MANOHLA DARGIS ESSAY


It should be more difficult than usual for Oscar and his pals to ignore women’s contributions to cinema when the awards roll around this March. Certainly women have been a considerable force this year, whether flocking to “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” in record numbers or helping to turn “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” from an unknown quantity into the most passionately debated women’s picture in memory. Meryl Streep (in “Julie & Julia”) and Carey Mulligan (“An Education”) have won a lot of critical acclaim. And Sandra Bullock, at 45, has hit gold with “The Proposal” and, more recently, “The Blind Side.”

“New Moon” and “The Blind Side” might not make a lot of critics’ Top 10 lists, but their popularity with audiences is good for women in film - and might be too great for even Hollywood to ignore. For years the received wisdom, both in the industry and the press that covers it, has been that women don’t go to the movies. Although recent hits like “The Devil Wears Prada,” “Sex and the City” and “Mamma Mia!” have helped undermine that thinking, it will take more than millions of teenage girls (and their moms) squealing in delight at sparkly vampires and hairy beasties with swollen deltoids before real change will come to Hollywood. Women need to develop their own muscles.

I’m not talking about those buff babes who pop up in adolescent fantasies, licking their lips as they fire guns; I’m talking about movies made for and with women.

I’m also talking about movies directed by women. Here’s a little history: Only three women have been nominated as directors by the academy in 81 years: Lina Wertmuller for “Seven Beauties” in 1976; Jane Campion for “The Piano” in 1993; and Sofia Coppola for “Lost in Translation” in 2003. None won.

At a glance this year looks promising, with high-profile titles like Kathryn Bigelow’s “Hurt Locker,” Nora Ephron’s “Julie & Julia,” Lone Scherfig’s “An Education” and Ms. Campion’s “Bright Star,” all of which have been too successful, critically and commercially, to dismiss.

Sounds good. Sounds like progress too. Yet the closer you look at the list of female filmmakers from this year, the worse the numbers get. Of the almost 600 new movies that will be reviewed in The New York Times by the end of 2009, about 60 were directed by women, or 10 percent.

Only a handful of female directors picked up their paychecks from one of the six major Hollywood studios and their remaining divisions this year. Two studios, Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers Pictures, did not release a single film directed by a woman. Not one.

I hope that the money people, including Ms. Bullock, whose production company actually makes hits, like “The Proposal,” start giving female filmmakers a chance to do something other than silly romances. (Good romances would be a nice start.)

Every so often a new female filmmaker grabs the spotlight - remember Kimberly Peirce, the director of “Boys Don’t Cry” - only to sputter and fade. If you have ever wondered what ever happened to Susan Seidelman, Penny Marshall, Martha Coolidge, Amy Heckerling, Nancy Savoca, none of whom had the career they should have had, you’re not alone.