We ARE better than this!

from The Happy Feminist

Agnieszka Holland

In theory term auteur describes a director as creator of his movie, which is his personal vision. “’Auteuris’ developed in the 1950s from the critical ideas of the French journal Cagiers di Cinéma… …the camera which Astruc identifies as write’s pen, or metaphorical penis, and as the mechanism with which directors inscribe their idea onto film” (Author/Auteur, 96). Many directors (and their films) can be seen as auteurs, especially in European cinema.

Agnieszka Holland, Polish women director, is a great example of these kinds of movie creators, who want to express some important (not only for them) ideas. Many of her movies are close to her heart and reflect on her own experience. Like many film directors in Europe, who want to amplify some important thoughts, not easy to talk about, Holland was rejected many times. She couldn’t get money for her production. “During the 1970's, she came to this building only to bang her head against bureaucratic walls. Her scripts were always rejected, generally without reason” (Times, 1).

Agnieszka Holland, born in 1948, is daughter, Irene Holland (mother), a Catholic journalist, who fought in Polish underground in the Warsaw uprising of 1944; and Henryk Holland, prominent Jewish journalist. (Times, 2). When she was 11, her parents get divorced and 2 years later her father felt from a window to his death. Official version is that he committed suicide, but some belief that he was pushed. Magdalena Lazarkiewicz, her five years younger sister said: “Like Agnieszka, he could be hater by somebody because he was very volatile, very dangerous” (Times, 2).

This incident played a big role in her art she confessed. She sought salvation through writing and film making. She couldn’t study in Lodz, Polish best film school, so she applied to Prague, where she was accepted (one of seven students of 220 applicants). (Times, 2)

Yet, from her first movie (“The Sin of God”) she created her trademark. Her movies merge “deep pessimism regarding the human condition, yes interlaced with dark humor” (Time, 3).

She had a lot of experience in her life. She Spent 6 weeks in jail in Prague after her underground activity, where 2 “prisoners [from left and right cell] could only exchange their erotic messages through Holland” (Times, 3). Also she had to leave Poland, where she left her 8 year old daughter, Kasia. When Kasia finally could get to France after 8 months, she didn’t want to talk to her mother.

Agnieszka Holland had a lot of (usually bad) experience in her life, but this helped her lot to see things different, more closely. All of her experience has expression in her movies.

In example her 1985 film “Angry Harvest” was story of love-hate bond between a Polish Catholic farmer and a Jewish woman. I’m sure she used a lot of her childhood memories to tell this story.

Her most famous film “Europa, Europa”, 1990 international co-production (Germany, France and Poland), is the greatest example of auteur’s work. The film is based on real story of Solomon Perel. He was a Jew, who on fall of World War II escaped with his family from Germany to Poland, then just with his brother to Russia. When Germans trespassed into Russia, Solek (that’s his short name) pretended to be German to save his life. He had to keep pretending till end of the war, which was very hard for him.

Even though the story is interesting and film was made after publishing by Salomon his autobiography, Holland made the movie as her own point of view. “Holland isn't a dour moral instructor; she's an ironist with a deft ability to capture the absurd aspects of her material and keep them in balance with the tragic. It's a sign of the Polish director's low-key humanism that she refuses to denounce Solek for seeking the approval of his instructor and with it the solid ground of normalcy by essentially joining the enemy.” (Washington Post)

After this movie she entered to Hollywood, where did a few great, no Hollywood style movies, like The Secret Garden (1993), Total Eclipse (1995) with Leonardo DiCaprio playing main role, or Copying Beethoven (2006).

There’s no doubt that Agnieszka Holland is auteur of her films. Asked about women issues, “in a 1988 interview, she said that although women were important in her films, feminism was not the central theme of her work. Rather she suggested that when she was making films in Poland under the communist regime, there was an atmosphere of cross-gender solidarity against censorship, which was seen as the main political issue.” (Wikipedia)

Work Cited:

Humm, Magie. “Chapter4: Author / Auteur: Feminist literary theory and feminist film.” Feminist and Film. Indiana University Press, April 1997.

Cohen, Roger. “Holland Without a Country.” New York Times. August 8, 1993. <http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/08/magazine/holland-without-a-country.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1>

Hinson, Hal. “Europa, Europa.” Washington Post. August 9, 1991. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/europaeuroparhinson_a0a6d7.htm>

Wikipedia. “Agnieszka Holland” <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnieszka_Holland>

Mary Harron: Auteur for the SCUM

Auteur theory refers to movie directors that are able to leave his/her clear imprint in a film, regardless of the source material and the rest of the creative influence that goes into making a movie. The word auteur, French for “author”, conveys that the vision and the craft these directors put into their projects makes them authors as a writer is to a literary work. The obvious difference is that a film is composed of many moving parts, including a written script, and the freedom of a director and of any other contributing team member often hinges on the studio financing the film. Thus true auteurs are hard to come by, because they are able to lend their unique and distinctive DNA to their work even when they are part of a big production, or because they are able to provide the financing themselves.

Legendary auteurs include Alfred Hitchcock, Akira Kurosawa and Stanley Kubrick; contemporary auteurs include Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino. You can tell apart their films and their style, they are usually in control of all facets of making the film, and they all happen to be men. If we keep drilling down the list of recognized auteurs it takes some time to find a woman, and even if you do, they are not mainstream names when compared to their male counterparts. Adding injury to insult, even talented, successful directors like Kathryn Bigelow and Sofia Coppola are often defined in the media by their relationships to other auteurs, and not by their own merits. Bigelow made big news this year with the first Oscar win for a female director, and colleagues like Julie Taymor and Jane Campion have increased their stature in the movie industry, but the numbers are lacking and stagnant for women in directing and writing roles. According to a 2009 study published by San Diego State University, in 2008 only 9% of directors in Hollywood were women, the same number recorded in a similar study in 1998 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/jan/31/female-film-makers).Overall, women still make up only 6% of all film directors and 12% of screenwriters. While it can be argued that the ranks of elite actresses outnumber actors and continue to grow at a faster pace, directing and writing roles that shape the vision and the content of the movies we see are severely lacking a female perspective.

Among the crop of female directors trying to change the status quo, while remaining true to their own style and ideals as an auteur, we find Mary Harron. Depending on where and when you first heard about her, you might get a very different person. This Canadian born auteur comes from a family deeply involved in film and theater. As a child, she moved with her mom to England and grew up there. As a student attending Oxford College in the 60’s, she dated Tony Blair, who a few years back served as Britain’s Prime Minister. After graduating, she moved to New York and was part of the 70’s punk rock scene. This part of her life inspired her to help create ‘Punk’ magazine, where she was a music journalist. Later, Mary directed documentaries for the BBC, and was the executive producer for “The Weather Underground” about radical activists of the 1970’s. Mary’s first feature film was 1996’s ‘I Shot Andy Warhol’, the story of Valerie Solanas, a young and brilliant feminist who shot the famous avant-garde filmmaker after feeling overlooked by him and oppressed by a male dominated society. Mrs. Harron was considered a talented up and coming director, until she gained much publicity and notoriety for the controversial film ‘American Psycho’, which she directed and co-wrote the adapted screenplay from the book by Bret Easton Ellis. Her third movie was the well received ‘The Notorious Bettie Page”, about the life of an obscure 50’s pin-up model who was questioned by Congress on indecency law. She has also worked for Late Show, and has directed episodes of the series ‘OZ’, ‘The L Word’, ‘Six Feet Under’, and ‘Big Love’. Her career is long and diverse, and her vision as a filmmaker has evolved to become one of the most interesting and most important female voices from the director’s chair. In an interview in 2006, Harron offered that she was always interested in films but “I didn’t know any women directors, so it seemed not possible …I thought I would write them.” Her expectations of the film industry where as expected: with a lack of role models it just seemed like an impossibility to become a female director. It is no coincidence that her films have captured three different angles of the feminist cause: the feminist frustrated with society, the narcissistic male ego that can exact unprovoked violence on females at whim, and the forgotten story about a female icon. Among the three, Valerie Solanas’ portrayal in 'I shot Andy Warhol' is of a vibrant female voice trapped in a world where she felt that men had too much control of her life.

Solanas wrote The SCUM Manifesto for her own society (SCUM stands for Society for Cutting Up Men), and in the book she has a solution to make a better world: get rid of all the men. In an interview with the Toronto Star, Harron shares her view of the manifesto’s thesis: “Do I believe in cutting up men? No, of course I don't. But do I believe that Solanas was right in observing that society was dominated by men, and to a certain extent still is? Yes, I do." The book inspired Harron to make the movie ‘I Shot Andy Warhol’, in which Valerie’s many brilliant ideas are juxtaposed with her many contradictions: she was a feminist, but also a prostitute; she was a lesbian, but never had a companion; she hated men and the control they had on her, but was in love with Andy Warhol. The movie also functioned as a way to channel her own disillusionment with society, and as a way to establish that she’s here to stay: "I think there were elements of my own frustration and elements of what it was like growing up with an unfair attitude towards women -- and Valerie was an extreme example of that.”

In the film, Valerie’s story is presented as an enjoyable view into a misunderstood character with a relevant cause that would be rendered irrelevant by history outside of feminist circles. According to the movie review by the NYtimes, “The film's greatest directorial success is in finding a thoroughly entertaining way of inviting the audience to share Valerie's point of view.” Valerie had a tough life that ultimately made her a lonely, damaged young lady, and yet, if her life was going to be defined by that infamous shooting, Mary Harron made sure you heard her case. Without Harron’s perspective, Solanas’ story probably would have never been told, or could’ve easily end up as a film about a great artist that was shot by an unstable feminist freak in the time of change that were the late 60’s. The movie starts with the shooting of Warhol’s in 1968, but Harron’s skill is able to shift the focus on the genius of Solanas literature, which read with the proper context, can be taken as a rallying cry for women everywhere.

In her three films, Mary Harron has demonstrated that she’s an auteur that can shine a new light into a subject matter with her directing lens. She can take a character that you didn’t have any clue existed before, and gives them a chance to live forever by painting a portrait that’s both interesting and relevant. This is hard to do for any director, and being a woman in a male dominated field is not stopping her from putting her stamp on her works. By carefully choosing stories that she knows or is interested in, her vision is not compromised and the viewers benefit by getting an invested perspective that’s also different. In her manifesto, Valerie Solanas imagined her SCUM sisters as "dominant, secure, self-confident, nasty, violent, selfish, independent, proud, thrill-seeking, free-wheeling, arrogant females, who consider themselves fit to rule the universe, who have free-wheeled to the limits of this 'society' and are ready to wheel on to something far beyond what it has to offer." I think that any women that wants to make a difference in this male-dominated world, needs to have some of that SCUM attitude in them. Just please, don’t get rid of me when you all take over.

Bibliography:
Bussman, Kate - Cutting Edge: Mary Harron talks about sex, violence and satire - The Guardian, March 6 2009:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/mar/06/mary-harron-film

Cochrane, Kira - Why are there so few female film-makers? - The Guardian, January 31 2010:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/jan/31/female-film-makers

D’Arcy, David - ’I Shot Andy Warhol’ Examines Life of Valerie Solanas - Morning Edition on NPR Radio transcript, April 5 1996

Dederer, Claire - Cutting Remarks (Review of the SCUM manifesto) - The Nation, May 27 2004:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040614/dederer

Gerstel, Judy - She shot the shooter of Andy Warhol = Toronto Star, May 17 1996

Hornaday, Ann - Women of independent miens: Nicole Holofcener and Mary Harron Prove a Woman's Place Is in the Director's Chair – The Washington Post, April 16 2006

Kaufman, Anthony - 9-Months Pregnant and Delivering “American Psycho,” Indiewire, April 14 2000: http://www.indiewire.com/article/interview_9-months_pregnant_and_delivering_american_psycho_director_mary_ha/

Maslin, Janet – ‘I shot Andy Warhol’ movie review – NY Times, April 5 1996

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9A0CE2DC103AF936A35757C0A960958260

Drew Barrymore a Auteur

In reading Author/Auteur: Feminist Literary Theory And Feminist Film gendered film is the view point of the world through the film maker. “No concept of gendered media representation can function without a concept of authorship” gendered film can only be understood through auteurship. The auteur whom will be profiled is actress, producer and recently director Drew Barrymore.

Auteur Drew Barrymore started very young as a child actress. Drew Barrymore is one of those few child stars that actually move on to adult acting without having the audiences identified her as the little girl. Drew Barrymore auteur style even as an actress has been to play roles that are real and still show another dimension that film really don’t portray in mainstream media. She has been able to do these roles and be part of mainstream media which is a hard balance to play. The other reason why Drew Barrymore would be considered an auteur would be her production company Flower Films. Drew Barrymore like many women created a space to be creative without the studio constraints. Drew Barrymore films at first sight seem like typical gender roles for women but reading between the lines of her films all her movies whether under her production company or not are roles of women that are very strong figures. Drew Barrymore’s films portray strong gender roles for women without being too outrages, the roles are much more subtle and intense. ”Concepts of ‘inflection’, ‘intensity” and ‘double voice’ can help to identify those authorial features in film text, which are less obvious, perhaps more deliberately oblique; than traditional marks of authorship in mainstream cinema such as a director playing a leading or subsidiary character as Woody Allen does.” (Author/Auteur, page 100) according to the citation women auteur are not out right with their view on the film although read carefully audiences will be able to take what the filmmaker was trying to portray in the film.

One film produced by Flower Films which was a major hit was the remake to film “Charlie’s Angels’ although the film at first seems to reinforcing the gender norms. The plot of women being the aggressors and not victims is a step in the right direction. Another aspect of the film that is very much the view point of women is the very close knit friendships that were being portrayed. At first glimpse the film “Charlie’s Angels” is a progressive step towards changing the gender roles in films. Another film by Flower Films is “Never Been Kissed” a film about the pressure of being a certain type of women and how society outcasts women who do not fit. At first the film doesn’t seem to have any real commentary of society since it was a comedy. However, the film being a comedy the film produced a different woman that wasn’t in media before. “Never Been Kissed” plot was a journalist having to go back to high school after so many years to crack a story. The plot unfolds her insecurity about being different when she was in high school and how she was made fun of because she wasn’t typically pretty girl. Although, in the plot she realizes that all her suffering at the hands of her bullies back in high school were insignificant because she gave her self value instead of others giving her value. The plot illustrates how society can be to women who do not fit the norm how they harsh their punishment is for not fitting in. The film definably hits on major aspects of life and the view point of the producer. Drew Barrymore plays the journalist that goes back to high school and in the film she plays eloquently the gawky women, that comes to terms to her uniqueness’ and realizes that being popular, pretty are all socially constructed and do not matter.

Drew Barrymore’s films can be best characterizes by Bell Hooks article making movie magic. According to Bell Hooks “..when I make the point that giving audiences what is real is precisely what movies do not do. They give the reimagined, reinvented version of the real. It may look like something familiar, but inn actuality it is a different universe from the world of the real.”(Making Movie Magic, page 1) movies shouldn’t reflect reality but be an alternative outlet for an audience to enjoy and learn from as well. Drew Barrymore movies do exactly that, they are an alternative to the reality and provide as well her view point on gender expressions. The film “Never Been Kissed” is a comedy and definitely to entertain but as I stated the movie does give commentary on societal struggles on young women to conform if they do not fit in.

Drew Barrymore does not speak about her process when it comes to producing a certain film or acting as well. Drew Barrymore did once state that in her interview at the Actor’s Studio that she is conscience on which roles she would like to play or which films to produce. Drew Barrymore dose want to produce films that show alternative women that is ignored by main stream media.

The criticism that can be imposed on her would be she produces chick flicks that do not really fall as alternative films when it comes to gender roles. However, Drew Barrymore films are not radical but still present alternative women in her movies.

Works Cited

Drew Barrymore, www.drewbarrymore.com.

Imdb, www.imdb.com

ACTRESS/SCREENWRITER/DIRECTOR: CHERYL DUNYE

It was not very easy finding a director and screenwriters. in my research I came across Cheryl Dunye. I chose director, screenwriter, and filmmaker Cheryl Dunye whose work explores issues of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. I find Dunye to be very interesting as in her work she plays both the actor and director. Dunye is known for combining intensely personal accounts with humor. Dunye films and videos are engaging and provocative, revealing the complexities and struggles she has faced, as well as her happiness and pride, in being an African-American lesbian.

Who is Cheryl Dunye? Cheryl Dunye a native of Liberia received her BA from Temple University and her MFA from Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts.
Dunye has received numerous national and international honors for her work in the media arts. Her third feature film, Miramax's, MY BABY'S DADDY, was a box office success and played at theaters nation wide. Dunye's second feature, the acclaimed HBO Films, Stranger Inside, garnered Dunye an Independent Spirit award nomination for best director in 2002.

Dunye wrote, directed and starred in her first film which was the first African American lesbian feature film, The Watermelon Woman. It was awarded the Teddy Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival and best feature in L.A.'s OutFest, Italy's Torino, and France's Creteil Film Festivals. Dunye's other works have been included in the Whitney Biennial and screened at festivals in New York, London, Tokyo, Cape Town, Amsterdam and Sydney.

Dunye serves on the Directors Guild of America's Independent Council and on the advisory board for New York's Independent Film Project's Gordon Parks Award. She was also a mentor for IFP/ West Project Involve and a board member of Los Angeles OUTFEST.

In addition Dunye has received grants from the Astraea Foundation and Frameline; a recipient of a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts; a fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation; and graced with the prestigious Anonymous was a Woman Award as well as a lifetime achievement award from Girlfriends Magazine.

Dunye currently teaches in the Department of Film and Media Arts at Temple University and is at work on a slate of new projects in the US and abroad.
Cheryl Dunye is known for the following films listed below.

My Baby's Daddy, directed by Cheryl Dunye from a committee-written script, follows three bachelor buddies on a journey toward maturity initiated by the simultaneous pregnancy of their girlfriends. Starring Eddie Griffen of the movie "Undercover Brother" Anthony Anderson from the new movie "Kangaroo Jack" and Micheal Imperioli from "The Sparanos".

Stranger Inside, based on four years of research into the lives of incarcerated women. View photos from the production of Stranger Inside. For more info on the film and its premiere on HBO go to hbo.com.

In The Watermelon Woman Dunye displays her passion for uncovering the hidden histories and continuities of black lesbian life at the same time working towards cinematic representations of black women that refute racist stereotypes. View a video clip from The Watermelon Woman, produced by Barry Swimar and Alexandra Juhasz

Dunye is famous in role in "The Watermelon Woman" seamlessly weaves together the issues of race relations, ethnic and lesbian identity construction, and prevailing oppression in all its subtleties. The first film by and about an African-American lesbian, writer-director Cheryl Dunye’s fantasy is a “mockumentary,” focusing on recapturing the life and times of a fictionalized 1930s Hollywood actress.Setting up the film as a pseudo-documentary of an aspiring filmmaker's research on a Black lesbian actor from the thirties counterpoints a historical context of these issues, with its modern manifestations. An excellent film from a multiple-minority perspective. The acting may call for more training, but the successful execution of the issues excuses the sometimes contrived reading of lines. The portrayal of Guin Turner's naively ignorant character (a white woman who prefers men and women of African-descent) was well written and played. The film illustrated race relations on many sides of the issue -- the relations between people of the same race and cross-racial relations. Funny, as well as socially valuable, "The Watermelon Woman" is one of those rare films that reaffirm my expectations for film: not just as a form of entertainment or art, but as a tool for social commentary. The film was very creative and an eye opener. Dunye's role in The Watermelon Woman was a quest of hers to secure her place in history as a black lesbian who wanted scoiety to know that she is a real person with a voice. Dunye in this film wanted to expose the hidden racism in the lesbian community.

Plot: The Watermelon Woman

Cheryl is a young, African American lesbian who works in a video rental store in Philadelphia with her friend Tamara. They earn extra money by making professional home videos for people. Cheryl becomes interested in films from the 1930s and 40s which feature black actresses. She notices that these actresses are often not credited. She watches a film called Plantation Memories with a black actress who is credited simply as "The Watermelon Woman". Cheryl decides to make a documentary about the Watermelon Woman and find out more about her life.

Tamara tries to set Cheryl up with her friend Yvette, but Cheryl is not interested. Cheryl meets a white woman in the store called Diana who, to Tamara's annoyance, flirts with Cheryl.

Cheryl starts interviewing members of the public, asking them if they have heard of the Watermelon Woman. She interviews her mother who does not remember the name, but recognises a photograph of her. She tells Cheryl that she used to hear the Watermelon Woman singing in clubs in Philadelphia. Tamara's mother tells Cheryl to get in contact with Lee Edwards — a man who has done a lot of research into black films. Cheryl and Tamara go to see Lee, and he tells them about 1920s and 30s black culture in Philadelphia. He explains to them that in those days, black women usually played domestic servants.

Cheryl meets her mother's friend Shirley, who turns out to be a lesbian. Shirley tells her that the Watermelon Woman's name was Fae Richards, that she was a lesbian too, and that she used to sing in clubs "for all us stone butches". She says that Fae was always with Martha Page, the white director of Plantation Memories, and that Martha was a mean and ugly woman.

When Cheryl and Tamara get caught ordering video tapes under Diana's name, Diana takes the tapes and tells Cheryl that she will have to come to her home to collect them. Cheryl goes to Diana's house, stays for dinner, and watches some of the tapes with her, telling her about her project. They have sex, and Cheryl decides that although Diana is not her usual type of woman, she likes being with her.

Cheryl meets cultural critic Camille Paglia who tells her about the Mammy archetype, saying that it represented a goddess figure. Cheryl goes to the CLIT archive of lesbian material, and finds photographs of Fae Richards, including one given by Fae to a June Walker. With Diana's help, Cheryl manages to contact Martha Page's sister who denies that Martha was a lesbian.

As Cheryl and Diana grow closer, Tamara makes it clear that she dislikes Diana and disapproves of their relationship. She accuses Cheryl of wanting to be white, and Diana of having a fetish for black people.

Cheryl telephones June Walker, learning that she was Fae's partner for 20 years. They arrange to meet, but June is taken to hospital and leaves a letter for Cheryl instead. In the letter she says that she is angry with Martha Page, that Martha is nothing to do with what Fae's life was. She urges Cheryl to tell their history.
Having separated from Diana, and fallen out with Tamara, Cheryl finishes her project, never managing to make further contact with June.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Watermelon_Woman

http://www.cheryldunye.com/

Claire Denis "Chocolat"

In reading Author/Auteur: Feminist Literary Theory And Feminist Film my understanding of auteur is a person who creates films based on how they view life. An auteur will create a film so that you can understand their beliefs whereas in the introduction of “introduction: making movie magic” it says that movies do not show real life, but “give the reimagined, reinvented version of the real”. An auteur will depict real life and real issues in their films, and one auteur I believe does that is a woman named Claire Denis.

When I was first researching for a female auteur I came across a few but found none in the United States. There maybe some here but I did not come across them, but I was pleased to come across Claire Denis. Denis is a French filmmaker who favors visual and sound elements rather than dialogue (egs.edu). In her films she likes to focus on those who do not get to be in mainstream media such as immigrants and alienated individuals.

In her film Chocolat, Denis displays her interest in national identity and legacy in French colonialism (egs.com). In this film she shows intense feelings between characters through action and no words. For example between characters Portee and Aimee there is an unspoken desire to want to be with another person of a different class. There is a moment where Portee is taking a shower outside (because that is where the blacks showered), and Aimee and another character Frances passes by from taking a walk. Portee sees them and leans back and hits the wall with his elbow. This displays the frustration of the boundaries they face. Denis is obviously not afraid to show the boundaries of race and class. In this film all of the servants are black and it shows that everything they have is public space (even where they shower). The white people who own the house have private space such as a bedroom and bathroom. This alone makes her an auteur by displaying true boundaries between different races rather than to create a film with different races and pretend like the boundaries do not exist. Denis is able to show intimate moments like this, because her film takes place in a remote area so that she can focus on a handful of characters. Because it takes place in a remote area these characters are stuck in remote roles where a wife is a “wife” and a servant will always be black.

Denis is an amazing auteur because she is not afraid to display life as she sees it. She is not trying to give the audience what they want, but for them to look at things in a different perspective, and to give a second thought to circumstances we ignore in life.

Works Cited:

“The European Graduate School EGS.” The Official Website. Copyright 1997-2010

http://www.egs.edu/faculty/claire-denis/biography/

Neroni, Hilary

“Lost in the Fields of Interracial Desire.” New Perspectives on European film. Volume 3 Issue 7. 9June 2003. Kinoeye.org

http://www.kinoeye.org/03/07/neroni07.php

Nora Ephron

For any artist most would agree that ones age, gender and ethnicity are bound to be expressed in the art they create. This is also true for the art of film making. For the most part, the films we typically see as that of the males perspective; and while they are entertaining, they are limiting. For some female directors and auteurs, film making is a way of teaching the audience about the female perspective. "I teach the kids how media works and how powerful it can be, how they can use if for their own ends. At the same time, I teach them about what a big responsibility working in media is" (Saalfield). One of the biggest problems women face is proving that their work can be taken seriously. Feminism is seen as being an ugly word, but the women in film are just striving for the same respect that men are shown. Questions like "Why did you make a film about women? Why is she focusing on details? [and] Why is she focusing on the look on a woman's face?" Should not be seen as bad film making, but just a different approach.

While some stray from making overtly feminine movies in order to avoid this stigma that comes along with being a female director, Nora Ephron has made a career of it. Her resume includes movies like Julie and Julia, Bewitched, You've Go Mail and Sleepless in Seattle. Some label them as ‘chick flicks,’ but these films have promoted strong female characters, that are not sexualized and are typically good role models for young women. Some of which have landed her Grammy noms, and sadly a Razzie or two. A lot of her criticism as a director is the romantic comedy genre that she embraces. She has said that "most men don't want to direct movies that aren't about them," but she continues to write and direct movies that she believes in.

One of Ephron's first notable films about sex between women and men is When Harry Met Sally. In the film the the male character, Harry, believes that "men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way." The female character, Sally, challenges that theory, and although the main characters do end up in the end, the movie explores an emotional aspect of the relationship rather than having any physical images blur the concept of the relationship.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001188/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nora_Ephron

Presentation - Joan Jett links

Slideshow presentation - https://dl.dropbox.com/u/5275773/Joan%20Jettfinal.pdf



Joan on marriage and femininity, etc.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BA6R15iVGM&feature=PlayList&p=149674B819A2F202&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=38

In depth interview on the program "The Hour":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdNiVhrxdjE&feature=fvw

Joan performs one of her big hits, "Crimson and Clover" in 1982:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i17ky5RbcHY

Her hilarious appearance on Roseanne's talk show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56CFUbA5HFg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwegarImUlM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRmmtjp1sW4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG130_wp_2I&feature=related

Joan Jett and Kenny Laguna talk about starting Blackheart records:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-cLa8LWVYQ&feature=PlayList&p=A1A8494FB76B7E89&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=26

The French Song - one of my fave JJ music videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6LwOntjzrw

Joan goes shopping (pretty funny): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iKjaThAbaY&feature=related

Gina Prince-Bythewoods

In my attempt to find women directors and/or screenwriters, I came across a similar problem, which occurs when I am absorbing media, and when I am learning about women issues: a relatable minority woman! So in my research I sought out to find not just a woman director, but also an African-American woman or a Hispanic woman; someone who is breaking gender and race obstacles.

I found her, her name is Gina Prince-Bythewood and she is an African-American film director and screen writer. Gina Prince-Bythewood has also acted in some of the movies that she has written, and produced. Gina Prince-Bythewood attended UCLA where she studied film and graduated in 1991. Her love of movies is accredited to her passion of reading. What is most interesting about Gina Prince-Bythewood is that she has directed films and TV episodes that are well recognized, for instance, she wrote and directed “Love and Basketball” in 2000, which was viewed at the Sundance Film Festival. Her other works range from: “Biker Boys” in 2003, she worked on Felicity, The Bernie Mac Show, Friends, A Different World. She has also won an NAACP Image Award and was nominated for an Emmy in recognition of her work in television.

A lot of Gina Prince-Bythewood’s films are Hollywood movies, her most recently acclaimed film is “The Secret Life of Bees” which she directed and wrote in 2008. As an Auteur Gina Prince-Bythewood’s films, focusing more on “The Secret Life of Bees” and “Love and Basketball” demonstrate the obstacles and hardships the individuals had to overcome in order to follow their dreams and fall in love too. In “Love and Basketball”, she develops a dynamic love story between both female and male protagonist, in the middle of the film the lovers separate and go in search of their dreams. However, what makes this film different from others is that when the lovers come together, the woman does not give up her dreams for the man. Instead they get married, have a baby and she pursues her dreams in the WNBA while, her husband becomes a stay at home dad after a knee injury destroys his NBA dreams. As a female Auteur her films depict love; heterosexual love stories different from other Hollywood films. Her love stories incorporate hard decisions and social obstacles that interfere in the relationship, nonetheless the woman is not the only one making compromises. She represents the woman as strong, independent, and equal to her male lover. In “Love and Basketball” Omar Epps and Sanaa Lathan are drawn together not by physical chemistry, but because of their shared passion for
basketball.

A New York Times movie review article states that the movie is a bit melodramatic; the author criticizes the familiar and predictability of the plot; yet he also states that the focus on small details allows the romantic plot to be successful and different from other romantic films. It’s Prince-Bythewood’s sense of auteur, which allows the film to stand out and be unique. Prince-Bythewood’s intertwines a love story with family, and societal conflicts. Sanaa Lathan’s character has to deal with making her dreams come true, while forming a successful relationship with her childhood friend, all while she is fighting conventional gender roles in basketball and in her family. The author of the movie critique mentions a scene in the movie where Sanaa Lathan’s character is attending prom and she cannot walk in heels, he states that there are many scenes and details that poke at the idea of conventional femininity (Mitchell 2000).

The Auteur theory by Maggie Humm can be related to Gina Prince-Bythewood’s work through the examination of Prince-Bythewood’s techniques and major focus on details that help emphasize a female perspective on the themes of her movie and TV episodes. Gina Prince-Bythewood’s films are examples that gender definitely shapes signature and that gender makes a difference in perspective, especially in films (Humm 110). For example, if “Love and Basketball” would’ve been written by a man, it would be hard to imagine the last scene in the movie where Omar Epp’s character is sitting on the benches with his daughter, watching his wife Sanaa Lathan play in the WNBA.

Works Cited

Mitchell, Elvis. "Love & Basketball (2000) Film Review United & Divided by the Basketball Hoop." The New York Times. 21 Apr. 2000. Web. 24 Apr. 2010. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F0DE5DD1E31F932A15757C0A9669C8B63

Knox, Mikaela. "F06 :: Feminist Film Studies: 4. Women "of Color" Filmmakers Archives." UThink: Blogs at the University of Minnesota. Web. 24 Apr. 2010. http://blog.lib.umn.edu/raim0007/wost3307/4_women_of_color_filmmakers/

"Gina Prince-Bythewood '91: "The Secret Life of Bees"" UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. 20 Oct. 2008. Web. 24 Apr. 2010. <http://www.tft.ucla.edu/profiles/social/gina-prince-bythewood/>.

Female Sexuality as Alternative Way to Sexism in Film

I had never heard of “auteur” until I start reading “Author/Auteur: Feminist Literary Theory and Feminist Film”. To be honest, I still don’t understand it fully, but as far as I read the article, my understanding of auteur is film directors who reflect their ideas, messages, voices, or perspectives in their own styles or techniques through their films. Thus, films are their way of expression, not merely entertainments or business, and they have the exclusive controls on the film’s structure, concepts, mode, and authorship.

(This image is from http://www.h3.dion.ne.jp/~tantan-s/EngYuri.htm )

When I think about female film auteurs, the first one who came to my mind was Sachi Hamano, who is one of the first Japanese female award-winning film directors and has been in the film industry for over 40 years. She has played a very important role not only as a film director but as an advocator to fight against the patriarchal Japanese society and to rectify the wrong and insulting representation of women.

Since she was a child, she has always been loving movies and used to watch about 8 to 10 movies a week when she was in high school. As she saw European women wearing red coats and high heels and looking cool in the nouvelle vague films, she became wondering why women in Japanese films are depicted as only four roles: mother, wife, daughter, and prostitute. Women were always serving for men and depicted as just like slaves. She realized that there are only male directors, so all of such portrays of women are men’s point of view. It was the reflection of Japanese society at that time. After graduating her high school, she decided to become a film director to depict the “real” women although it sounded such a crazy idea in the 1960s in Japan.

Yes, it was extremely hard for Hamano to enter the filmmaking industry because it was the norm that only male graduates can become film directors at that time in Japan. No production or studio accepted her, a female high school graduate. The only way to get into the filmmaking world was “pink film” which is “Japanese soft-core porn” where women were inevitable sex objects. It was completely male-dominated world and she had to endure countless suffering, bullying, and sexual harassments from men there. According to her, a word “sexual harassment” didn’t even exist at that time. There was no question to abuse women. However, she survived. She survived because she wanted to become a film director.

Ever since she debuted as a director when she was 21 to the present day, she has stuck to her belief as a female pink film director consistently, which is to film female sexuality from female perspectives. Pink films were usually all about satisfying the distorted sexual desires of men, so female sexuality was always depicted from men’s point of view. Hamano once said in an interview, “Rape and violence are two of the most popular themes in pink films. For instance, if a girl has been raped, in a minute, she has to appear as if like she is having good time with him, and the male figure, the rapist, always says, ‘hey, you are actually feeling good, right?’ No woman feels happy to be raped. I thought I have to break down such unacceptable fantasies of men. I want to say that women are not sex objects for men through my films.” She continues, “so my films have never shown any rape or violent scenes. What I have been trying to show is female sexuality for their own pleasure and sexes which women willingly chose to have” (Jyoshi-bu, March 2009)

Hamano’s belief is what Josephine Donovan calls “gynocriticism”, which is “a way of assessing works of art specifically in relation to the interests and desires of women. As Donovan points out it involves a separate female way of thinking, and a recognition that women’s experience has been effectively silenced by a masculine culture. This response to that silencing, is a new epistemology which creates or uncovers a ‘newly visible world of female culture’ opening up and sharing this world with women readers/viewers.” (Author/Auteur: Feminist Literary Theory and Feminist Film). In pink films, and even in the Japanese society, women have been silenced by men for a long time in any situation. As Hamano pointed out, women had to play the passive roles given by men perfectly, which were “mother”, “wife”, “daughter”, or “prostitute”, and they were not allowed to have any desire. Hamano broke the convention by using pink films where women are usually just “silenced” and “used” as sex objects. She looked at pink films from a different perspective and considered it as “the women-centered world”.

(This image is from http://jfilmpowwow.blogspot.com/2009/11/review-lily-festival.html)

One of the huge groups of silenced women in Japan is elderly women, and their sexuality is what Hamano depicted in a film (this is not a pink film) called “Yurisai” (“Lily Festival” in English title), which sets in an apartment building where the main character Mrs. Miyano and her five female neighbors who range in age from 69 to91 live in. When a 75-year-old charming man called Mr. Miyochi moves in, older women’s undisclosed sexualities are stirred up and find that they don’t have to pretend like a “cute old lady” and they can do whatever they want to in the rest of their lives. This film portrays cheerfully reawaking older women and is the liberation from the Japanese old-fashioned idea both that women are not supposed to talk about anything about sex in the public and that older people especially women are “over” after 60. Hamano said, “The sexuality of post-menopausal is one of the taboos to talk about”. She continues, “Most of Japanese think that sex is all about reproduction, not the act of love or human beings’ natural desires. So if you can’t have babies, you cannot have any desires for sex and your sexuality has gone. It is wrong. It is absolutely natural for older women to have love, sex and desires. That’s my point of the film.” (Daun Center, No. 2003) The women in this film beautifully changes after Mr. Miyoshi’s arrival. Mr. Miyoshi treats each of them as “a woman” not “an old lady” and respects their beauties, softness, and intelligence. Because they haven’t been treated in that way for a while, they are immediately attracted by him and trying to be more beautiful. It seems true that love and sexuality are essential aspects to keep people young.

Hamano was inspired by a novel of the same title “Yurisai” written by Hoko Momotani in 1999. However, she filmed it in her own way and put a lot of her originalities on it. The most eye-opening difference is she indicated the possibility of lesbianism as the extension of female friendships or “lesbian experience” in words of Adrinne Rich. There is no depiction or indication of lesbianism in the novel, so her idea actually surprised the author of the novel. After it was revealed that Mr. Miyoshi had sexual relationships not only with one of the residents but with most of them (each character was thinking that he is seeing only her), Mrs. Miyano and one of her neighbor Mrs. Yokota leave Mr. Miyoshi, and they found that they actually fall in love each other. It sounds too sudden to happen, but it is Hamano’s massage that the female solidarity which they established by sharing their love for Mr. Miyoshi can be stronger that their love for Mr. Miyoshi. As Gorris did, this “lesbian experience” seems to refuse to share the relationship between Mrs. Miyano and Mrs. Yokota with the male viewers. It implicitly says that this is “the women’s world”. In the very ending of the film, Mr. Miyano wearing Japanese traditional clothes called kimono says, staring at the camera (viewers) with a smile, “You never know what we did last night.”

Hamano knew that the lesbian scene would cause the harsh criticism by the male viewers, and as she expected, it did. She said an interview, “the male viewers would expected to see the conventional happy-end, which is Mr. Miyoshi and Mrs. Miyano get married. But I didn’t want to do that. It’s too boring, and I wanted to show that women have the right to decide what makes them happy. In the Japanese society, marriage is traditionally considered the ultimate happiness for women. It is ridiculous. It is not happy to stay at home all day long and do whatever the husbands say. I want women to be more active after they see my films.” (Jyoshi-bu, March 2009)

“Yurisai” has played at many film festivals all over the world and been highly praised. It won awards at the Philadelphia Gay & Lesbian film festival, Turin International Women’s Film Festival (Italy), and the Mix Brasil. She believes that there are definitely massages which only female directors can convey through films because women have different points of view from men’s especially about the female sexuality. She said, “I don’t think that no male director would want to film ‘Yurihana’ because they are not interested in old ladies having sex. I was the only director who could do.” (Jyoshi-bu, March 2009)

Work sites (some of the following links are Japanese websites, so I translated some quotes of Hamano to English)

Joshi-bu (Japanese) http://jyoshi-bu.iza.ne.jp/jyoshi-bu/sp/imai/001_01.html

Tan-tan-shya http://www.h3.dion.ne.jp/~tantan-s/

Dawn Center (Japanese) http://www.dawncenter.or.jp/publication/edawn/0312/04.html

Chicago Reader http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/film-notes-from-japanese-porn-to-the-real-world/Content?oid=913088

After Ellen http://www.afterellen.com/archive/ellen/Movies/lilyfestival.html

"DIABLO CODY: AN ORIGINAL VOICE"



When I saw the film "Juno" I loved its nerve and originality, I haven't been impressed like this by a movie in a long time. Therefore I decided to investigate who had written this amazing script. It was Diablo Cody, her real name: Brook Busey ,a singular woman who never imagined herself working as a screenwriter. She has always loved writting."I never intended my work as a springboard to anything else. I write because I'm addicted to it. It's my confessional," she said. She started to write her blog "The Pussy Ranch" in 2003. Jason Reitman, Juno´s director, used to read her blog and told her that she should write a screenplay. "I was really just self-published and had this cult following on the internet. But one day I got an email from this guy who said: “I’m a fan of your blog, I read it every day and think that you’re really funny and by the way I’m a manager/producer in Hollywood and I think you should try writing a screenplay.” I’ve never been a very ambitious person and I loathe competition. I prefer to stay comfortable, so the idea of immersing myself in a really sort of competitive, cutthroat industry was not appealing to me. And I didn’t really see the point of wasting my time writing a screenplay that would just end up banished to a desk drawer, which is generally what happens 99% of the time.So I wasn’t very interested. But he kind of hounded me about it for a while and finally I was hanging out with my sister in Minnesota and I hit on an idea for a movie and I thought about Juno. So, I sat down and I started writing and I wrote the movie and it was a really, really painless process because ignorance is bliss and I’ve never had an easier writing experience since then… So I gave it to this guy who at that point had decided to be my manager and we took it out and it was received very well in Hollywood, which was a big surprise. We found many people that wanted to make it and it was just shocking," she tells.
This proposal changes her life. Now she is working in the series: "United States of Tara", she has worked with Jason Reitman in two movies: "Jennifer´s Body" and "Juno" for which she won her first Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay among other prizes. She is free and natural and before to work as a screenwriter she was a stripper because she was curious about how it was to work as a stripper.
Diablo Cody just lives her work and enjoy with it like a child, she does not feel under pressure. "OK, here’s a problem that is holding back feminism and you see it on the blogs. We all hold each other up to an incredibly high standard in a way that men do not. Let’s say a woman directs a movie that’s not very good—everybody piles up on her. It’s, like, “No! You’re representing us! It has to be perfect!” And that’s not how it works! Women should be allowed to make bad movies. Good movies. porno movies. Terrible made-for-TV movies. Women just need to be out there directing as many movies as men do. We don’t all have to be the model woman—what we need is to be more visible. We really, really are tough on each other," she says.
I think that she is not the typical profile of women who works and fights to have a place in the film industry. She started to work because someone believes in her and encourage her to do it, but despite this she teaches us that you can work to create and have fun. She has never been ambitious, she just enjoys the things that she is doing in each moment,being herself, like Saalfield says, "You can´t separate your activism from your art any more than you can separate your sexuality from your identity."


Works cited:

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/news/2007/11/cody

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1959505/bio

http://www.indielondon.co.uk/Film-Review/juno-diablo-cody-interview

http://www.fandango.com/commentator_setvisitinterviewwithemjennifersbodyemscreenwriterdiablocody_272

Kathryn Bigelow: Road Warrior

With all the hype that initially surrounded the most expensive motion picture film ever made, James Cameron’s “Avatar”, there was little coverage of his former wife and fellow director, Kathryn Bigelow. While there has been some talk about her due to her directing the film entitled “Hurt Locker”, which inevitably beat out Cameron’s Avatar for best director at the Oscars( the first female director to do so), and also earned her the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film ( also the first time a woman has ever earned that honor). Born in San Carlos, California, Bigelow was originally a painter early in her life. So her love for the creative arts was evident even at a young age, when she worked for conceptual art pioneer, Lawrence Weiner. She attended the Columbia graduate film program where she studied theory and criticism while earning her Masters Degree. These years of studying theory and criticism would be beneficial to Bigelow in her novel role as director of films.
Although her recent work, since she returned from her 5 year hyadus in 2000, has yielded her much recognition and respect as a director, some of her earlier works were not as well received. These include such features as “Blue Steel”, which stars Jamie Lee Curtis as a rookie cop stalked by a psychopathic killer, and “The Weight of Water”, about two women trapped in suffocating relationships. Several important social injustice issues and gender issues were raised in these two films, but these films are the only ones that do so in depth. As Bigelow later said in an interview about Blue Steel and her style in general, the messages in her movies are not premeditated. Nor does she give any credence to an issue because it affects women. She says when talking about Blue Steel, “The film is about a woman cop, so obviously there's a feminist statement in it simply by the nature of there being a woman cop. I never make a decision about a role with feminism as a criterion. I read the story and thought it was very exciting. The fact that [the main character] was a woman cop was interesting -- I don't look for feminist messages.”
With these statements one could say that Bigelow is technically not a true auteur. However there is no doubt that her use of narrative and her innovational accomplishments make her likely one of the best auteurs in film. Her uncanny ability to take a mediocre film script and make it into an appealing motion picture was evident in her 2002 film “K-19:Widowmaker”. While Bigelow had always made pictures exposing film violence, the aspect of her work that was illustrated in K-19 was her knack to make a great action film, with unique narratives and plots. As a New York Times review for K-19, by A.O Scott, reads: “Kathryn Bigelow, one of the best pure action directors around, turns a sturdy, conventional-a hybrid of “Alien” and “Mutiny on The Bounty,” with many nods to submarine movies of the past- into a swift, tense drama of dueling egos and mechanical catastrophe.” But the movie tanked at the box office and, while receiving some great reviews, received mainly mixed reviews at best.
Mixed reviews were sometimes given to Bigelow’s works, by her critics. But this did not deter her from continuing to make films (her way), eventually making her way to the crème of the crop, and proving all of her naysayer’s wrong. Even in the last decade of the twentieth century, when as the Feminist in Film article says “feminist literary theory is extensive and reflective, receptive to all those nuances of framing, inflection and particularly authorial viewpoint which intensively concern critics of women’s films,” Bigelow had little trouble finding her own success among a field of testosterone driven male directors. While many people like to infer that her rise to prominence during this time was due to her marriage to James Cameron, and their public split which gained her exposure. This however is inherently untrue, for her work in the film festival world preceded her union with Cameron. Not to mention she already had various documentaries and films under her belt.
But as a recent Newsweek article chronicles, Bigelow does not let past box office letdowns or societal perceptions of her, as a woman or ex-spouse of a prominent Hollywood director, get in the way of her work. Talking with Bigelow, journalist Jennie Yabroff states, “At this point in her career, Bigelow is weary of the notion that being a woman affects how she works. Critics can't seem to get over the idea that a female director could devote herself to making adrenaline-charged films that owe more to Ridley Scott than Nora Ephron.” This devotion has been evident in Bigelow’s work even in her early career, with titles such as Near Dark (a suspenseful horror thriller), and the cult classic Point Break (a surfer/bank robbery picture). While not afraid to go outside her comfort zone in the types of films she has made throughout her career, her niche as a director of socially oriented action films is clear with the powerful story portrayed in The Hurt Locker.
New York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica, who usually reserves his commentary for political or sports related topics of conversation, had nothing but the highest praise for Bigelow in the weeks leading up to the Academy had their night and gave away their Oscars. Lupica talks about how Bigelow is the hands down favorite in his opinion for Best Director and Picture, despite international success for Avatar and The Blind Side’s emotional message, because she has done what a director is supposed to do. Not only that but she did it for a usually forgotten minority in the U.S, those troops as well as their families who are suffering and fighting this nations wars all around the globe. Lupica says, “The job of the director, ultimately, is to make you feel as if you’re there “the gifted screenwriter/director David Koepp was saying the other day. Anyone who’s seen this movie knows Kathryn Bigelow puts you in the boots of these characters. You walk out of the theater thinking she must have served three tours in Iraq herself.” Lupica went on to sum up his article by making a sports analogy, and saying how David would once again beat Goliath. He says “With what she spent to make her movie and what Cameron spent to make his, it is as if she is going up against the Yankees Sunday night at the Academy Awards. She should still win. When and if you finally see “The Hurt Locker”, you’ll understand. In all the important ways, Bigelow has won already. This isn’t about the power of special effects. Just the movies.”
This is something that Kathryn Bigelow has done a great job of doing over her career, and that is just making movies.

Newsweek Article about Hurt Locker/Bigelow:http://www.newsweek.com/id/202730

New York Times Movie Reviews site: http://movies.nytimes.com/person/81836/Kathryn-Bigelow?inline=nyt-per

Blue Steel Movie Interview(1990): http://tech.mit.edu/V110/N13/int.13a.html

Daily News Lupica Article: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2010/03/07/2010-03-07_locker_already_has_won_masterful_film_puts_viewer_on_iraq_front_lines.html

Post #5: Female Film Director

In “Author/Auteur: Feminist Literary Theory and Feminist Film,” it is discussed that in film, the director holds the title of the creator regardless of how much societal influence define the film and its content. It compares the director’s camera to the author’s pen or in a patriarchal society: a man’s penis. To be an auteur is to hold the power of creation—to be a female auteur in a patriarchal society is to have the power to address all the unfairness women suffer.
In the 21st century, where American women have had progress, female auteurs surface in many forms of media. In 2008, a female auteur, Kinga Burza took the position to direct a video for a controversial song by Katy Perry. As a music video director, Burza has worked with many artists including La Roux, Kate Nash and The Teenagers; pleasing her U.K. and Australian audience. Working with Katy Perry would be her first time as a female auteur in the United States. Although that may be, her music video for “I Kissed a Girl” turned out number one in U.S. charts and has “received the most number of plays of any video across MTV channels globally in 2008” according to www.partizan.com. Her success for “I Kissed a Girl” led her for five nominations at the MTV VMA Awards—not bad considering it was Burza’s first production in the American market.
Since the song “I Kissed a Girl” came to her with controversial lyrics, further utilization of girl on girl imagery she thought was the worst way to go: "I didn't actually want to see girls kissing, that would have been far too obvious," said Burza. Her goal was not to make a very hot music video—instead she saw it as an opportunity to show off Katy’s charisma. Her approach was to show a lot of Katy performing her song in an environment surrounded by sexy girls. She intended it to be suggestive and devious by using sexy silhouettes and body shapes.

In terms of being an auteur, it seems Burza has tackled “I Kissed a Girl” somewhat responsibly. She knew Katy and her song was going to be a big hit among a wide age group and so she was careful not cause an infatuation to those female teens who looked up to Katy Perry with each other. In other words, she did not want female teens to be kissing other female teens just because they saw Katy doing it on her video. The fact that she did not write the lyrics to this video made her role as an auteur more engaging. Being an auteur means to take credit not only for the screenplay in films but beyond that—through the images and sounds as well. Since Burza did not write the words we hear and how we hear it, imagery became her domain. She focused on the key element of auteurism which is camera-stylo: to wield the camera like a writer would his pen. The imagery for the music video solely relied on Burza’s personality and creativity. Her personality was expressed through her strict color palette and her love for “femininity, fun, nostalgia and fantasy.” Again, this is also evident in her abandoning the obvious choice of depicting Katy kissing a girl. Instead she set a goal to maintain the essence of the song and its words, through suggestive content like body shapes and silhouettes while at the same time expressing her views and opinion of Katy Perry: that because she is a rising star, the world needed to personally get to know her more; and Katy’s charisma seemed to have done enough inspiring Burza to highlight and dedicate the video to it: “She's fresh, original, intelligent and talented, with a star-like charisma, which will have boys and girls all around the world cooing for more!” said Burza on an MTV interview.
Critics of the video “I Kissed a Girl” were opinionated from both sides of the spectrum. Some disagreed with Burza’s approach: “It is a shame that the song has a catchy tune and a contemporary idea that couldn't be fully utilized due to bad direction, casting, and possibly the motivation for Katy Perry.” It seems as though they wanted a literal depiction of the song lyrics in order to be pleased with it. Others thought it was too sexy: that “the song’s visual content serves almost as a soft-porn teaser [which] is sure to be a draw for sexually curious young male viewers.” Regardless of these opinions, the video turn out did well. After premiering on myspace.com it racked up more than two million views in the course of two weeks.

Works Cited

It's time for women to call the music video shots:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/its-time-for-women-to-call-the-music-video-shots-1920051.html

Kinga Burza's Biography:
http://www.partizan.com/partizan/musicvideos/?kinga_burza

Definition of Camera-stylo:
http://www.allmovie.com/glossary/term/camera+stylo

3(D) Review - I Kissed A Girl by Katy Perry:
http://www.cpyu.org/page.aspx?id=362574

Katy Perry I Kissed a Girl Music Video Review:
http://www.emvees.com/mvr/k/katy-perry-i-kissed.html

Katy Perry's VMA-Nominated 'I Kissed A Girl' Clip Tries Not To Be Too Sexy:
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1593935/20080902/id_1962774.jhtml

Introducing...King Burza: the future of MTV:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/article-23726816-introducingking-burza-the-future-of-mtv.do

Katy Perry: I Kissed A Girl:
http://www.inthenews.co.uk/video/entertainment/music/katy-perry-i-kissed-a-girl-$1233423.htm