Happy 72nd Birthday, Marleen Gorris! Born today in 1948, this Dutch writer and director is known as an outspoken feminist and supporter of gay and lesbian issues which is reflected in much of her work.
Born in Roermond, Limburg, Netherlands, Gorris was a daughter to Protestant working-class parents in the very Catholic southern part of her country.
Years later, Gorris studied drama at home and abroad. She studied Drama at the University of Amsterdam and has an M.A. in Drama from the University of Birmingham.
Gorris began working as a filmmaker with almost no previous experience in the cinema. It was not until the age of thirty that she began writing scripts.
Gorris later took her first effort to Chantal Akerman ('Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles', 'La Captive'), hoping to interest her in directing it. Akerman, however, told Gorris that she must make the film herself.
Gorris later made an auspicious debut in the early 1980s with the film of which she is best known for writing and directing.
This was with the 1982 Dutch drama film 'De stilte rond Christine M.' ('A Question of Silence'). The Dutch government gave her the funding to finance the project.
The film tells of court psychiatrist Janine van den Bos (Cox Habbema), who ponders three Dutch women, Christine M. (Edda Barends), Annie (Nelly Frijda) and Andrea (Henriëtte Tol), all strangers, on trial for brutally killing a male shopkeeper.
As he is being murdered, a group of women stand and silently but attentively watch.
The court date arrives and Janine gives her professional opinion that the three women are in fact sane and that the court should take into consideration that the owner of the boutique was a male.
Despite the prosecutors attempts to get her to change her opinion, she stands her ground.
When the prosecutor suggests that the crime would have still happened if the owner were a woman, Christine, Andrea, Annie, Janine and the other women who witnessed the crime all laugh and exit the courtroom.
'A Question of Silence' later caused considerable international controversy with its story about three unacquainted women who murder a randomly chosen man.
However, the film was hailed by some as a logical case study of what happens when women are driven to the brink by a male-dominated society, while others decried it as a juvenile revenge fantasy.
Two years later, Gorris garnered more attention with her follow-up. This was the 1984 Dutch drama/thriller film 'Gebroken Spiegels' ('Broken Mirrors').
Afterwards, Gorris did not complete another feature until six years later. This was with the 1990 Dutch drama/sci-fi film with 'Die letzte Insel' ('The Last Island').
During the 1990s, Gorris worked mostly in Dutch television. However, by mid-decade, she was finally able to complete filming a script she had written in 1988.
This was with the 1995 Dutch/Belgian/British/French comedy-drama/drama film 'Antonia's Line' (originally titled 'Antonia').
The following year, 'Antonia's Line' won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. This occurred at the 68th Academy Awards in late march 1996.
The film went on to receive other accolades internationally for Gorris, becoming her most well-received film.
Gorris is hailed as a feminist filmmaker. She takes on subjects of violence and sexual violence not really addressed by other female filmmakers.
A gifted Dutch director and screenwriter whose small output has made a considerable international splash, Gorris has managed to make substantial feminist statements in her work by finding relevant political issues and recognizable, everyday wisdoms in the extreme plot situations her films detail.
Her filmmaking skills are undeniable, yet her visual style often seems deceptively straightforward; similarly, her means of storytelling are clear and sensible, and yet by the time her various narrative threads come together, profound ambiguities have arisen.
The emotional gamut of her work, meanwhile, ranges from the tender and mellow to the gruesomely horrific to the hilariously ironic, yet her work remains remarkably accessible, and the palpable anger in much of her oeuvre may be provocative, but it is not off-putting.
Indeed, Gorris' primary talent may be her considerable ability to juggle the complexities of the questions her films raise.
One of the Netherlands's best-known filmmakers and an important, often provocative voice in world cinema, Gorris is renowned -- and, in some circles, reviled -- for making unapologetically feminist films that assert the rights of women as they question the patriarchy that often represses them.
Gorris has been active from 1982–present.
#borntodirect
@WomenInFilm
@iffrotterdam
@tcmtv
@RogerEbert
@encyclopediacom
@mubi
@Britannica
@Fandango
@Wikidata
@tubi
No comments:
Post a Comment