Women and Hollywood

The Iron Lady

As a person who cares about women's leadership, The Iron Lady should be a no-brainer. A film with an AMAZING tour-de-force performance by Meryl Streep playing a woman who was the longest serving Prime Minister in the western world. She gives one of those performances (even better than her recent amazing performances) that leaves your mouth agape at her talent. It was so awesome to see such a strong and powerful woman onscreen.

But I must admit that I am conflicted about this film. There is no doubt that Margaret Thatcher made great strides for women in politics because she broke down gender boundaries and proved a woman could be as tough or tougher than the guys, but at the same time we can't forget that Margaret Thatcher was not known for being a part of the sisterhood - far from it.

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 30, 2011 11:45 AM
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Interview with Phyllida Lloyd - director of The Iron Lady

Donald MacLellan

Women and Hollywood: This is a very different biopic of a leader because it is of a female leader. What about this films makes it different in terms of leadership?

Phyllida Lloyd: First of all it's not a biopic. It's all told from her point of view. We're experiencing how did it feel to be there not objectively, but how did it feel to be the first female leader of the western world coming from a very lower class background coming into this world of privileged, entitled men. It's how does it feel to walk into a room of men who all fought in the Second World War to be the person who is in fact in charge of a war knowing that all the men are looking at you. Of course she's not had any experience with this so we're trying to put ourselves in her shoes using our own experience of the workplace.

WaH: I read that you said that this movie could only have been made by a female team.

PL: Not that it could only have been made by women but I think it is a personal project for all three of us. The kinds of themes in the film that we identify with in terms of being a woman in largely male dominated world. Abi's screenplay takes a very particular look at -- she's very interested in details, fragments and there are a lot of details in the film that we see and feel that perhaps are not the obvious territory for a film about a politician. But because we notice little things that to us are significant. That's all to do with the fact that it's a film about memory and I think it's definitely three women's idea of a woman's journey. Do you agree Abi?

Abi Morgan- Yes very much so. Also because it's a film about memory, it's about a woman who is being hijacked by memories so that way we can come in very left of field again through the details through the random moment that you remember. So you may remember what you were eating but you don't necessarily remember the nature of the conversation but you remember that there was a sort of atmosphere when you were eating and we kind of went in in that way.

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 30, 2011 10:20 AM
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Crazy Funny Remix of We Need To Talk About Kevin

Video

done by Russell Bates

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 30, 2011 9:17 AM
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Rooney Mara to Cover EW

Blogs

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo hasn't opened at the level that Sony would have liked, just $27 million in 6 days of release, (see Thompson on Hollywood analysis of what went wrong) but it goes without saying that the character of Lisbeth Salander has gotten people talking. So much so that Entertainment Weekly has put Rooney Mara on its cover which will hit newstands tomorrow.

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 29, 2011 3:06 PM
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Hester Street Directed by Joan Micklin Silver Among Films Added to National Film Registry

News

Each year 25 films are added by the Library of Congress to the National Film Registry. This year included in the list is the ground breaking film Hester Street directed by Joan Micklin Silver. Silver was one of the first women to start directing in the 1970s after a period of years where there were hardly any female directors. She is a true pioneer. She's also the director of one of my favorite films Crossing Delancey.

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 29, 2011 12:12 PM
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Interview with Abi Morgan - writer of The Iron Lady

Blogs

I was lucky enough to meet the multi-talented Abi Morgan who has had an amazingly successful year with The Hour, Shame and The Iron Lady on the day after the premiere of The Iron Lady in NYC. Women and Hollywood: How does a person have two major movies (Shame and The Iron Lady) in one year? How did that happen and are there any similarities between the projects? Abi Morgan: It's interesting because both have got stellar performances that's the strongest similarity. I was very lucky. It was an odd timing issue. I did write them virtually at the same time but I met Steve McQueen while I was working on The Iron Lady and it was a period where I had done most of the work on the script but I was still tweaking it and then I met him and we just hit it off. It was just the counterpoint of meeting a great director and deciding that I wanted to work with him. That project actually came together incredibly quickly. It was incredibly fortuitous and it was a lucky thing so both films are about great collaborations with great directors.

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 29, 2011 10:45 AM
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Meryl Streep Feted at the Kennedy Center Honors

Here are Meryl's friends and colleagues celebrating her work.

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 29, 2011 9:38 AM
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Pariah - written and directed by Dee Rees

Most of this review was written after screening the film at the Toronto Film Festival. It has been augmented.

The movie is just so good. Well written, well acted, emotional, devastating and liberating. I gotta say that Dee Rees is the real deal. The film tells the story of Alike an African American high school senior who is struggling with how to make her family come to terms with her being a lesbian. Ailke played with fierceness and vulnerability by Adepero Oduye knows she's gay but she lives two lives. One where she wears t-shirts with sparkles and earrings to please her mother, and one where she wears a baseball cap and baggy shirts. She's two different people but as she is growing up and becoming more comfortable with herself, she doesn't want to play the game anymore. She doesn't want to wear the pink sweater her mom bought because it's not her. But she' s also not comfortable being the hard ass dyke that seems to be the other side of the coin. She's trying to make her way in a world with very few role models for her. [SPOILERS BELOW]

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 28, 2011 10:25 AM
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Interview with Dee Rees - Writer and Director of Pariah

Pariah opens in limited release tomorrow. I was able to catch it and the Toronto Film Festival. Here is my conversation with writer/director Dee Rees.

Women and Hollywood: Why did you start the movie off with the Audre Lorde quote?

Dee Rees: I started the movie when I was going through my own coming out process. I was reading a lot of Audre Lorde and listening to Nina Simone, but Audre Lorde was who I latched on to and followed her life journey. I could really relate to her experiences about fitting in and always being the “other.” The quote: “Wherever the bird with no feet flew, she found trees with no limbs.” For me, that means she has no place and there is no place for her and that’s how I interpret it. And that’s why I wanted to start the film with that because that’s what Alike’s journey is about. She feels like she doesn’t have a place.

WaH: You started the film as a short and then it progressed to a feature. Did you know you always wanted it to be a feature film?

DR: We actually wrote it as a feature, first. Then we took an excerpt and shot it as a short.

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 27, 2011 11:22 AM
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Last Chance for Discounted Tickets for the Athena Film Festival

Prices go up as of January 1. The Athena Film Festival will take place from February 9-12, 2012 at Barnard College in NYC. We will be announcing the lineup and awardees on January 10. Single tickets will also go on sale then.

These passes are the best way to ensure that you have priority access to all festival screenings and panels. The pass will admit you to all films prior to individual ticket holders. Doors to each venue will open approximately 30 minutes prior to the screenings and pass holders will have priority admission up until 10 minutes before show time.

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 27, 2011 9:31 AM
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