Podcasts

Woman Around Town’s Editor Charlene Giannetti and writers for the website talk with the women and men making news in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities around the world. Thanks to Ian Herman for his wonderful piano introduction.

Sam Neill

Five Films Directed by Women

03/08/2017

International Women’s Day is March 8th. In the spirit of the occasion, it seems appropriate to consider watching a movie with a woman director. Sadly, at present, this is a limited field, nevertheless we have found five worthy contenders and hope to see far, FAR more in the future.

The Piano (1993) Written and directed by New Zealand’s own Jane Campion, this romantic drama starring Holly Hunter as a mute piano player and widowed mother who becomes entangled in a convoluted love triangle with Sam Neill and Harvey Keitel. It made over $140 million worldwide on a seven million dollar budget, was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won three; Best Actress for Holly Hunter, Best Supporting Actress for Anna Paquin, and Best Original Screenplay for Campion. Campion also became the first and thus far only woman to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes. She would later go on to direct the award winning romantic drama Bright Star, as well as write and direct the TV mystery/drama series Top Of the Lake starring Elisabeth Moss in a role that’s won her a Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award.

Monsoon Wedding (2001) Directed by Indian born Mira Nair this romantic comedy details various entanglements and dramas taking place during a traditional Punjabi Hindu wedding in Delhi. Along the way we are treated to song and dance numbers as well as a number of observations about life in Modern 21st Century India and Punjabi culture. The movie was nominated for a BAFTA and a Golden Globe. It won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival making Nair only the second Indian to win in that category. Nair would go on to direct such films as The Namesake (nominated for a Gotham Award and Independent Spirit Award), The Reluctant Fundamentalist (for which Nair won The Bridge, The German Film Award for Peace), and Queen of Katwe (nominated for four NAACP Image Awards and Winner of Best Family Film by Women Film Critics Circle.)

Lost In Translation (2003) Written and directed by Sofia Coppola (daughter of the legendary Francis Ford Coppola), this bittersweet comedy starring Bill Murray (in a role that many considered to be his best work to date and which launched a career renaissance for him) as a washed up movie star who connects with young, unhappy, newlywed Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson in her breakout role). The movie was a huge breakout success earning over a $100 million on a four million dollar budget. Johannson and Murray each received BAFTA Awards. The film garnered four Oscar nominations including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director. Coppola actually won an Oscar for Best Screenplay. Sofia would later become the first American woman to win the Golden Lion the top prize at the Venice International Film Festival for 2010’s Somewhere which she also wrote and directed.

The Hurt Locker (2009) Directed by Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break, Strange Days). This war thriller about an Iraqi bomb squad starring Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, and Brian Geraghty is one of the most suspenseful and grittiest war movies ever made with an incredible emphasis on the psychological toll of combat. It’s so intense and realistic you can almost taste sand in your mouth during one particular sequence. It was universally acclaimed by critics and went on to win six Academy Awards including Best Picture. Bigelow won the award for Best Director and as of this date The Hurt Locker remains the first movie directed by a woman to win either Best Director or Best Picture. Bigelow would go on to direct Zero Dark Thirty which would be nominated for five Oscar awards including Best Picture.

Selma (2014) Directed by Ava DuVernay. While DuVernay was the first African American woman to win the Sundance Film Festival Award for Best Director for her feature film Middle of Nowhere, it was this historical drama starring David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King, Jr. based on the real life voting marches from Selma to Montgomery,that helped her truly rise to prominence. With Selma, DuVernay became the first African American woman to be nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Director as well as the black female director to have her film nominated by the Academy for Best Picture. In 2017, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for her film 13th examining race and mass incarceration in the U.S. She’s currently working on directing on an adaption of A Wrinkle in Time for Disney with a budget exceeding $100 million making DuVernay the first black woman to direct a live action film with a budget of such size.

Top photo: Bigstock

And Then There Were None: Breathing New Life into a Classic

03/26/2016

This is Hell.  We’re being punished for our sins!

Of all of Dame Agatha Christie’s huge body of work, And Then There Were None (title changed from the politically incorrect 10 Little Indians) was both the best selling and by far the most horrific. It was in many ways the precursor to modern ‘slasher’ tales only with its trademark English country cottage feel and Christie’s superb psychological insight. Other Christie novels had detectives who came into save the day; And Then There Were None not only had no detectives, but also no ‘heroes’ in any sense at all. The ten guests and staff members are all murderers beyond the reach of the law, but not beyond that of an unknown fiend who begins picking them off.

It’s actually a terrific set-up for the screen, but all the past English language adaptions of the work, including stage adaptions, have sought to ‘soften’ the brutality and terror of the finale by creating survivors and/or suggesting that certain protagonists were actually innocent after all.  Thankfully, the latest 2015 BBC three-hour mini series decided to hell with such attempts at cheering up the piece and gives us the most lurid, bloodiest, fatalistic, and horrific telling of the story yet. In fact it arguably goes further than Christie’s original text making some of the past killings more graphic (though this is also about making more dramatic flashbacks as well) and adding more drugs and sex. Some might criticize BBC for taking such creative license with the text but really, Christie would probably have done so in the original herself if the times would have permitted it.

To that end some of Great Britain’s biggest stars have been recruited for the show. Burn Gorman (Pacific Rim, The Dark Knight Rises) as Detective Sergeant William Blore whose past lethal act of police brutality seems all too topical. Charles Dance (Game of Thrones, Woman in Gold) as Justice Wargrave the Hanging Judge. Miranda Richardson (Sleepy Hollow, The Hours) as the cruel religious zealot Emily Brent. Toby Stephens (Black Sails, Die Another Die) as the pitiful drunk Dr. Armstrong. Sam Neill (Jurassic Park, The Hunt for Red October) as the world weary, shell-shocked General MacArthur. Douglas Booth (Noah, Jupiter Ascending) as callous playboy and reckless driver Anthony Marston. Anna Maxwell Martin (Philomena, Becoming Jane) as guilt ridden housekeeper Mrs. Rogers and Noah Taylor (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Edge of Tomorrow) as her abusive husband. Each one is perfectly cast.

But the main focus is on Vera Claythorne (relative Australian newcomer Maeve Dermody) and Phillip Lombard (Aidan Turner of Poldark). Vera is a moody dour presence; ostensibly the sort of bright, resourceful independent young woman who would generally be the heroine of a Christie novel but here’s she’s slowly revealed to be capable of profound evil. Lombard is an utterly amoral mercenary who’s killed 21, but he’s also refreshingly honest. He’s the only person on the island to freely own up to his sins. The two of them have a white hot chemistry together that’s just as much about their mutual dark sides and capacity for violence as it is about the fact that they’re both stunningly attractive people. Its undoubted one of the most twisted ‘romance’ stories on screen.

What the latest BBC adaption truly understands about the story (set in 1939 as Britain is just on the brink of war) is how the traditional “English’ trappings of the piece serve to underline the horror of the tale rather than diminish it. Everyone on the island is (initially) dedicated to playing along to the roles of their assigned stations – guests cannot behave as servants and vice versa – and behaving as if it’s a perfectly ordinary house party even when the killing starts. But as the body count climbs everyone’s manners and even basic civility drop away.  Stripped of their pretensions to gentility we see the moral depravity of these ‘respectable’ people and with it an indictment of the hypocrisy of ‘polite society’ altogether.

And Then There Were None can be seen on Amazon Prime.