100 great movies by female directors – part 1 | Little White Lies

Women In Film

100 great movies by female direc­tors – part 1

17 Jul 2015

Title text with female characters in comic book style art, highlighting "100 Great Movies by Female Directors 1-10".
Title text with female characters in comic book style art, highlighting "100 Great Movies by Female Directors 1-10".
Read part one of our count­down cel­e­brat­ing the great­est female artists in the film industry.

For the 60th issue of Lit­tle White Lies, we sheep­ish­ly opt­ed to ask the ques­tion: who are our favourite work­ing female film­mak­ers? We capped it at 50 names, pure­ly for rea­sons of resource and logistics.

The ini­tial long list that was devel­oped was, indeed, very long, and every name we had to expunge was like a dag­ger in our col­lec­tive heart. We threw the selec­tion process open to con­trib­u­tors, many of who sug­gest­ed three or four names and, in the end, we could only real­ly accept one or two. The film­mak­ers we end­ed up grav­i­tat­ing towards for the mag­a­zine edi­tion were those who have demon­strat­ed a rel­a­tive con­sis­ten­cy through­out their careers on one end, and on the oth­er, slam-bang won­ders who have only made one or two movies, but we’re des­per­ate to see what they do next.

But that tac­tic has its down­side: it meant that we were unable to laud film­mak­ers like Jane Cam­pi­on, Car­ol Mor­ley, Kasi Lem­mons, Lone Scher­fig, Haifaa al-Man­sour and all those excep­tion­al tal­ents who are no longer with us. In pro­duc­ing this list, we too found our­selves in a process of learn­ing, an after­noon Twit­ter call-out for favourite films by female direc­tors pro­duc­ing a ver­i­ta­ble cloud­burst of names and titles for the research list. This is not the 100 great­est movies by female direc­tors. It’s mere­ly 100 movies we love and hon­est­ly think you will too.
Note: These films are pre­sent­ed chrono­log­i­cal­ly (not ranked).

There are those who will want to phys­i­cal­ly fight you when it comes to the ques­tion of who was the first female film direc­tor. Some will stake their lives on the fact that it’s Lois Weber, oth­ers say it was the French-born Alice Guy-Blaché, who was exper­i­ment­ing with movie cam­eras right from the twi­light years of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry. Falling Leaves is a heart­break­ing 12-minute minia­ture which cap­tures a soci­ety ill-equipped both phys­i­cal­ly and sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly to com­bat the onset and spread of dis­ease. This beau­ti­ful para­ble sees a tod­dler attempt­ing to pro­long the life of her old­er sis­ter who is bat­tling with con­sump­tion. She does this by attempt­ing to stop time, wan­der­ing in her front gar­den in the ear­ly morn­ing and attach­ing the falling leaves back on the trees with string. Guy-Blaché’s film lures you into a false sense of secu­ri­ty by ini­tial­ly sug­gest­ing itself as a piece of hard med­ical pro­pa­gan­da, yet the man­ner in which it sud­den­ly segues into child­like won­der­ment is inar­guably mas­ter­ful. David Jenk­ins

Lois Weber is wide­ly regard­ed as one of the first ever Amer­i­can female direc­tors. She built her rep­u­ta­tion in silent, pre­dom­i­nant­ly short films and has over 100 cred­its as a writer, actress, and direc­tor, as well as a hand­ful as a pro­duc­er. Sus­pense was co-direct­ed by Weber and her then hus­band, Phillips Smal­l­ey. No one ever refers to it with­out prais­ing the pio­neer­ing use of split-screen!” and we daren’t buck this trend. Clock­ing in at 10 min­utes, Sus­pense effec­tive­ly builds ten­sion using tropes that would be prob­lem­at­ic if used today. The Wife (played by Weber) is men­aced by The Tramp while The Hus­band works late. Of course, it scans as crude to turn a home­less man into a force of evil, and Sus­pense is best eval­u­at­ed in the same care­ful light as DW Grif­fiths’ out­put. Still, from the very begin­ning, it casts an eerie spell, peak­ing ear­ly as The Maid – rat­tled by the des­o­late loca­tion – writes a res­ig­na­tion let­ter and hur­ries off the premis­es. The action moves at a pace that still invig­o­rates over 100 years lat­er with dual action sequences knit­ted togeth­er with pre­scient sto­ry­telling tech­nique. Sophie Monks Kaufman

It’s a com­mon mis­con­cep­tion that The Adven­tures of Prince Achmed is the first ani­mat­ed fea­ture film, when in fact it’s sim­ply the old­est one that sur­vives. It’s easy enough to for­give the mis­take, giv­en that there were only a cou­ple of exam­ples that pre­dat­ed Lotte Reiniger and Carl Koch’s colour­ful riff on One Thou­sand and One Nights’. On the oth­er hand, how could any­one ever believe that a film so exquis­ite­ly expres­sive could be the first of its kind, even if that under­stand­ing is so close to the actu­al truth? The tech­nique, a prim­i­tive kind of stop-motion which Reiniger invent­ed her­self, is rudi­men­ta­ry, but the artistry is remark­able – you can tell more about the evil magi­cian from the crook in his neck, or about Achmed from the ruf­fle in his cape as he soars into the night sky on a fly­ing horse, than can be gleaned about the Min­ions over 90 min­utes of seam­less dig­i­tal chaos. The Adven­tures of Prince Achmed feels at once both ancient and alive, its liv­ing mar­i­onettes and shad­ows con­nect­ing us to the cen­turies that today’s pop­u­lar ani­mat­ed fare are hap­py to ignore. David Ehrlich

French direc­tor Ger­maine Dulac’s most cel­e­brat­ed film is about as straight­for­ward as Luis Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou (which was released the sub­se­quent year in 1929). Sur­ren­der­ing to sur­re­al­ism and mon­tages of fever­ish, eroti­cised and dis­con­nect­ed imagery is the only option. The basic premise is of a priest con­sumed by unpriest­ly fan­tasies in the wom­an­ly form of a general’s wife. In one sequence he pulls down her top, reveal­ing breasts for a sec­ond before a seashell biki­ni pops out of nowhere to cov­er them. This is prob­a­bly the most lucid sequence in Dulac’s exper­i­men­tal film that blends sharp cuts of mys­te­ri­ous items with lin­ger­ing shots of the prin­ci­ple char­ac­ters dash­ing about as if pos­sessed. As well as being a film­mak­er, Dulac was a film the­o­rist – a pur­suit she fell into after embark­ing on a career as a fem­i­nist jour­nal­ist. SMK

Lost mas­ter­pieces are rarely as heady, har­row­ing and curt as Dor­thy Arzner’s pro­to-fem­i­nist pre-code melo about a cou­ple engag­ing in a ruinous ménage à trois with the demon drink. Fredric March’s wise­crack­ing journo, Jer­ry, is intro­duced at a par­ty, sat in the cor­ner get­ting slow­ly soused. He is stunned into momen­tary sobri­ety by Sylvia Sidney’s canned food heiress, Joan, who falls for Jer­ry, because of and not despite his sham­bling blus­ter. The title sug­gests the worst, and the worst is what we get, as Arzn­er remains bru­tal­ly hon­est about the man­ner in which this lop­sided rela­tion­ship devel­ops. Love involves accept­ing some­one with all their faults, but there is a tip­ping point, and when Joan comes up against it, her actions are sur­pris­ing and pro­gres­sive. It’s just 83 min­utes but jam-packed with inci­dent, though the plot-heavy approach is nev­er to the detri­ment of a howl­ing emo­tion­al cred­i­bil­i­ty. As char­ac­ters drink them­selves into a mer­ry stu­por, one par­ty­go­er brings up the damn Depres­sion. What Depres­sion?” anoth­er responds, jok­ing­ly. And there you have it. More than a screed against alco­hol, this film is a plea for us remain engaged with peo­ple and with soci­ety. March is superb as the scal­ly­wag, Sid­ney is scin­til­lat­ing as the bro­ken spouse who refus­es to qui­et­ly give in to inequal­i­ty. The final scenes, too, are breath­tak­ing. Think A Farewell to Arms meets The Lost Week­end. DJ

Pos­si­bly the worst com­e­dy ever made (and almost cer­tain­ly the only film on this list exec­u­tive pro­duced by Hitler), Leni Riefenstahl’s mon­u­men­tal piece of Third Reich pro­pa­gan­da rep­re­sents the birth of mod­ern spec­ta­cle, inau­gu­rat­ing the era where­in images are craft­ed more for the ben­e­fit of the cam­era than they are for the live audi­ence. Indeed, it’s hard to con­ceive of cin­e­mat­ic moder­ni­ty with­out this ode to the 1934 Nazi Par­ty Con­gress in Nurem­berg, an event which doesn’t appear to be half as much fun as its title sug­gests. Riefenstahl’s orna­men­tal­ly arranged images of the Ger­man mass­es have inspired every­one from Peter Jack­son to Matthew Bar­ney, but – per­haps even more impor­tant­ly than its influ­ence on The Hob­bit movies – Tri­umph of the Will allowed the Nazis to recog­nise them­selves on screen as a col­lec­tive, which was an image empow­er­ing enough to spark an at attempt at glob­al dom­i­na­tion. Riefen­stahl would claim that she was nev­er aware of the Holo­caust, but she cer­tain­ly played a piv­otal role in gal­vanis­ing it. And say what you will about Hitler, but he had more faith in a woman behind the cam­era than do most con­tem­po­rary movie stu­dios. DE

Sat­is­fy­ing por­tray­als of the female expe­ri­ence of love and desire remain too few in cin­e­ma. Sug­ar­coat­ing and pre­sent­ing women as pow­er­less towards their own emo­tions, films often fail to com­mu­ni­cate the dark­er feel­ings that can coex­ist with more com­mer­cial ideas of exhil­a­ra­tion and ful­fil­ment. Mesh­es of the After­noon, by con­trast, focus­es pre­cise­ly on these dis­turb­ing emo­tions, reveal­ing a woman’s com­plex­i­ty through pure mise en scène and with­out forc­ing any giv­en inter­pre­ta­tion upon the spec­ta­tor. Maya Deren her­self goes deep­er and deep­er into her per­plexed psy­che as she con­sid­ers the lim­it­ed set­tings of a sun­ny street lead­ing to a two-storey house and the evoca­tive objects with­in it. She enters into it, returns to it and per­ceives it from a vari­ety of angles. Although she is first fol­low­ing a man, the film is about his absence and the way Deren fills it with a per­son­al reflec­tion on her feel­ings for him. Dupli­ca­tions, trans­po­si­tions and dis­tort­ed cam­era move­ments coa­lesce to depict a woman ques­tion­ing her sen­ti­ments rather than let­ting them rule over her. Manuela Laz­ic

Norway’s answer to Ing­mar Bergman was a woman; Edith Carl­mar to be exact. Though she worked more reg­u­lar­ly as an actor, her 10-year direc­to­r­i­al career prof­fered a boun­ty of excit­ing and pas­sion­ate works which merged Hol­ly­wood stan­dards such as noir and melo­dra­ma with a more macabre, Scan­di­na­vian sen­si­bil­i­ty and insid­i­ous under­tow of depres­sive fatal­ism. Her debut fea­ture, Death is a Caress, from 1949, sug­gests itself as a clas­sic tale of mur­der, dames, liquor and hard love. Son­ja (Bjørg Riis­er-Larsen) swings her car into a local mechanic’s, only to have one of the more dash­ing grease mon­keys, Eric (Claus Wiese), throw aside his whale sausage (!) and slide in for the roman­tic kill. Yet this is a flash­back, as the film’s open­ing scene sees Eric con­fess­ing to the mur­der of his wife. It’s an emo­tion­al­ly tor­tu­ous ride, with the pair falling in and out of love with one anoth­er depend­ing on where they are, what they’re doing and how much they’ve drunk. It’s about the chasm between love and lust, upper and low­er class, free­dom and cap­tiv­i­ty, work­ing and idling, and man and woman. Cala­mar opts for long, intense two-shots when the cou­ple are togeth­er, and is also adept at cre­ative, spe­cial effect-dri­ven tran­si­tions – the tick­ing clock face made of wine bot­tles and cock­tail glass­es is par­tic­u­lar­ly haunt­ing. DJ

Arguably the most famous res­i­dent of Kirk­wall in the Orkney Islands, Mar­garet Tait ded­i­cat­ed much of her life to mak­ing short, light­ly exper­i­men­tal films that were most­ly inspired by the rich and rugged ter­rain around her. This four min­utes and twen­ty sec­onds of per­fec­tion from 1952 sees Tait train­ing her cam­era on her own moth­er who just saun­ters across the land­scape with a cig­a­rette per­ma­nent­ly dan­gling from her bot­tom lip. It’s a paean to relax­ation and how life can be pure­ly defined by the con­nec­tion we make to the earth, elic­it­ing plea­sure from flow­ers, books the wind and the light. And the sim­ple musi­cal accom­pa­ni­ment and a mut­tered, bare­ly audi­ble voice over all come togeth­er to pro­duce a decep­tive­ly sim­ple and naked­ly mov­ing piece of cin­e­mat­ic poet­ry. DJ

Long before John Cas­savetes got to wear the t‑shirt that declared him The God­fa­ther of Amer­i­can Inde­pen­dent Cin­e­ma,’ there was Ida Lupino. The Herne Hill born, RADA-trained mul­ti-hyphen­ate may still be best known for her star­ring roles oppo­site Humphrey Bog­a­rt and Robert Ryan, but it’s her micro-bud­get­ed, self-fund­ed inde­pen­dent work as direc­tor-pro­duc­er-screen­writer that best repays inves­ti­ga­tion. Con­stant­ly on sus­pen­sion at Warn­ers – where she was con­tract­ed – for turn­ing down roles she con­sid­ered beneath my dig­ni­ty as an actress,” she set up her own pro­duc­tion house, The Fil­mak­ers, qui­et­ly churn­ing out a series of issue-dri­ven women’s pic­tures,’ often with­out enough mon­ey to pay her cast and crew. There’s a con­sis­tent through-line in ques­tions of social pol­i­tics and male oppres­sion from films like Not Want­ed and Out­rage to the inva­sion of Emmet Myers’ psy­chot­ic homme fatale’ in her best known work, The Hitch-Hik­er, that stamps her card with Auteur’. A fierce, lean exer­cise in propul­sive genre mechan­ics – and the only pure, female-direct­ed Noir – she may have quipped, As an actress, I’m a poor man’s Bette Davis; as a direc­tor, I’m a poor man’s Don Siegel,” but in truth, there’s no poor-man’s” about it. Matt Thrift

Read more 100 great movies by female direc­tors: | 11 – 2021 – 30 | 31 – 40 | 41 – 50 | 51 – 60 | 61 – 70 | 71 – 80 | 81 – 9091 – 100

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