Can a film trailer make you cry?

Apparently, yes.

I totally teared up while watching this:

Finally, a film about an amazing, inspirational woman (who’s not a showgirl or a bimbo), directed by a super talented female filmmaker. Will rush to the movie theater the day this film comes out.

Link: Amelia @ imdb.com

From Molly Haskell’s wonderful book “From Reverence to Rape. The Treatment of Women in the Movies” (1974):

The big lie perpetrated on Western society is the idea of women’s inferiority, a lie so deeply ingrained in our social behavior that merely to recognize it is to risk unraveling the entire fabric of civilization.

[...]

In the movie business we have had an industry dedicated for the most part to reinforcing the lie. As the propaganda arm of the American Dream machine, Hollywood promoted a romantic fantasy of marital roles and conjugal euphoria and chronically ignored the facts and fears arising from an awareness of The End – the winding down of love, change, divorce, depression, mutation, death itself.

[...]

The anomaly that women are the majority of the human race, half of its brains, half of its procreative power, most of its nurturing power, and yet are its servants and romantic slaves was brought home with peculiar force in the Hollywood film. Through the myths of subjection and sacrifice that were its fictional currency and the machinations of its moguls in the front offices, the film industry maneuvered to keep women in their place; and yet these very myths and this machinery catapulted women into spheres of power beyond the wildest dreams of most of their sex.

“From Reverence to Rape” on Amazon.com

Molly Haskell’s official site.

The Illusionists is one year old this week. So many positive things have happened since its start… Which I will write more about soon…

For the time being, here is a walk down memory lane: one of the first blog posts about the film project, when I had yet to start the bulk of the research…The amusing thing about it, is the fact I have met/spoken with almost all of the women mentioned in that post – who have all been incredibly supportive of the project, generous in their offer to help, and a delight to talk with.

Where am I today? I’m about to complete the second draft of the film’s script and things on the development side are also looking up.

The other big announcement of the day? I’m seriously thinking about starting a non-profit organization – aimed at enhancing women’s self-image, and shedding light on issues such as wage gap, and gender inequality.

One step at a time. But as Lao Tsu wisely said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

– Elena

(Kim Novak and Alfred Hitchcock on the set of "Vertigo")

Two insightful articles about sexism in cinema have recently appeared in British newspapers.

From the Guardian – “Where Have All the Good Women Gone?” by Kira Cochrane.

Excerpt:

[The] women who people today’s romantic comedies seem to have three main obsessions. There’s shopping, of course, as seen in Confessions of a Shopaholic and Sex and the City. There’s babies, as witnessed in Baby Mama, Juno and Knocked Up. And there’s marriage, which was front and centre of the noxious recent release Bride Wars, featuring Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway fighting over their dream wedding – described by Purkiss as “what some drunken bozo who never got a date in high school thinks women are like”. Marriage is also at the centre of Made of Honour, License to Wed, The Wedding Date, The Wedding Planner and 27 Dresses.

[...]

Now, at a time when 70% of women are in the workforce, career women in romantic comedies are generally either portrayed as incompetent, cruel, or both. Dr Tamar Jeffers McDonald, an academic at the University of Kent and an expert on romantic comedies, says that she finds it “quite insulting that a career woman now is something that is so frowned upon. You see depictions of women who are supposedly at the top of their game, yet they can’t walk down a corridor in a white suit without pouring coffee on themselves or walking into a bush. The films are not very subtly saying ‘yes, they may be at the top in their jobs, but actually what they really need is a man. In fact, a husband.’”

And again from the UK’s Guardian: “Is cinema just the ultimate boys’ club?” by Bibi van der Zee.

Excerpt:

Hollywood is monstrously, demonstrably sexist. It’s sexist in a way that must make industries like construction and engineering take off their hard-hats and whistle with admiration. According to the Celluloid Ceiling review, of the top 250 films of 2007, women made up just 15% of key behind-the-scenes roles. They were just 6% of the directors, and just 2% of cinematographers.

In front of the camera things appear to be slightly better: you can see women, they’re all over the place. But actually, with all those male directors, directing films about men, the women really don’t get much of a look in. Of the 6,833 speaking characters in the films nominated for the best picture Oscar between 1977 and 2006, only 27.3% were female (only one woman director has ever been nominated for an Oscar: Sofia Coppola, in 2003, the same year that Fernando Meirelles was nominated for City of God without his female co-director, Katia Lund).

In Alison Bechdel’s cartoon strip Dykes to Watch Out For, the character Mo explains that she only watches films in which 1) there are two female characters, who 2) have a conversation which is 3) not about men.

Think of your top 3 favortite films… Do they pass the test?

Yay! For once a positive spin on real breasts.

From Jezebel.

“I love the fact that you have real breasts,” Oprah gushed to Kate. Kate took this as a compliment. Oprah went on to describe the difference between what happens to real breasts when a woman lies on her back and fake breasts when a woman lies on her back.

Back in Paris after two incredible weeks in Boston, MA, where I met up with many authors and experts that I will interview once the film is in production.

The amount of support and ultra-positive feedback I received was astounding – which makes me even more motivated to work on this film. I will write more about that in the upcoming days…

I will take a short break from blogging for the rest of the week for travel reasons. Check back soon.

I cannot quite believe it, by looking at the calendar, that I’m now entering the 8th month of work on “The Illusionists.” Indeed, it all started during my stay in Italy back in early March.

It all comes down to invisible work for the time being, with nothing concrete to show, but a lot of ideas and topics and facts and numbers dancing around in my head.

For an outside observer / fly on the wall, these eight months of research and writing could have appeared monotonous. Days spent pouring over books, and articles, and staring at my Powerbook’s screen, looking for the right words to describe the documentary. 

Well, far from it. These eight months have been some of the most enriching of my entire life. I learned just about a million new facts, some useful, some drivel, that I would have never been exposed to, had I not started work on this film.

With three-four books per week, for a good six months, I have now acquired the reading skills/speed of Will Hunting.

I am now somewhat of an expert on the following subjects:

– Persuasion techniques from the early 1900 to the 1950s

– The history of Barbie dolls

– Marketing products to kids ages 5 – 15

– Cellulite

– Wrinkles

– Tanning

– Skin whitening creams

– Women’s magazines and complementary copy

– Media condensation

– Economic practices brought forward by the Chicago School of Economics

– The history of Communism

– The history of the American feminist movement

– Misogynist practices in American culture

– Botox

– Liposuction

– Breast augmentation

– The history of dieting practices in the U.S.

– Airbrushing in print publications and film/video

and the list could go on and on…

There have been days when the people working at the checkout counter at my library would look at me with a puzzled expression. The most precious look they gave me was when I borrowed a Dr. Seuss children’s book (had some stereotypes about aging), Marx’s Communist Manifesto, Hating Women, Fat History, and a copy of Seventeen magazine.

These days, now that I am somewhat done with the research / writing part of the film, I am pitching the project to production houses and contacting prospective interview subjects. 

With all the filming material already at my disposal (HD camera, 35mm adapter, lenses) I could already be filming. But the project is so important that I want to have a serious, solid team/backing in place.

So, I’m now jotting down ideas for a parallel project that I could be doing on my own, with simple means. Will keep you posted on that.