Cinema Notes No.2
London Film Festival: Women filmmakers and the male gaze
“The first feminist gesture is to say: ‘Okay, they’re looking at me. But I’m looking at them.’”
Agnes Varda
Dear friends,
As the London Film Festival draws to a close tonight, I’d like to spend some time writing about the films written and directed by women. Over the years, I’ve given a lot of thought to the fact that men outnumber women in many aspects of the industry: there aren’t enough female critics, there aren’t enough female producers, and there aren’t enough female filmmakers. It’s a circular problem - one that has been debated in the columns of liberal newspapers and film magazines, but is being addressed by the industry much too slowly.
Festivals like those organised by the BFI are beacons of hope, celebrating and promoting women in the industry. At the London Film Festival this year, female and non-binary filmmakers were behind 41% of the films screened. Less than half, but considerably more than those succeeding at the box-office. Between 2007 and 2021, just 5% of the directors behind top grossing films were women; in 2021 male directors outnumbered women 7 to 1. On my watch-list at this year’s festival were Marie Kreutzer’s, Corsage, a daring drama about Empress Elisabeth turning 40; Lisa Selby’s documentary, Blue Bag Life, which explores her relationship with motherhood and the charismatic, drug-addicted woman who abandoned her; and Joanna Hogg’s ghost story, The Eternal Daughter.
Best known for The Souvenir, an intense, semi-autobiographical drama in two parts, Hogg makes films that unfold at glacial pace; films that are psychological; films that expose women’s relationships with themselves as much as those around them. The strained, mother-daughter relationship that provided emotional subtext in The Souvenir is brought to the surface in The Eternal Daughter. Tilda Swinton returns to play both roles - mother and daughter - in an old manor house where memories seep from the very walls. A first foray into genre filmmaking for Hogg, it’s also everything we’ve come to expect from her work: emotionally complex, exploring how difficult it can be to understand each other.
As the film reached its dramatic climax and Swinton broke down in exaggerated tears, I was distracted by a man, two seats away, making a dramatic sigh, head in his hands. A gesture that said, “I just can’t take it any more.” Later, as I awaited the next screening, I overheard two male critics talking about Hogg’s work. “I really struggle with her films,” one said, failing to articulate why.
As a woman, I’ve been conditioned to appreciate films told from a heterosexual male point of view because, historically, this is how they’ve been made. In her documentary, Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power, Nina Menkes tells us that for a period of forty years, in the Golden Age, there were just two female directors working in Hollywood. So it follows that I’m used to empathising with male protagonists, identifying the parts of male stories that are universal, that can be applied to me. In short, to see myself in them. Men have rarely been expected to make such leaps, to find themselves in female-led stories, to patiently immerse themselves in the female experience. I’m not arguing that men are unwilling to do these things, simply that they haven’t been conditioned in the same way. By the very nature of the films being made, men haven’t been given the practice. It’s a self-perpetuating problem. In a male dominated industry, female-led films typically receive less hype, make less money and, as a result, struggle to attract funding and distributors.
In 2014, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood was lauded to a saccharine degree, attracting six Academy Award nominations. Meanwhile Céline Sciamma’s Girlhood - a character study of a working-class black girl who finds confidence in female friendship - failed to graduate beyond the festival circuit. I realise there are significant differences in the way these films were made - Boyhood used the innovative approach of filming the same actors over the course of twelve years, a headline grabbing process that made it a shoo-in for awards; while Girlhood had subtitles. Measure for measure, I’d argue that Girlhood is the better film.
It is common knowledge that female-led films - films about women - are in the minority, but Brainwashed explores the ways in which women are consistently marginalised by filmmaking decisions unrelated to plot. Using footage from a slew of ‘masterpieces,’ Nina Menkes reveals how male and female actors are filmed, “differently, consistently.” As the evidence mounts, it becomes clear that women are typically filmed according to the male gaze: shot from the male point of view; their bodies fragmented by extreme close-ups and panning cameras; devoured in slow-motion; and lit in two dimensions to enhance their physical beauty. As Amy Ziering puts it, “A woman’s agency is always interrupted by the way that we frame her as a spectacle at the same time.”
Brainwashed feels like essential viewing for anyone who’s ever watched a movie. Not only does it explain the grammar of filmmaking - how story is created through shot design and editing - but it connects those things to the wider cultural context, exploring how they underline and promote patriarchy. Menkes sees the male gaze as one corner of a triangle, connected to film industry employment discrimination and sexual abuse. Unlike similar claims about the relationship between video games and real-world violence, Menkes makes a compelling argument that’s difficult to deny. A staggering 80% of all media content distributed around the world is made in Hollywood. If it consistently depicts men as the active subject and women as the passive object, won’t we start to treat her this way? And if a women is consistently told that these films are masterpieces - these films that define women by their physical beauty, that present beauty as the source of female power - won’t she begin to define herself this way too? “Glamour,” says Menkes, “is a bait and switch for powerlessness.”
Menkes describes herself as, “certainly not the sex police,” but, “sick of that kind of attack on our self-hood.” The number and quality of participants in her film is impressive, including Dr Kathleen Tarr who argues that, “objectification absolutely impacts hiring practices”. And director Eliza Hittman who describes the inclination of male agents and male distributors to reject work by women filmmakers which eschews the male gaze: dismissing it simply as, “not what I’m looking for.”
Brainwashed will certainly get you thinking about every film you’ve ever seen: a celluloid awakening. My mind ran to a favourite from the festival, A Room Of My Own, a reassuring, comforting film about two women - one a victim of domestic abuse - finding hope and freedom in friendship. The film includes a same-sex love scene, captured in long-shot from across the room. One of the women is passive, literally on the verge of passing-out from a night of happy misadventure. The scene is about pleasure giving, rather than taking; a way of erasing men from the picture. Classic elements of the male gaze are absent: there is no fragmentation of the female body, no gratuitous panning. But the position of the camera, its point of view, still left me wondering whose gaze this scene was intended for. And could it have been shot differently? It feels harsh to critique a female-focussed work in this way and my view of it hasn’t changed - A Room Of My Own remains one of the best films I saw at the festival and I urge you to watch it too. But it also feels important to ask questions like this, to be aware of what we are seeing.
This is especially true for historic works, including the so-called ‘masterpieces’ in Menkes’ documentary. Speaking about problematic films in the Hollywood canon, May Hong HaDuong, director of the UCLA Film and Television Archive, says:
“There is a reticence to even question how they were made and the stories that they tell. I think that it’s ok to still love and to see a film and say it’s great, but that it has some issues. And I think that without questioning it, we’re doing a disservice to our own humanity.”
The male gaze is now so ubiquitous that it’s become part of our social media experience. A wave of digital sex crimes is surging through society from up-skirting and down-blousing to revenge porn. South Korea, in particular, has been grappling with the trend of ‘Molka,’ the installation of spy-cameras in public locations - toilets, hotel bedrooms - designed to catch women and couples in intimate moments. Jeong-Sun, a nominee for the London Film Festival’s first feature competition, explores the impact of digital sex crimes from the perspective of a middle-aged female factory worker. The titular character consents, after some pressure by her partner, to be videoed singing and dancing in her underwear. When his masculinity is questioned by younger male colleagues, who describe him as, “a naive man,” he shares the footage. It soon goes viral and Jeong-Sun is subjected to humiliating jokes and jibes, many directed at her age and body shape. Not only by men, but by younger women who should know better.
The film offers a damning indictment of ageism and sexism as Jeong-Sun’s independence and identity ebb out of her. Essentially a character study, this is a low-key but immensely inspiring film about a woman regaining her power. By its climax, Jeong-Sun comes to embody Agnes Varda’s statement that, “The first feminist gesture is to say: ‘Okay, they’re looking at me. But I’m looking at them.’” At the time of its screening at LFF, the film hadn’t yet been picked up by a UK distributor. My plea to a male dominated industry is simply this: don’t overlook Jeong-Sun. She deserves to be seen and we need her.
Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power and A Room Of My Own are now available to rent on BFI Player until 23 October 2022.
Stacey Dooley’s documentary about South Korea’s Molka trend, Spycam Sex Criminals, is now available on iPlayer.
The London Film Festival continues on BFI Player with over 20 feature films to rent. A series of Q&A’s and screen talks with actors and filmmakers is available on the BFI’s Youtube page.
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If you’d like to share your ideas about the male gaze, your favourite female-led films or your thoughts about the festival, please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you!
Featured image is from Jeong-Sun. Second image is from Eternal Daughter.
A powerful indictment of an industry in which women are under-represented and under-appreciated. Well done.
That was fascinating and thought provoking. Very keen to see Menkes’s documentary now, as well as the Joanna Hogg. Thank you for taking the time to write it up so well!