Lights, Camera, Women!

 Lights, Camera, Women!

Hello and welcome to Cinema Wellman. I am your host David, and I’m going to begin today with a little trivia question.

What do the following films have in common?

American Psycho, Boys Don’t Cry, Thirteen, Bend it Like Beckham, The Decline of Western Civilization, Whale Rider, Monster, The Babadook, Persepolis, The Matrix, Wayne’s World, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Deep Impact, Twilight, Clueless, and dare I add, Saltburn!?!

Every one of those movies was directed by a woman, which is why we’re here today as we celebrate Women’s History Month by looking at some women behind the camera.

Here’s another list of films with something in common; Children of a Lesser God, Awakenings, The Prince of Tides, The Piano, Lost in Translation, Little Miss Sunshine, The Hurt Locker, An Education, The Kids Are All Right, Winter’s Bone, Zero Dark Thirty, Selma, Lady Bird, Little Women, Nomadland, Promising Young Woman, CODA, The Power of the Dog, Women Talking, Anatomy of a Fall, Past Lives, and Barbie.

That is a list of films directed by women that were nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. 

Although it may be alarming that there are only 22 films on that list and over 500 films have been Best Picture nominees since the Academy Awards began, 18 of those 22 Best Picture nominees directed by women have occurred in the last 21 years suggesting a serious upward trend.

Three of this year’s ten Best Picture nominees (Anatomy of a Fall, Past Lives, Barbie) were directed by women, and hopefully that trend will continue and increase in years to come.

In 1977, Italian filmmaker Lina Wertmuller became the first woman to be nominated for Best Director for her film Seven Beauties. 

A woman nominated for Best Director didn’t happen again until 1993 when Jane Campion was nominated for The Piano. 

So, women directors had to wait 50 “Oscar years” to be recognized by the academy, and then had to wait another 16 until it happened again. 

The good news is that it has happened 18 times since Campion’s Piano nomination, and with the women out there directing films today, these nominations will continue.

Today’s episode will highlight seven of the most celebrated female directors working today. They have already proven themselves with powerful, meaningful films and have earned the opportunity to helm more films in the future.

Such shifts in the film world occur at a glacial pace, but talented women like Bigelow, Campion, Coppola, DuVernay, Gerwig, Polley, and Zhao are making it possible for even more women to get the opportunity to direct.

I’d like to start by mentioning four women who paved the way for the women I just mentioned. 

Three were actresses turned directors, while the other is definitely the O.G. in this category.

Ida Lupino was an actress who got to direct some of the films in which she starred in the 50s, which was extremely rare for the time. 

She has 42 directing credits, 8 being films and the rest TV work including episodes of “Gilligan’s Island” and “The Twilight Zone.” 

Lee Grant is an Oscar winning actress and a four-time Oscar nominee who also went behind the camera. She directed mostly television movies and shows, but has eight theatrical films in her directing credits, including several critically acclaimed documentaries.

You may know Penny Marshall as Laverne on “Laverne and Shirley,” but she was also an accomplished director. Marshall directed four episodes of “L&S” before going on to direct popular films such as “A League of Their Own” and “Big.”

And the O.G.  previously mentioned is Alice Guy, and looking at her filmography is like looking at Jimmie Foxx’s stats in the Baseball Encyclopedia.

Alice Guy, or Alice Guy-Blache was a writer, producer, cinematographer, and director who made movies from the late 1890s through the 20s. 

Guy is credited as the first woman to ever direct a movie. She also was in the production business as she and her husband started the Solax Film Co. in 1910.

Guy has 463 directing credits!!!!!

Her Jimmie Foxx numbers include directing 60 films in 1900, 47 in 1904, 58 in 1905, 44 in 1906, and 42 in 1912!

Granted, many of these were what we’d consider shorts, but that’s what movies were at the time. She was a pioneer, nonetheless.

Guy once said, “My youth, my lack of experience, my sex all conspired against me.”

That may be true, but it didn’t stop her from accomplishing great things including being inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2013!

She went into the NJHOF with Thomas Paine, Whitney Houston, and Joe Piscopo!

That was one rabbit hole I could have done without descending.

Alice Guy was the subject of an excellent documentary that I highly recommend. It’s from 2018, narrated by Jodie Foster, and titled Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache.

It’s an amazing story, and she was an amazing woman.

The following women owe a debt of gratitude to Alice Guy for clearing the path for them to produce, write, and direct major motion pictures.

Thank you, Alice!

Kathryn Bigelow

WINNER: Best Director The Hurt Locker (2009)

It took 82 years, but a woman finally won a Best Director Oscar when Kathryn Bigelow took home the honor for her film The Hurt Locker in 2009. 

Bigelow also directed the Oscar nominated film Zero Dark Thirty. She produced both Zero Dark Thirty and The Hurt Locker. 

Non-Oscar films directed include the excellent horror film Near Dark, The Loveless, and, of course, Point Break.

Point Break is some phenomenal cheese!

Jane Campion

Nominee: Best Director The Piano (1993)

WINNER: Best Director The Power of the Dog (2021)

New Zealander Jane Campion became the 3rd woman to win a Best Director Oscar in 2021 for The Power of the Dog, a film she also wrote and produced.

 

Campion also wrote and produced The Piano in 1993 which won three Oscars and earned her a Best Director nomination (only the 2nd for a woman at that time).

Sofia Coppola

Nominee: Best Director Lost in Translation (2003)

WINNER: Best Original Screenplay Lost in Translation (2003)

Sofia Coppola’s father may be one of the most famous directors in film history, but she has proven herself to be much more than a mere “Nepo Baby.” 

Sofia earned a Best Director nomination for Lost in Translation in 2003. She won a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for that same film, which is wonderful if you haven’t seen it. 

 She also wrote AND directed The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette, and The Beguiled. 

I recommend all three of those films quite highly. I’m a fan of Coppola’s and trust films she’s involved in.

Unless she’s acting in The Godfather Part III, but that was NOT her fault!

Blame her dad for that one. 

Ava DuVernay

Nominee: Best Documentary Feature 13th (2017)

Ava DuVernay’s filmography isn’t as large as the other women on this list, but I wanted to include her because she directed one of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen. 

DuVernay wrote and directed 13th, which is, as only IMDb can describe, “An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation’s history of racial inequality.”

I think it’s one of the most important documentaries in the past decade and I was happy to see it nominated for a Best Documentary Oscar in 2017.

Duvernay also directed Selma, which chronicled the 1965 Civil Rights March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

Greta Gerwig

Nominee: Best Director Lady Bird (2017)

I’ve said quite a bit about Greta Gerwig in the past couple of years since she’s become a trusted director here at Cinema Wellman.

I have not seen her directorial debut Nights and Weekends, but she is a big 3-3 in the other films she has written and directed.

That trio is Lady Bird, Little Women, and, of course, Barbie. 

I will see anything she directs going forward, which means some kind of Chronicles of Narnia thing for Netflix?!

Okay!

Sarah Polley

Nominee: Best Adapted Screenplay Away from Her (2006)

WINNER: Best Adapted Screenplay Women Talking (2022)

I first noticed Sarah Polley (and Timothy Olyphant!) in the 1999 film Go as an actress. 

Polley has since moved behind the camera as a writer and director. 

She has written and directed two exceptional films: Women Talking and Away from Her. 

Polley was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2006 for Away from Her and won that award in 2022 for Women Talking.

Her next project appears to be a Bambi reboot, of all things.

Chloe Zhao

WINNER: Best Director Nomadland (2020)

Lastly, only because this was alphabetical, is Chloe Zhao.

Zhao became the 2nd woman to win a Best Director Oscar in 2020 for the film Nomadland, which she also wrote and produced. 

As far as women winning a Best Director Oscar, it took 82 years to get to Bigelow’s win, then 11 years to Zhao’s win, then only 2 years to Campion’s win.

Maybe that glacial pace is speeding up a bit. 

Or is it climate change?

Well, that is a wrap from here at Cinema Wellman for our special salute to women in film.

Hopefully these seven talented filmmakers have finally shattered that glass ceiling beyond repair.

        Keep an eye out for films directed by these, and other women. They are great storytellers who have stories to tell, and a lot of those stories just can't be told by men.

We hope you’re back again next week as we take a look at the Best & Worst films we screened in the month of March.

Spoiler Alert: A bunch of them were made by women!

Until then, take care.

 Gary Oldman Plays…EVERYONE!

Hello and welcome to Cinema Wellman, I am your host David and today we’re going to focus on accomplished actor and friend of Cinema Wellman Gary Oldman.

Oldman has been nominated for three Oscars for his performances in Mank, Darkest Hour, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. He won an Oscar for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour.

Many people know him for playing Commissioner Gordon in the Dark Knight trilogy and Sirius Black in the Harry Potter Universe.

Oldman was sensational in State of Grace, Romeo is Bleeding, and The Book of Eli. All were complex/conflicted characters, which he plays very well. 

He also has several over-the-top performances including quasi-Jamaican drug dealer Drexl Spivey in True Romance, Commander Zorg in The 5th Element (he used Bugs Bunny as inspiration), the evil terrorist Egor Korshunov in Air Force One, and Dr. Smith in the unfortunately terrible 1998 version of Lost in Space.

And, of course, he played corrupt DEA agent Norman Stansfield in Leon: The Professional who asks for, you know, EVERYONE!

If you’re watching on YouTube, you may notice that I’m dressed as Norman Stansfield today. If you caught that, you get an A++ for the day and should probably be hosting your own movie podcast.

In Oldman’s IMDb’s “trademarks” section: “Characters are usually borderline psychotics.” 

I love that about him. 

Gary Oldman is an extremely talented actor who has been creating memorable characters on screen for 42 years now. But he doesn’t only create memorable fictional characters onscreen, he also has played some amazing real people in movies, and hearing the list of people he’s portrayed, you’ll wonder how one person could convincingly play all of them.

Sid Vicious, Lee Harvey Oswald, Count Dracula (Vlad the Impaler), Ludvig van Beethoven, Winston Churchill, Herman J. Mankiewicz, and most recently Harry S. Truman.

That’s an amazing and eclectic group of historic people right there, and Gary Oldman crushed it every single time.

Not to pick on Tom Cruise, but I’m going to pick on Tom Cruise.

I don’t consider Tom Cruise an actor. To me, Tom Cruise is a movie star.

I don’t think there’s one Tom Cruise movie I’ve seen (and I’ve seen a ton) where I wasn’t aware during the entire film that I was watching Tom Cruise play a character (or attempting to play a character).

I’m not suggesting Oldman is the only one who has nailed it playing real people over the years; Anthony Hopkins has played Dickens, Hitler, Nixon, Picasso, and Alfred Hitchcock.

Meryl Streep has played Karen Silkwood, Julia Child, and Margaret Thatcher. 

When accomplished actors like Gary Oldman are involved (Daniel Day Lewis comes to mind as well), I feel like I’m watching THAT character or person, not an actor portraying them.

Cruise couldn’t have pulled off any of the performances I’m going to discuss today as we look at Gary Oldman playing EVERYONE. 

Many of the films featured today will touch upon Oldman’s method acting, a technique of acting in which an actor aspires to complete emotional identification with a part.

This includes extensive research and learning new skills. It sometimes involves physical transformations, and it always involves an unbelievable amount of dedication.

Method acting has been criticized by many (including other actors) as a dangerous technique, and there are many examples of actors “going off the deep end” when transforming into their character. 

Oldman may not be as method as Daniel Day Lewis or Joaquin Phoenix, but he certainly has a way of immersing himself into, and becoming, a character. 

Today we will look at seven roles, seven real people, and seven excellent performances.

The movies are also tremendous. These seven films average a score of 7.5 on IMDb, which is extremely high when it comes to IMDb.

The films will be presented in chronological order, so we’ll begin with the very first time I saw Oldman in a film. I really wasn’t aware of what I was in for. This first film is his 1986 portrayal of the bassist for the English punk band Sex Pistols…who also murdered his girlfriend.

English Musician Sid Vicious

in Sid and Nancy (1986)

R/112 m/IMDb: 7.0/directed by Alex Cox

I wasn’t a huge Sex Pistols fan, but I certainly knew who they were. Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten (not their birth names) led a band that made more infamous news than records.

Considered Pioneers of Punk, they were everything you’d expect from people who named themselves Vicious and Rotten.

The real Johnny Rotten hated this film. He once called it “Mere fantasy,” and added, “the only thing they got right was the name Sid.”

Oldman himself doesn’t like this performance. He claims he didn’t want to do it and was talked into it. 

You certainly wouldn’t know this by watching his performance. 

It’s a good thing that Oldman’s method didn’t include dabbling in heroin, but this shoot wasn’t without danger. Oldman was hospitalized during the shoot attempting to lose enough weight to convincingly portray the heroin addicted Sid.

Another bit of authenticity is the fact that Oldman wore Sid’s actual chain necklace during filming.

Director Alex Cox’s 2nd choice to play Sid was Daniel Day Lewis!

I’d love to be able to see that film.

Is that something that AI can do?

Alleged Kennedy Assassin Lee Harvey Oswald

in JFK (1991)

R/189 m/IMDb: 8.0/directed by Oliver Stone

Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Kevin Bacon, Tommy Lee Jones, Joe Pesci, Sissy Spacek, Vincent D’Onofrio, the cast of JFK is quite impressive (even though Costner is the lead).

Gary Oldman is also part of this star-studded cast as the center of it all, patsy Lee Harvey Oswald.

He doesn’t have much screen time, but Oldman is one of the standouts in this conspiracy thriller, nonetheless.

Wallachian Prince Vlad the Impaler a.k.a. Count Dracula

in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

R/128 m/IMDb: 7.4/directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Some may argue that this is a fictional character, but since fictional Count Dracula is based on the real Vlad the Impaler, it’s good enough for Cinema Wellman.

Oldman took the role just so he could work with director Francis Ford Coppola, and it turned out to be his first big American movie.

Oldman became the Count during the production as he stayed in character throughout.

He distanced himself from the cast and crew to create isolation and alienate himself.

He also slept in a coffin during the shoot. 

German Composer Ludwig van Beethoven

in Immortal Beloved (1994)

R/121 m/IMDb: 7.4/directed by Bernard Rose

You would think Gary Oldman playing Beethoven in a critically acclaimed film would have been nominated for a handful of Oscars, but it got none. That’s a head scratcher to me. 

Oldman practiced the piano 6 hours a day for 6 months. I realized that’s well short of the “10,000 hours” you need to master something, but that’s some serious preparation for a role, and it pays off. 

When Ludwig is shown playing in the film, that’s Gary Oldman playing. 

Once again, I’m not suggesting he’s the only actor to ever do this. Many do, but I find it impressive every time. 

I love that Stansfield was obsessed with Beethoven!

English Prime Minister Winston Churchill

in Darkest Hour (2017)

PG-13/125 m/IMDb: 7.4/directed by Joe Wright

Gary Oldman studied Churchill for a year to learn his mannerisms. And I’m no Churchill historian, but during my research of WWII while I was teaching, I watched a ton of Churchill footage, and while watching Darkest Hour I thought I was watching the real deal.

Oldman didn’t want to gain weight for the role so the best makeup prosthetics engineer in the business (Kazu Hiro, who ALSO won an Oscar for this film) was brought in to transform Oldman into a person he considers, “the greatest Brit ever.” 

He spent over 200 hours in the makeup chair, and that has to be horrible. Believe me, I enjoy sitting around, but that has to be a form of torture.

Oldman also developed nicotine poisoning by smoking 12 cigars a day. I believe the cigar budget on this film was over $100,000. 

This marked the 22nd time a Best Actor winner won for playing a real person. 

American Screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz

in Mank (2020)

R/131 m/IMDb: 6.8/directed by David Fincher

From IMDb: “1930s Hollywood is re-evaluated through the eyes of scathing social critic and alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz as he races to finish the screenplay of Citizen Kane.”

I love David Fincher movies and I never shut up about Citizen Kane, so it’s no surprise I loved this movie. 

Movies about movies are always a treat. In fact, that’s going to be an episode somewhere down the line. 

Speaking of such things…Oldman in Mank was the 11th Oscar nominee to play an Oscar winner/nominee.

American President Harry S. Truman

in Oppenheimer (2023)

R/180 m/IMDb: 8.4/directed by Christopher Nolan

I make it a habit to go into new movies blind. I want to be surprised.

If it’s a movie I really want to see, like Oppenheimer was, I even stay away from trailers. 

So, I didn’t even know that Gary Oldman was in Oppenheimer until I saw him onscreen as Harry S. Truman.

He’s only in one scene, and it’s a memorable one. 

The scene, in which Truman says upon meeting Oppenheimer, “Don’t you ever bring that crybaby back here ever again,” is historically accurate. 

Also historically accurate is Truman’s line, “blood on his hands? Damn it, I have twice as much on mine!”

He’s in one scene, and he made it count. He did it just to work with Christopher Nolan.

I don’t know who’s next in line for Oldman to step into, but I know I’ll see it.

 

If you count TV, he also played Roman official Pontius Pilate in a 1999 TV mini-series titled Jesus.

And he did two episodes of “Friends?!” What’s that all about? I need to find those!

Well, that’s a wrap for our look at Gary Oldman playing EVERYONE!

We hope you’re back again next week when we do something special for Women’s History Month!

Until then, take care.