The day after Katherine Bigelow won the Academy Award for Best Director, and her film Hurt Locker took home Best Picture too (among others), I read a compilation of responses from women filmmakers on the blog Women and Hollywood. It's a diverse series of reactions, ranging from the celebratory to the yearning to the skeptical, and it's worth the read.
I had also read, weeks before, the marvelous New York Magazine article "The Red Carpet Campaign: Inside the singular hysteria of the Academy Awards race." by Mark Harris, which begins and ends with Katherine Bigelow. "It's time," Harris states plainly. "It's her turn." Harris' article enumerates the many Oscar narratives that people tell about the nominees -- The Cinderella Story, The Come Back, The Long Shot, and so on. I haven't even seen Hurt Locker, but I found Harris' article so compelling -- and with such a nuanced understanding of the politics of Hollywood and the Academy -- that it felt like a foregone conclusion that Bigelow would win. It's the right story at the right time, especially with the added subplot of indie ex-wife snubs blockbuster ex-husband.
But as I sat in the living room with some of my best friends in the world, in an Oscar party that rides the line between scathing critique and deep cinephilia (and I wouldn't have it any other way), I watched as my friend burst into tears when Bigelow won for Best Director. And this is no Pollyanna we're talking about, but a tough, sharp as a tack, New York Jew. She warned us all ahead of time that she would probably cry if Bigelow won. I just didn't think she was serious.
My friend's sister said, "You know I will still hate her if she wins and doesn't say anything anti-war." Bigelow didn't. She trembled and held Oscars in both hands and kept her eyes down like she couldn't believe what was happening. She soft-pedaled her relationship to the armed forces, with the generally palatable appeal to "come home safe." She spoke of collaboration as the secret to directing -- which I think is true, but also makes me think about the complexities of female socialization, and how hard it is for a woman to hold the spotlight and say, "Yes, that was me. This is mine. I did it" and not mention anyone else, but especially men, who "made it possible." She then made an even odder dedication to "all of the people in uniform" around the world, who serve a greater good. EMTs, firemen, cops, catholic school children...
I don't mean to be a jerk. And I don't hate Katherine Bigelow, like my friend's sister might. But neither did I cry when she won because I felt some meaningful glass ceiling break around me. When Bigelow won, I saw a woman draped in privilege who had worked really hard for decades catch the brass ring. That's great, but I did not see an icon of the feminist movement walk off that stage, despite the Academy's memorable choice of "I am Woman (Hear Me Roar)" as background music. Bigelow is a woman who carries privilege across nearly every spectrum (she's white, heterosexual, thin, able-bodied, owning class, native English speaker, conventionally gendered and beautiful) except that she's female, and has made movie after movie which showcase men and community among men (bikers, surfers, cops, soldiers, etc.). It's not that women are wholly absent from her films -- they do make notable appearances, and are often fairly well-nuanced as characters. But it is definitely a "man's world" in Bigelow's films.
That focus on masculinity makes her win as Best Director a bit hollow for me. I've read commentary about how it's not important that Bigelow is a woman -- she's a filmmaker first, and this is Hollywood's way of recognizing that. But at the same time, she's held up as the first woman to do it, to win the big prize and run with the big boys, two-fisting her Oscars and making a "real" action movie. Not a soft "woman's film," like Campion does, or Nair, or even Streisand. It's that conflict that makes me ambivalent about her win, and irked by her acceptance speech. As a woman, she can't get away from it being political -- because she IS the first woman to win the award, and how is that possible, honestly, given the depth of women's contributions to Hollywood and the film industry across the globe since the very invention of cinema? Why did it take 83 years for a woman to win Best Director? And why *this* woman now? We have to ask ourselves these questions. And Bigelow should ask herself these questions, too.
The Academy Awards are a game, a contest. Like any pageant, they are about more than just who is the best. The people who should win don't always win. The people who should win don't even always get nominated -- for their entire careers. The Academy Awards are not a meritocracy. This is actually the implication behind the "It's time" Oscar narrative -- the Academy gets it wrong, they show incredible bias and unexamined privilege, and they do it year after year. "It's time," as a satisfying story, is about the very possibility of breaking through prejudice and going against the odds of the dominant paradigm. But in Bigelow's case, the only/primary dominant paradigm she flouted was being female. Don't misunderstand me -- that's not insignificant. But it's certainly not enough for this woman filmmaker either.
If you knew that you had the chance to be the first woman to "make history" by becoming the first female Best Director, why wouldn't you name the women directors who inspired you? The women whose work is a direct (or indirect, or even distant) influence on yours? The women whose names are so rarely spoken today outside of specialized women's studies/cinema studies interdepartmental classes in expensive grad schools? Alice Guy-Blache. Dorothy Arzner. Maya Deren. Su Friedrich. Lizzie Borden. Vera Chytilova. Ida Lupino. Kinuyo Tanaka. Monika Treut. And more and more. You have a rare opportunity -- among the rarest pedestals that exist at this time -- to say something transformative. To acknowledge, with gratitude and humility, all those who came before you, and open someone's eyes to the invisibility of their labor, their perseverence and their vision. And all it would take is to say their names. Once.
Instead, Bigelow thanked the Academy, thanked her collaborators, and dedicated the statue to soldiers -- "may they come home safe." She may have given her speech just like any male filmmaker would have, neatly and inoffensively confined to this project and this narrow historical and cultural moment, but it's in such "equality" that I find myself the most grieved. I want more. I want better than that. Breaking a glass ceiling is not an invisible, unspoken event. It happens with a crash, and you'll probably get cut doing it. And so we work hard, for decades, and reach for that brass ring, and reach further, reach harder each time we miss. The moments when you do catch the prize are precious, but we must not lose sight of the ultimate aim -- a more just and liberated world. So keep reaching, friends. Reach further. Dream bigger than tiny ol' Oscar. The prize was never really the statue. The prize is the chance to tell the story.
Showing posts with label filmmaking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label filmmaking. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Collaboration is the Name of the Game
A Response to David Branin's Film Courage blog entry "Kickstarter is a Game Changer" and his previous "Build the Audience, and the Movie will Come"
In the last week, it's been my pleasure to witness the conversation happening on Twitter and in blogs about the search for the new distribution model that will work for independent filmmakers working outside of the Hollywood studio/distribution system. Much of this discussion has seemed to come on the heels of the Sundance Film Festival, where so many watched films mostly to see who would be bought and for how much. After Toronto's dismal showings last year, or so I'm told, everyone has been up in arms ever since. To my ear, there's been a lot of talk about the sky falling.
Like David Branin says in his blog Film Courage, the game has changed. We all know this, and feel this, and witness it in the market. The dream of being able to make a film, solitary and pure, know it's incredible genius in an instant, and then sell it for a gazillion dollars to some understanding papa bear of a studio, who will then take it off your hands and put it out into the world, where it will then win an Academy Award on its merits alone ... well, that dream -- if it was ever a reality in the first place -- has certainly gone the way of the dodo. It's quaint and a little ridiculous.
Now, some say, the "clear-eyed" indie filmmaker must wear more hats than ever before -- sometimes the writer, sometimes the editor, nearly always the director, sometimes the talent, nearly always the producer, sometimes the DP and the Key Grip *and* the PA, but now -- dum, dum, duuhhhhmmm -- we must also be the social networking maven marketer. And DIY distributor. And have a good relationship with a DVD replicator. And be tech savvy enough to build bit torrent files, YouTube- and Vimeo-ready nuggets, a snazzy standards-compliant website, and so on and so on, into worlds of media distribution no one has even thought of yet. What I'm hearing, over and over again, is that you have to do everything, and know everyone, and never sleep.
But here's something I think is really important -- making a film is a multi-phase collaborative event. You can't know everything, or know everyone, or never sleep. But you can know almost enough, and know the people to ask who'd know someone who knows more, who then could ask the people they know on how to do this incredibly complex, nearly impossible thing -- which is commit a story to a medium, have it makes sense, share it with others, and then figure out how to do it again. (I'm not sure I can really change much about the sleeping, except to remind folks that insanity beckons if you deprive yourself for too long, and constant sleep deprivation is certainly not a way to make a career.)
There's a world of thinking which locates filmmaking on the shoulders of one person -- the multi-hyphenate writer/director/takeyourpick. If you want to get fancy, it's called the auteur theory. There's a lot to be said about how a single individual puts their recognizable stamp onto the final product of so many hundreds of hands -- and there's a lot to be said for how hierarchies (like many film crews) operate with a strong visionary leader at the helm. But there's also a lot to be said for the ways that auteur theory solidifies a certain costly illusion about how films are made (that one [usually white] man's vision is the driving force and deciding factor behind everything that makes it on screen). As indies, and as people of good conscience, I think we must question that illusion. We must question it for ourselves, and resist the narrative that we must do and be everything in our craft (and burn out trying), and we must be plain with one another in the stories we tell about our collaborations.
I hear a lot in this conversation about how some filmmakers despise the marketing process, and wish they could just ignore it all -- and immediately others of us pounce on how archaic and suicidal such thinking is. But what if the same filmmaker said they despised editing? Or scoring a soundtrack? Or wardrobe and hair styling? Other people specialize in those crafts, and develop some mastery of those skills, so that we can collaborate and bring all of our skills to this gargantuan task. There are people who've thought a LOT about marketing, and social networking, and the internet, and viral campaigns -- and they have some skill at doing all of those things. It's worth talking to them. It's worth asking if they'll come on board your project, in much the same way that we ask any craftsman to come on board our project and help us get the job done. I think taking marketing and distribution seriously means not only planning for it in the budget lines of our projects, not only brainstorming our vision for how this project is going to get out into the world and who our ideal audiences are, but also thinking of it as a legitimate trade that involves a learning curve that might not be worth it to you to learn -- and asking for help accordingly. Sure, you can just do it. You can just muddle your way through figuring it out all by yourself. But, if you hate this stuff, wouldn't you rather be making more films?
This is really a thought for those who say they hate marketing. In a nutshell, you don't have to do it alone! But if you love it -- if you love the speed and comraderie of Twitter, if you love the labor of a well-designed logo and postcard and poster campaign (and I'm specifically talking about graphic design here, not even strategy), if you love mail merges and a well-maintained database, if you love shmoozing at film festivals or local screenings, if you love writing press releases and contacting media outlets, if you love writing content for websites -- if you love it, then love it well and still go out and talk to people about how they do it. Then talk to your fellow filmmakers, maybe fall in love with their projects, and work with them to bring that marketing magic alive. They'll be around for your next project, and who knows what skills they could bring to the table when you need it most.
Again, I feel it's so important to say that we each do not have to be all things to all people -- and that's the beauty of this work. It's not about knowing everything. It's about knowing where your knowledge ends and another's begins. I believe we must stop kidding ourselves about the director-as-God ideas that run through our communities, and dig in deep with each other to collaborate and get our dreams off the ground.
The magic of collaboration is at the very heart of KickStarter. Branin describes his enthusiasm for KickStarter as a workable means of not only doing the incredible (raising thousands of dollars that don't need to be paid back to anyone, except through tiered level patron gifts) but also for gauging the strength of your audience's interest in your project, and the strength of your network in general. The idea I would add to his analysis of KickStarter is that it's a paradigm shift for thinking about audiences and fans. KickStarter is a tool which harnesses the power of the current social networking reality -- that audiences can no longer be treated as passive recipients of media at the end of a creation process. This also is a new collaboration. We work with our audiences and share with them the steps of our creative process, with some artists even seeking audience input on where to go next or how to solve various problems, and we ask our audiences to contribute monetarily in exchange for the experience of being a part of something more. It's not a top-down approach -- i.e., I make this, you take it and like it. Through our/these networks, we can access grassroots-level funding and find out what happens when a 1,000 people contribute $10, instead of 10 people contributing $1000 each, or 1 person contributing $10,000. It's more than just money -- it's about what happens to ideas, and to individuals, when you're participating in something larger than one person's vision, one person's experience, one "ideal" outcome.
It is extraordinary, and profoundly precious -- and I can't wait to see what happens next.
In the last week, it's been my pleasure to witness the conversation happening on Twitter and in blogs about the search for the new distribution model that will work for independent filmmakers working outside of the Hollywood studio/distribution system. Much of this discussion has seemed to come on the heels of the Sundance Film Festival, where so many watched films mostly to see who would be bought and for how much. After Toronto's dismal showings last year, or so I'm told, everyone has been up in arms ever since. To my ear, there's been a lot of talk about the sky falling.
Like David Branin says in his blog Film Courage, the game has changed. We all know this, and feel this, and witness it in the market. The dream of being able to make a film, solitary and pure, know it's incredible genius in an instant, and then sell it for a gazillion dollars to some understanding papa bear of a studio, who will then take it off your hands and put it out into the world, where it will then win an Academy Award on its merits alone ... well, that dream -- if it was ever a reality in the first place -- has certainly gone the way of the dodo. It's quaint and a little ridiculous.
Now, some say, the "clear-eyed" indie filmmaker must wear more hats than ever before -- sometimes the writer, sometimes the editor, nearly always the director, sometimes the talent, nearly always the producer, sometimes the DP and the Key Grip *and* the PA, but now -- dum, dum, duuhhhhmmm -- we must also be the social networking maven marketer. And DIY distributor. And have a good relationship with a DVD replicator. And be tech savvy enough to build bit torrent files, YouTube- and Vimeo-ready nuggets, a snazzy standards-compliant website, and so on and so on, into worlds of media distribution no one has even thought of yet. What I'm hearing, over and over again, is that you have to do everything, and know everyone, and never sleep.
But here's something I think is really important -- making a film is a multi-phase collaborative event. You can't know everything, or know everyone, or never sleep. But you can know almost enough, and know the people to ask who'd know someone who knows more, who then could ask the people they know on how to do this incredibly complex, nearly impossible thing -- which is commit a story to a medium, have it makes sense, share it with others, and then figure out how to do it again. (I'm not sure I can really change much about the sleeping, except to remind folks that insanity beckons if you deprive yourself for too long, and constant sleep deprivation is certainly not a way to make a career.)
There's a world of thinking which locates filmmaking on the shoulders of one person -- the multi-hyphenate writer/director/takeyourpick. If you want to get fancy, it's called the auteur theory. There's a lot to be said about how a single individual puts their recognizable stamp onto the final product of so many hundreds of hands -- and there's a lot to be said for how hierarchies (like many film crews) operate with a strong visionary leader at the helm. But there's also a lot to be said for the ways that auteur theory solidifies a certain costly illusion about how films are made (that one [usually white] man's vision is the driving force and deciding factor behind everything that makes it on screen). As indies, and as people of good conscience, I think we must question that illusion. We must question it for ourselves, and resist the narrative that we must do and be everything in our craft (and burn out trying), and we must be plain with one another in the stories we tell about our collaborations.
I hear a lot in this conversation about how some filmmakers despise the marketing process, and wish they could just ignore it all -- and immediately others of us pounce on how archaic and suicidal such thinking is. But what if the same filmmaker said they despised editing? Or scoring a soundtrack? Or wardrobe and hair styling? Other people specialize in those crafts, and develop some mastery of those skills, so that we can collaborate and bring all of our skills to this gargantuan task. There are people who've thought a LOT about marketing, and social networking, and the internet, and viral campaigns -- and they have some skill at doing all of those things. It's worth talking to them. It's worth asking if they'll come on board your project, in much the same way that we ask any craftsman to come on board our project and help us get the job done. I think taking marketing and distribution seriously means not only planning for it in the budget lines of our projects, not only brainstorming our vision for how this project is going to get out into the world and who our ideal audiences are, but also thinking of it as a legitimate trade that involves a learning curve that might not be worth it to you to learn -- and asking for help accordingly. Sure, you can just do it. You can just muddle your way through figuring it out all by yourself. But, if you hate this stuff, wouldn't you rather be making more films?
This is really a thought for those who say they hate marketing. In a nutshell, you don't have to do it alone! But if you love it -- if you love the speed and comraderie of Twitter, if you love the labor of a well-designed logo and postcard and poster campaign (and I'm specifically talking about graphic design here, not even strategy), if you love mail merges and a well-maintained database, if you love shmoozing at film festivals or local screenings, if you love writing press releases and contacting media outlets, if you love writing content for websites -- if you love it, then love it well and still go out and talk to people about how they do it. Then talk to your fellow filmmakers, maybe fall in love with their projects, and work with them to bring that marketing magic alive. They'll be around for your next project, and who knows what skills they could bring to the table when you need it most.
Again, I feel it's so important to say that we each do not have to be all things to all people -- and that's the beauty of this work. It's not about knowing everything. It's about knowing where your knowledge ends and another's begins. I believe we must stop kidding ourselves about the director-as-God ideas that run through our communities, and dig in deep with each other to collaborate and get our dreams off the ground.
The magic of collaboration is at the very heart of KickStarter. Branin describes his enthusiasm for KickStarter as a workable means of not only doing the incredible (raising thousands of dollars that don't need to be paid back to anyone, except through tiered level patron gifts) but also for gauging the strength of your audience's interest in your project, and the strength of your network in general. The idea I would add to his analysis of KickStarter is that it's a paradigm shift for thinking about audiences and fans. KickStarter is a tool which harnesses the power of the current social networking reality -- that audiences can no longer be treated as passive recipients of media at the end of a creation process. This also is a new collaboration. We work with our audiences and share with them the steps of our creative process, with some artists even seeking audience input on where to go next or how to solve various problems, and we ask our audiences to contribute monetarily in exchange for the experience of being a part of something more. It's not a top-down approach -- i.e., I make this, you take it and like it. Through our/these networks, we can access grassroots-level funding and find out what happens when a 1,000 people contribute $10, instead of 10 people contributing $1000 each, or 1 person contributing $10,000. It's more than just money -- it's about what happens to ideas, and to individuals, when you're participating in something larger than one person's vision, one person's experience, one "ideal" outcome.
It is extraordinary, and profoundly precious -- and I can't wait to see what happens next.
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