![]() ![]() Yorgos Lanthimos/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation Rachel Weisz and Olivia Colman in the Favourite. This team has produced an unconvincing attempt to cast Mary Stuart as a feminist heroine for our times, hampered by the character’s erratic decision-making and belief in her divine right to various thrones. The revisionist Mary Queen of Scots is based on a script written by a man (Beau Willimon) from a book written by a man (John Guy), but the film is directed by a woman, Josie Rourke. Take two recent girl-power art films as examples. ![]() The manifesto also oversimplifies authorship: Auteur theory to the contrary, most movies aren’t made by a single (male) genius. The point is that the forms, the images and the vocabulary of what we see on our screens have been shaped by an overwhelmingly male creative class to the point where it may be very difficult for other creators to imagine their own ways of seeing and telling within that system. It’s more a political provocation than a practical suggestion. In September, accepting an Emmy for directing Transparent, the TV show’s creator Jill Soloway issued a call to “Topple the patriarchy!” That slogan is actually a movement Soloway has launched, and if you check out its website, you’ll be surprised by its demands: that no men be allowed to make movies or TV shows (or any other art form) for 50 years. In 2018, as women turned criminal in action movies such as Widows and Ocean’s 8, there was a strong sense that female was the flavour of the year – but, of course, both those titles were directed by men. talent agency Creative Artists busted that myth, finding that from 2014-17 movies of all budget levels with a female lead actually generated more money at the box office. In November, however, a study sponsored by the U.S. Hollywood wisdom has long held that male characters are safer bets at the box office because men prefer male stories while female audiences will come along for the ride. Whether they were maids, mistresses or monarchs, there were many powerful female protagonists on film this year from the deceptively self-effacing literary spouse Glenn Close played in The Wife to Saoirse Ronan’s fiery title character in Mary Queen of Scots. Liam Daniel/Focus FeaturesĬleo was but one of 2018’s magical nannies the other was Mary Poppins in a rather different but no less popular outing. “I like being dead,” Cleo says.įrom left, Gemma Chan as Bess of Hardwick, Grace Molony as Dorothy Stafford, Margot Robbie as Queen Elizabeth and Guy Pearce as William Cecil in Mary Queen of Scots. To coax him out of his sulks, Cleo joins him and the two lay together on a skylight, faces to the sun. The youngest of the family joins the servant and, annoyed at his older brother over a gunfight game gone wrong, plays at being dead. There is an early scene in Roma in which Cleo climbs to the roof to scrub the laundry by hand and we see other maids, on neighbouring rooftops, doing the same, hanging the clothes to dry in the sun. I can be a literal-minded viewer and couldn’t help noticing that nobody in this household ever walks the dog – and that in Mexico in 1970, domestic labour was apparently so cheap that upper-middle-class families had maids rather than washing machines. Focused on the stoical Cleo, the hardworking Mixtec housekeeper and caregiver for a family of six that is coming apart at the seams, it’s visually exquisite, a shoo-in for the best-foreign-language Oscar, and a film sure to reinvigorate complaints that subtitled movies are so seldom nominated for best picture.īut as critics discussed the almost mystical imagery surrounding the self-sacrificing Cleo, who proves ready to risk her life for her employer’s children in the film’s melodramatic climax, I found few reviews that echoed my own reactions. Log In Create Free AccountĪs the year draws to a close, I have been catching up with the rave reviews of Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, the black-and-white drama based on the director’s memories of Mexico City in the 1970s and dedicated to “Libo,” his childhood nanny. ![]()
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