Now, you might be saying "Of course, women make films" ...because Patty Jenkins. Ava Duvernay. Greta Gerwig. Oscar winner Kathryn Bigelow. Hell, Barbra Streisand. But, then, there are so many others: Jane Campion, Lena Dunham, Lina Wertmuller, Mary Harron, Ida Lupino, Sofia Coppola, Penny Marshall.
Lynn Shelton. Adrienne Shelly.
Some may pick out Agnes Varda or Dorothy Arzner or Leni Riefenstahl. Still, there are so few women compared to men, that it is still the exception rather than the rule.
And while that is so, the need for a documentary of this type, on this subject, becomes necessary, as much for documentation, rather than to point out any aesthetic difference noticeable behind the camera. Communication through film is an art, one of reflection and illumination—the creator must look inward in their consideration of what will communicate outward. The frame of film limits what one can see and so what one shows and how they show it must hit the sense-memory and the imagination of those who see it.
But, one has to see it in order to appreciate it, and that's where the numbers come into play and are significant. A lot of what is presented hasn't been seen, whether it has been limited by market or availability—there are a lot of foreign films (foreign to the U.S., that is) but the universal communication that happens with an image transcends borders and language. As the blurb at the bottom of the blog says: "Not everyone can be a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere."
As long as one sees and feels, one can be a film-maker—and I'm not even sure about the first one...there have been some great one-eyed film-makers.
The mission statement is made clear in the first episode (entitled appropriately "Openings") narrated by Tilda Swinton:
What follows is not about the directors' lives. It's not a chronological history. It's not an analysis of how women directors are different from men. And it's not one of those lists of the best films ever made.
No, it has cleaner lines than that. Our film is about the films...the scenes. It answers practical questions: What's an engaging way to start a film? How do you set its tone? How do you make it believable? What's an inventive way of introducing a character? How do you make a tracking shot magical? The sort of questions you ask when you're making films...or watching them. What about dream sequences? Dance routines? The work-place or politics? How do you film bodies? What's a great way to show love, tension, memory or death.
We'll ask 40 such questions in 40 chapters. 40 montages on the road. 40 stories about great cinema. This is a film school of sorts...in which all the teachers are women. An academy of Venus.
It's full of examples, hundreds of examples, a montage of scenes from movies across the world...and from many decades.
Your favorite films might not be here. Your favorite directors might not be here. We're not trying to be comprehensive. In fact, we've avoided some of the mores famous films. But, there are surprises in what follows. Revelations.
Feel free to be angry because some of these great films have been overlooked. But, feel free to be delighted at the medium of film, and of the women on whose shoulders we stand.The sub-title after the colon, at first glance, is a little precious—as are Cousins' many shots of highways, bi-ways, roads and paths that serve as interstitials and buffers. But, it is apt given that explanation of what the documentary is NOT, and of the roads and paths it doesn't take on its journey.
It's a sampler, of sorts, of the extraordinary and exceptional. It has no agenda other than to be an appetizer to satisfy a curiosity and encourage exploration (which the film certainly does and TCM has provided airings of some of the films, complete). As a document, it is a map of the possible that just hasn't been seen...yet.
There are destinations ready to be explored. Let's go.
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