To accompany this week’s longform essay on the making of David Fincher’s Gone Girl, we provide recommended reading on the subject of MOVIES.
by Paige Pritchard
On the industry:
1. “No More Excuses: Hollywood Needs to Hire More Female Directors” By Lexi Alexander
Indiewire, January 15, 2014
Director Lexi Alexander (Green Street Hooligans, Punisher: War Zone) takes Hollywood to task on the industry’s gender disparity. Originally published on her blog, and reposted here by Indiewire, Alexander’s dissection of misogyny on and around the silver screen reveals harsh gender dynamics through firsthand experience. As proved by this post, Indiewire’s “Women and Hollywood” blog is a great resource for more information on these issues and the amazing work ladies like Alexander are doing in the film industry.
2. “Women in the Seats but Not Behind the Camera” by Manohla Dargis
The New York Times, December 10, 2009
In the previous post, Alexander uses the media’s rampant coverage of the lack of female directors as supporting evidence of the issue. The New York Times‘s film critic, Manohla Dargis, is one of the most outspoken writers on this in mainstream media. Five years before Alexander’s blog post, Dargis published this piece on how Hollywood exploits the interests of women without representing their talents.
5. “Five Women Who Inspired Me At True/False” by Paige Pritchard
The Riveter, March 10, 2014
After all this stewing on Hollywood’s lack of lady love, we thought you might enjoy this take on the beautiful things that can happen when women get the attention they deserve. True/False Film Festival did a great job of representing female filmmakers and creators in general this past year, and our own Paige Pritchard was there to write about it.
Also, we suggest checking out the following women’s film festivals for an even closer look at the work women did in the film industry this year: Underwire Festival, Birds Eye View Film Festival and Citizen Jane Film Festival
6. “The Future of Film Looks Immersive but Lonely” By Tasha Robinson
The Dissolve, May 5, 2014
Launched last July, Pitchfork Media’s The Dissolve is one of the best resources on great film writing to emerge in the past year. It’s “Features” section is a cache of longform analysis on current cinema and classic filmmaking. In this piece, Dissolve team member Tasha Robinson discusses what she saw at Tribeca Film Festival’s Storyscapes exhibit. Using these experiments as a projection of the future, she predicts how technology will change the way we experience film.
On the stars:
7. “Suddenly Liza” by Liesl Schillinger
New York Magazine, March 6, 2006
Published in honor of the star’s 60th birthday, this profile looks back on the vivacious talent of Minnelli’s career. Husbands, addictions, and general drama aside, Liza Minnelli has given some of the most impassioned performances to ever hit the stage or screen (this is where we link to Cabaret’s “Maybe This Time” and proceed to let the tears well).
8. “Another Woman” by Daphne Merkin
The New York Times Magazine, October 23, 2005
We all love Diane Keaton. She plays energetic, intelligent characters, and exudes these attributes in real life. With the recent release of her memoir, “Then Again”, there’s never been a better time to revisit Merkin’s close profile of the enigmatic leading lady.
9. “New Again: Jodie Foster” by Adrian Rapazzini, Catherine Guinness, and Andy Warhol
Interview, originally appeared January, 1977
Interview regularly revisits their own Q&As in their “New Again” feature. In honor of Foster’s marriage to partner Alexandra Hedison, they reran this spirited conversation between a then 14-year-old Foster and editors Warhol and Guinness. Back then she was a fresh-faced youth who expressed wisdom beyond her years–at 13, she had already been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress after her role in Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. If you’re not obsessed with Jodie Foster, you will be after reading this.
On the films:
Here’s our pick of essays and reviews from two of the most influential female film and culture critics of the past 50 years:
by Susan Sontag:
- 10. “The Decay of Cinema”
The New York Times, February 25, 1996
According to this profile from The New Yorker, Sontag went to the movies up until her death in 2004, seeing a film “almost every day of the week” there at the end. Still, that didn’t stop her from declaring the death of the “cinephile” in 1996 in this statement column.
- 11. “The Imagination of Disaster”
An essay from her book, Against Interpretation, published in 1965
“Science fiction films are one of the most accomplished of the popular art forms, and can give a great deal of pleasure to sophisticated film addicts.”–with that line, Sontag delivered validation to science fiction fans everywhere, and provided unique insight into the genre’s landmark films of the 1940’s and 50’s.
by Pauline Kael:
- 12. “Five Classic Paulineael Reviews” posted by Nathan Heller
The New Yorker, October 7, 2011
The magazine looks back on one of its most famed critics. This list includes Kael’s famous review of Last Tango in Paris.
- 13. “The Man from Dream City”
Originally published in The New Yorker, July 14, 1975
Kael luxuriates over the inimitable hunk Cary Grant in this insightful profile. She also delivers some splendid lines, declaring Grant “the man of the big city, triumphantly suntanned,” and that he “always looks as if he’d just come from a workout in a miracle gym.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
