In her acceptance speech at the Golden Globe Awards, Nicole
Kidman questioned why there aren’t more female roles in
movies.
“To the writers, please keep writing for us because
we’re very interesting,” Kidman said.
But perhaps the problem has more to do with the directors behind
the films. While people like Nora Ephron and Penny Marshall have
helped open the doors for aspiring female directors, the story of
women working behind the camera in Hollywood did not actually begin
with them.
Last Saturday the UCLA Film and Television Archive began a
program of screening various films directed by Dorothy Arzner, who
had one of the longest careers in Hollywood of any woman.
Screenings of her films will continue in the James Bridges Theater
every weekend for the next two weeks.
Arzner directed 16 feature films in Hollywood from the 1920s to
the 1940s, still the most feature films directed by a woman in
Hollywood’s history. That’s more than Ephron’s
and Marshall’s directing credits combined.
“There is some enthusiasm out there for her and her films
are rarely seen,” said Nancy Mysel, an assistant film
preservationist at the Archive.
So few people have seen her films today because many of the
original negatives no longer exist. However, by splicing together
master positive prints from Universal and nitrate prints from
Paramount, the Archive has managed to preserve six of her films,
four of which have been newly preserved.
“The Archive believes (Arzner’s) films are important
historically, and luckily a lot of donors think so too,”
Mysel said.
A tribute to Arzner is historically fitting coming from UCLA:
She taught production in the film school’s graduate program
during the 1960s.
“She was a very gentle, soft-spoken woman who listened
before she spoke,” said Howard Suber, a film professor at
UCLA and one of Arzner’s former students.
Suber remembers Arzner as a very involved professor, recalling
instances of her coming on the sets of students’ productions
to help out.
“The fact that a major figure such as (Arzner) was willing
to do that says a great deal,” Suber said.
By all accounts, Arzner’s directing style was very similar
to her teaching style. As an actor’s director, she would find
a way to get the performances she wanted without pushing.
Her system seems to have worked. Arzner directed many young
actresses in their breakout film roles, such as Clara Bow in her
first talking film (“The Wild Party”), Katharine
Hepburn (“Christopher Strong”) and Lucille Ball
(“Dance, Girl, Dance”).
“The usual model for directors came out of Cecil B.
DeMille and John Ford, dictators who walked around with a whip in
their hand,” Suber said. “(Arzner) was a gentle
person.”
Her gentle nature partially allowed her to succeed in a business
that was then even more dominated by men than it is today. That
repressive environment made Arzner’s achievements perhaps
even more impressive.
“She was one of the few women of the classic period who
was allowed to be a director,” Suber said.
For more info, call (310) 206-FILM or log on to
www.cinema.ucla.edu.