At the start of her

• email this story
• read comments (1)
• post a comment
• 
  
  

At the start of her column piece about Don't Tell director Cristina Comencini, who is the only female director behind all of this year's Oscar-nominated films, Anne Thompson asks, "What is it with Italian female directors and the Oscars? In 78 years, only three women -- Italy's Lena Wertmuller (Seven Beauties), Australia's Jane Campion (The Piano), and Hollywood's Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation) -- have been nominated for best director." (The New Zealand-born Campion apparently comes from Italian stock -- I know she went to Perugia as a young woman to learn to speak Italian.) The reason more female directors haven't been nominated for Oscars, for openers, is because a lot of their scripts don't get past the male readers and gatekeepers and greenlighters, and a key reason is because women directors (and I'm sure there are many, many exceptions to this prejudicial belief) are seen as being in thrall to stories about personal growth (i.e., politically-tinged stand-up-and-throw-off-the- yoke-of-male-oppression material, which red-state females don't relate to as intensely as their blue-state, urban-residing counterparts, and which don't tend to exude strong story tension), or delicate emotional-growth or emotional-passage issues, which tend to make guys (especially younger guys, the lifeblood of the movie business) nod off. Women may throw tomatoes at me for this, but they know as well as I do that male producers and studio execs have always felt queasy about greenlighting nest-tender movies about feelings, being hugged by sisters or former enemies or good friends in the third act, caring for sick parents or errant kids, restoring homes, trying to be a good single mom while putting up with sexist- abusive ex-husbands, dads and employers. (And this is being written by a guy who worships In Her Shoes and Whale Rider, and at least respected the craft that went into North Country.) Thompson says that Don't Talk is "one of those rare movies that reflects a particularly feminine sensibility" and that it's about "a brother and sister dealing with child abuse as adults, after their father's death... they were trying to understand what happened in a detached way [and] they got through that and recovered." Don't Tell is obviously a smart and emotionally mature drama, made by a filmmaker of taste and sensitivity, but c'mon...you have to pinch yourself to stay awake through it. The fact is that smart aggressive women who are tough and shrewd enough to make it in the film industry are to some extent hobbled by their passion for making films about women's issues and experiences, etc., and don't seem as interested as certain high-end male directors seem to be in making films with common universal themes that transcend gender politics. I truly wish there were more women directors out there making vital movies and winning awards, and we'd all be better off if there were more diversity in the movie world, but at the same time I understand the reticence that male execs and producers feel about "women directors." Okay, here we go...