film opens, girls draped in immaculate white dress prepare for a picnic at the nearby volcanic formation, Hanging Rock, and Weir hangs an air of dark foreboding over the proceeding. “You’ll have to love someone else, because I won’t be here very long,” says one virginal girl, Miranda, to her friend. Her words are prophetic: during the picnic, Miranda, along with two other girls and an uptight schoolmistress, vanish into the rocks. While a search party repeatedly returns to the rock to look for either the girls or the reasons for their disappearance, Weir leaves the mystery unsolved. Like Antonioni’s L’Avventura, the vanishing is open to numerous interpretations–both rational and illusory–but Weir drops enough allegorical clues that it feels like a parable. He transforms the landscape and weather into menacing and eerie images; outlines of faces can be seen in the rocks, while the oppressive heat beating down on the picnic doubles as an atmospheric metaphor for the girls’ unbearable social and sexual confinement. These images and other plot twists toward the end hint that this mysterious vanishing, on some level, was actually a form of spiritual escape–the only out, other than death, from the film’s bleak, tightly structured community. Regardless of how you see it, though, this hypnotic puzzle remains the highlight of the ’70s Australian New Wave. The DVD version presents the film in letterbox form. –Dave McCoy

Picnic at Hanging Rock – Criterion Collection is available at Amazon for $21.99. To Order click here
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Other Products of Interest

• The Last Wave – Criterion Collection
• Rabbit-Proof Fence
• Picnic at Hanging Rock
• Gallipoli
• Days of Heaven

Nu har jag haft månadens filmer i ett år, och jag har nog aldrig varit mer en 10-dagar sen med att få den publicerad på bloggen. Det har varit bra att verkligen tänka på vad jag tycker om filmer och jag kommer nog fortsätta ett tag till. Jag har varit på bio två gånger den här månaden och har blivit påmind om hur mycket bättre film är på bio än hemma.

• Corpse Bride: Tim Burton är alltid ett säkert kort, även denna gång lyckas han göra en intelligen rolig och rörande film om kärlek, svek och ond bråd död. Denna film är mästerligt animerad och har en rolluppsättning som skulle få vilken storfilmsproducent som helst att dregla.
• Northanger Abbey: Northanger Abbey följer en ung dam från en nedre-överklassfamiljs strapatser efter hon förälskat sig i sonen till en general vars familj bor i titelns Northanger Abbey. Filmen är fängslande trots att historien numera är klassisk (baserad på romanen med samma namn av Jane Austen) och att slutet är en aning abrupt.
• Picnic at Hanging Rock: Den här verklighetsbaserade filmen beskrivs ofta som “Eerie” eller “kuslig” på svenska och det med all rätt. Tempot är inte direkt högt men den håller tankar och funderingar igång hos åskaderen. Handlingen kretsar kring tre flickors försvinnande från en årlig Picknic vid Hanging Rock, samt de efterspel händelsen får i flickornas skola.
• The Station Agent: Finbar MacBride, en man med dvärgväxt, har precis förlorat sin bästa vän och ärvt av honom ett stationshus mitt ute i obyggden. För att komma bort från allting flyttar Finbar ut till stationshuset och försöker gräva ner sig i sin hobby trainspotting, dock är det inte så lätt som man kan tänka sig när en understimulerad korvförsäljare vill ha sällskap. En riktig må-bra-film som gjorde mig glad.
• The Day the Earth Stood Still: Vanligtvis tycker jag inte att remakes är något särskillt men eftersom jag inte sett originalet tänkte jag att det inte kunde skada att se den här när den gick på bio (science-fiction-utbudet på biografer är aningen begränsat). Keanu Reeves gör sig bra som en väldigt uttryckslös och stel Klaatu.
• Changeling: Manus av J. Michael Straczynski och regi av Clint Eastwood gör det här dramat till en riktigt stark film. En pojke försvinner spårlöst och efter ett par månader påstår polisen sig ha hittat pojken ifråga och återförenar de två trots att modern starkt hävdar att det är en komplett främlig de kommit med. Filmen bygger på verkliga händelser och visar på hur korrumperad poliskåren i Los Angeles var på slutet av 20-talet.
• Ultraviolet: Ultraviolet försöker verkligen vara snygg och cool men lyckas inte riktigt, den har massor av tuffa effekter och cool teknologi och till och med vampyrer men lyckas ändå inte bli en bra film. Jag tror det blev en aning mycket av det goda så att filmen saknar fokus. Det finns dock ett par tuffa sekvenser som gör att filmen kan vara kul att titta på men i det stora hela är det inte mer än en halvbra film.