da Los Angeles
Once upon a time there was Hollywood, with a beautiful face – female or even better male – in front of the camera and, behind it, directing, a man: Francis Ford Coppola, Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron.
Today something is changing and behind the often only rhetorical formulas of political correctness and equal gender representation, we are starting to glimpse a real ferment, starting with the actresses who are increasingly trying their hand at directing. “Who would have thought that at 50 I would start directing a film,” says Kate Winslet who brought her directorial debut to Netflix, for Christmas, with Goodbye June.
After decades of a career dotted with memorable roles, Winslet has in fact decided to direct, produce and star in a film that delicately and profoundly explores family dynamics on the eve of a Christmas marked by the terminal illness of her mother, played by Helen Mirren. The film, written by Joe Anders, Winslet’s twenty-one-year-old son and director Sam Mendes, addresses universal themes such as mourning, guilt and reconciliation between brothers, in a narrative that favors the internal experience of the characters over easy sentimentality. Goodbye June comes at a time when the British star is publicly highlighting the difficulties women face in film, from fundraising to the constant need to prove their competence, highlighting how they often have to fight twice to get the same opportunities as their male colleagues. “Helen Mirren had a rule, says the Oscar-winning actress, now director, never to act in the role of an Alzheimer’s or cancer patient. She broke the rule and said she did it to help women in a field, that of directing, which is still clearly male-dominated.”
Oscar night proves it: in almost one hundred editions of the most important film award, only three women have won the director statuette: the first in 2010, Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker. Then we had to wait another 11 years before, in 2021, Chloé Zhao won for Nomadland. The following year it was Jane Campion’s turn for The Power of the Dog.
In short, the gap is still important, but something is moving. Kristen Stewart, already an established actress in films such as Twilight and Spencer, received a standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival last May for The Chronology of Water, her first film as director. Adapted from Lidia Yuknavitch’s autobiographical memoir, the film is a bold and deeply intimate work that explores trauma, addiction and the rewriting of the self through art.
Stewart brings to the screen a complex and fragmented story, which crosses violence, gender identity, love and the search for personal salvation and puts a woman’s subjective experience at the center. “It’s an important story because it allows women to say something and do it with a purely female voice says Stewart. This is a film that explains that it’s ok to be emotional and that it can also be fun to feel angry when you can then transform that feeling into something productive.”
Also at the Cannes Film Festival, Scarlett Johansson presented Eleanor the Great, also her directorial debut. Johansson attempted a comedy-drama about a ninety-year-old woman looking for a new balance after the loss of her closest friend. Johansson wanted to bring an elderly female character to the foreground, a category often marginalized in large productions, exploring themes such as loneliness, friendship and social identity, with an empathetic and respectful gaze.
“We live in an era in which empathy is not considered a great quality,” said Johansson. “This is why I believe that we women have an important task, which is to bring words like forgiveness and respect back into fashion.”
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