Film Fatale
If you think actresses have it tough trying to land decent movie projects in Hollywood today, then spare a thought for female film-makers.
The glass ceiling is still very much in place within the movie system: the Women in Film group reports that just 9pc of the 250 top-grossing US films of 2008 were directed by women.
And that was a good year, thanks to the huge success of Mamma Mia and Twilight, which were both directed by women (Phyllida Lloyd and Catherine Hardwicke respectively). Indeed, Hardwicke had the most successful opening weekend of any female director in history.
The hard truth is that very few women directors have ever been able to make even the slightest breakthrough, with the exception of the likes of Penny Marshall, Nancy Meyers and, most recently, Sofia Coppola.
Be that as it may, this year is shaping up to be one of the strongest ever for female directors. While the industry remains depressingly sexist, there are some very encouraging signs of progress, so much so that there's a good chance that at least two women could make history by landing Oscar nominations for Best Director next year.
So, who are the heavy-hitters calling the shots of late? Anne Fletcher (27 Dresses -- another smash early last year) scored one of this year's biggest box-office hits so far with the Sandra Bullock/Ryan Reynolds romcom The Proposal. A raft of mixed reviews did little to dampen the movie's appeal, grossing $155m in the US alone. At the time of writing, The Proposal's worldwide haul was about to top $236m.
This summer also saw the release of Rebecca Miller's big-screen adaptation of her own novel, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee. The drama, starring Robin Wright Penn and Winona Ryder, might not have set the box office alight, but it drew respectable reviews and heralded Miller as a talented art-house director.
Similarly, British director Andrea Arnold (an Oscar winner for her short film Wasp) was one of the big success stories at this year's Cannes Film Festival with her movie Fish Tank, a gritty drama about a troubled 15-year-old girl, played to great acclaim by newcomer Katie Jarvis.
Australian director Jane Campion, who is most famous for The Piano and An Angel At My Table, also made waves at Cannes with her movie Bright Star, a love story about poet John Keats that was an early critical favourite for the Palme d'Or.
However, the biggie in terms of female film-makers opens here next week. The Hurt Locker is a nerve-shreddingly intense war movie focusing on a US army bomb disposal squad in Iraq. It's directed by Kathryn Bigelow, an action director once best known for being married to megalomaniacal film-maker James Cameron, but who has since carved out her own career with her movies Near Dark, Blue Steel, Str-ange Days, K19: The Widowmaker and the classic surfing thriller, Point Break.
Bigelow is now storming her way on to the A-list thanks to her extraordinary work on The Hurt Locker. The movie has drawn unanimous rave reviews (scoring a 94pc 'universal acclaim' average on Metacritic), and currently stands as the fourth best reviewed movie of 2009 on Rotten Tomatoes, a website that collates critical reviews from all over the US.
More than anything else, Bigelow has pulled off what many thought impossible: she delivered an Iraq war movie that's utterly riveting and, thankfully, devoid of any po-faced lecturing, ideological posturing, or political point-scoring (see Lions for Lambs, In the Valley of Elah, Redacted and Grace is Gone).
"I think sometimes it takes a woman to make a man's movie," the movie's screenwriter, Mark Boal, said recently. "[Kathryn] has the ability to make a gripping, balls-out action movie that also has characters that are humanistic and complicated. That puts her in a fairly select group."
Such is the level of acclaim for the movie that Bigelow has become a firm early favourite to land an Oscar nomination for Best Director, which would make the 57-year-old just the second American woman to be ever nominated for that prize (the sole flag-bearer being Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation in 2003).
The Hurt Locker also stands a great chance of being nominated for Best Picture, particularly as, from next year, the Academy will have 10 slots in the category as opposed to the traditional five.
Another movie in a strong position to make the Oscar grade is Julie & Julia, a frothy and hugely enjoyable comedy, opening here on September 11, that tells the true story of renowned American chef Julia Child (played by the glorious Meryl Streep), and a modern-day food blogger (Amy Adams) who tries to make every recipe in Child's classic tome Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
J&J is written and directed by Nora Ephron, the screenwriter behind When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle. The movie opened at No 2 in the US box office (behind GI Joe), and is sure to rake in more booty as leading lady Streep inevitably starts bagging awards for what is her strongest role in many years.
Another female director set to make a big impact is Danish film-maker Lone Scherfig, who has helmed the Nick Hornby-scripted big-screen adaptation of journalist Lynn Barber's memoir An Education, which opens here in October. There has been ever-increasing buzz about this film since it debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, and the Oscar-watching website, AwardsDaily, has installed it as an early favourite to sweep multiple nominations.
Other women releasing movies this year include Drew Barrymore, making her debut with the comedy Whip It!, starring Ellen Page, while Karyn Kusama (Girlfight) is releasing the horror comedy Jennifer's Body, scripted by Juno Oscar winner Diablo Cody.
What's more, Nancy Meyers directs Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin in the middle-aged romantic comedy It's Complicated; and Mira Nair (Vanity Fair) is directing Hilary Swank in Amelia, a biopic of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether this year's comparative bumper crop of female-directed movies is a new trend, or merely a freakish blip. The studios seem to have slowly grasped that women do, indeed, go to the movies, so maybe the heads will now be more open to hiring female directors rather than sticking to the old 'jobs for the boys' philosophy. Interestingly, Empire magazine is campaigning for Kathryn Bigelow to direct the next Bond movie. A woman (other than M) giving 007 his orders definitely seems like a good place to start.
- Declan Cashin
