Fair enough. I do apologize for any mistreatment for which I am responsible, however.
Rawr.Something else I have noticed: whenever a female predator is involved, it is usually male misogynistic creeps who believe that the survivor is "lucky", and express envy towards the survivor in the situation.
It grosses me the fuck out, and pisses me the fuck off that anyone would spout such vile filth.
Rawr.
It's Well Past Time to Rethink 'Auteur Theory' and the Way Actresses Are Treated by Courtney Enlow.
In THR’s piece, Duvall was asked about her experience with Stanley Kubrick making The Shining. Kubrick’s treatment of Duvall while filming is the stuff of legend; it could be called abject cruelty, but is usually referred to as “art.” When asked by writer Seth Abramovitch if she saw things that way, that he was exceptionally brutal toward her, she replied, “He’s got that streak in him. He definitely has that.”
Ever since Tippi Hedren endured physical injuries and psychological damage at the hands of Alfred Hitchcock while filming The Birds, Hollywood history is replete with stories of male directors torturing their actresses, ostensibly with the goal of pulling the best possible performance out of them like an infected tooth. The way their actions are described get softened with time, as words like “push” are used to describe what the director did, as though he took her hand and gently walked her into the role. But in light of a few recent stories, it’s time to revisit what that “push” really looks like, and why we’ve long accepted that this is just what genius directors do, and their female actors should be thankful. After all, Hedren’s performance was praised. But it is Hitchcock who is most associated with the film. His hands are on every element of his creations—including, without consent or desire, his actresses—and as such, they are his.
This is what’s referred to as “auteur theory” (as we understand it today), when directors have complete control over their projects and, to that end, are seen as the beginning and end of the product. They are seen as wholly and singularly responsible for—and, as a result, the sole artist worthy of celebration—all aspects from script to performance to visual style and beyond. Their films are not a collaborative process, but the work of one man and the many people who helped him realize his vision. With that, many of the women around them are collateral damage, merely in the way of this powerful and passionate artistry.
Viewing Vivian Kubrick’s behind-the-scenes documentary, Making The Shining, has always been uncomfortable. Duvall’s fragility emanates off the screen, her palpable anxiety and trauma all dismissed by the director while also encouraged. To keep her at that level, he warned those on set, “Don’t sympathize with Shelley.” To elicit the best performance as Wendy Torrance, Kubrick seemed to believe she should be treated like Wendy Torrance.
“Going through day after day of excruciating work. Almost unbearable,” she told Roger Ebert in 1980. “Jack Nicholson’s character had to be crazy and angry all the time. And in my character I had to cry 12 hours a day, all day long, the last nine months straight, five or six days a week. I was there a year and a month, and there must be something to Primal Scream therapy, because after the day was over and I’d cried for my 12 hours, I went home very contented. It had a very calming effect. During the day I would have been absolutely miserable.”
Miserable she was. The doc shows her hair falling out, and she later said she was “in and out of ill health because the stress of the role was so great.”
What Duvall and so many other actresses in history experienced as their normal would be cause for concern these days (we hope). In that interview with Ebert, Duvall paused due to a twinge of pain—which she told Ebert she “only” got twice a week at that point—and relayed a story about shooting Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits. “And the scene called for six dwarfs to come crashing through the roof of a medieval carriage, but the dwarfs were a bit afraid of jumping off the scaffold, and so Terry didn’t think, he just jumped, and he weighs 180 pounds and landed on my head. I could have been paralyzed. As it is, there’s just a pain that comes through my ears to my eye, and then goes away. I’m sure it can be fixed.”
She shares these stories casually, stopping to ask Ebert his thoughts on the tea she’d made, or the trees at her home. But looking back with the knowledge we have now, of what would later become of Duvall, these stories are not casual. They’re horrifying.
This sentiment was echoed by Anjelica Huston, Nicholson’s girlfriend at the time who was present while The Shining was being filmed. “I got the feeling, certainly through what Jack was saying at the time, that Shelley was having a hard time just dealing with the emotional content of the piece,” Huston told THR. “And they didn’t seem to be all that sympathetic. It seemed to be a little bit like the boys were ganging up. That might have been completely my misread on the situation, but I just felt it. And when I saw her during those days, she seemed generally a bit tortured, shook up. I don’t think anyone was being particularly careful of her.”
After all that, Duvall questioned whether or not it was worth it. “After I made The Shining, all that work, hardly anyone even criticized my performance in it, even to mention it, it seemed like,” she told Ebert. “The reviews were all about Kubrick, like I wasn’t there.” It’s Duvall who suffered, and it’s Kubrick and Nicholson who received the acclaim. Author Stephen King, who famously loathed Kubrick’s interpretation of his novel, described Duvall’s performance as “a screaming dishrag.”
Even now, it’s fairly easy to look back on all this as “just how it was.” To set Hitchcock and Kubrick in this box as eccentric geniuses who were allowed to mistreat actresses while their work remains hailed to this day. But it’s not relegated to the past. If the Me Too! and Time’s Up movements have taught us anything, it’s that countless men in power have used that power to hurt women. Just this week, we received a stern reminder that this includes even modern men whose work was hailed as “feminist” countless times over.
After several months of Justice League actor Ray Fisher alleging abuse from director Joss Whedon (and others he says are culpable) while working on that film, Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Charisma Carpenter voiced her support for the Cyborg actor. You may have already been aware she had her own story to share. Using her social media accounts, she explained the abuse she says she received from Whedon on the sets of Buffy and Angel. In one instance, Carpenter says she was asked to film at 1 a.m. while pregnant, putting her through physically demanding work, and ultimately sending her into Braxton Hicks contractions. Carpenter called this “retaliatory.” Carpenter’s statement was echoed and supported by co-stars Amber Benson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Michelle Trachtenberg, who was only 15 when she started on Buffy, and who wrote on Instagram that Whedon was not allowed to be alone with her, and that she was “subjected. To a lot.”
Of course, Fisher’s experience tells us Whedon’s treatment was not limited to women, and abusers aren’t only men, but very rarely does auteur theory include women, for a number of reasons. Women aren’t given as many opportunities as their male peers, and “difficult women” are Hollywood pariahs whereas difficult men are simply artists.
Whedon’s name and imprint are all over every piece of every project he’s ever done. It’s called the Whedonverse, after all. And his name, his auteurship, has opened up countless doors. He was handed the Avengers movies and given chances at writing scripts for Wonder Woman and Batgirl. He took over Justice League from Zack Snyder, and it wasn’t just Fisher who has said their time with the director wasn’t great. Gal Gadot told the LA Times, “I had my own experience with [Whedon], which wasn’t the best one, but I took care of it there and when it happened. I took it to the higher-ups and they took care of it. But I’m happy for Ray to go up and say his truth.”
But, according to Benson, the “Whedonverse” women are still healing after all these years. Fisher and Carpenter have been telling their stories for a long time, and while it’s great we’re all finally listening, why did it take so long? Well, probably because to admit that this individual is a problem is to admit our favorite shows and movies are tainted. But Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Avengers, and everything else Whedon has done are bigger than him, just like the works of any other harmful individual who happened to be part of art we enjoy, even if it’s a big part.
It’s time to let go of the idea that one iconic creator is responsible for everything we love about a property they’re involved with. Because with that much power comes individuals who will wield it for evil.
You know where I first learned that? Joss Whedon.
It’s especially insulting given that Joss Whedon was once hailed as a feminist.
Yeah, his chararter were used as avant grade feminist chararter that break mold and is dificult not to think so, I used to though that he got stuck in the past and move to catching up but now I think is personal falling as duchebag personality make him unable to create anything else and we are seen is pretty much the peak of what he can do.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"This is exactly how I thought of it, the weird stuff just seemed like a product of a feminist who was out of touch with modern Feminism. But nope, it turned out he was a terrible person all along.
If nothing else I'm glad that I'm not particularly emotionally invested in him. Though that doesn't say much considering that I rarely invest emotionally in individual artists.
"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -HylarnWow, Joss is a jackass. I mean, I'm not so surprised, because Hollywood is full of assholes, but still...
I have nothing but sympathy for those who had to endure his abuse.
Rawr.I wonder, though, how much his assholery and the flaws in his feminism are really connected. People can be assholes while having relatively noble beliefs. I think there's a misconception that hypocrisy means the person doesn't really believe what they say, when it really means their behavior is inconsistent with what they say. The fact that someone doesn't practice what they preach doesn't necessarily mean they don't believe what they preach(or at least believe they believe it).
The point about auteur theory is one that film academia has been taking on a lot since I wanna say the early 00s to now (though the talking point only really reached the mainstram in the middle of the past decade).
Internet personality Kyle Kallgren has a very good video where he breaks down auteur theory in its basics and ends up tearing it to shreds towards the end in reflection with some more recent developments in academia.
Basically, the concept of crystalizing one man as the key of everything in a film (when film is inherently a group undertaking) to the detriment of everyone else involved is a system pretty much built for devalorzation and (in more extreme but sadly reoccurring cases) dehumanization of the non-directors as simply "figments of his vision". Combine that with privileges (white, male, cis, hetero, e.t.c) and you get a dangerous concoction.
Edited by Gaon on Feb 15th 2021 at 9:00:25 AM
"All you Fascists bound to lose."Whedon being a predatory creep is even more galling for fans of this forum, considering this whole site only exists because of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Edited by M84 on Feb 16th 2021 at 1:37:17 AM
Disgusted, but not surprisedI actually argued about this ith a friend of mine cuz' I always thought it eird how the director got all the credit for everything - especially over writes. I mean I always thought htat if the narrative of a movie was good, shouldn't the person who wrote it more than oversaw its execution on screen get as much if not more credit, frankly?
I dunno it always felt weird.
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothesIt's definitely weird, but it's good for marketing to be able to put a face to the production, especially if it's a face that's been connected to other successes as well.
Of course it's good for marketing but it literally takes like. Sitting down for more than 10 seconds about the subject to find it weird. It's only a constant battering of propaganda that establishes it.
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothesSo as usual it comes down to capitalism.
Edited by Voltron64 on Feb 16th 2021 at 10:12:39 AM
While this is moderately off-topic, the whole auteur theory movement picked up steam as an attempt to revaluate Cinema after it was dismissed as a mere fancy of technology and a "lower artform for the masses" (think basically how video games were/are seen today). Film theorists, trying to stake a claim for cinema in the art world, concluded that the best way to do this was by equating Film with Literature, and Literature evidently requires (almost always) an author figure rather than a nameless collective. In the early days of Cinema this became a debate: which job is "the author" of the film? The choices and its proponents ranged from the screenwriters (French theorists), producers (Hollywood studio system), directors (North American academics) to editors (Soviet school, although they went back and forth between that and a more "the film belongs to the collective that made it" obviously).
To make a very long and boring academic story short, "Director" won out namely due the premincence of the American system and the New Hollywood Era (incidentally also where Stanley Kubrick, the main example of the aforelinked article, made his bones) cemented it. The sort of North American centrism of the whole thing is noticeable because to this day the argument often is "but what if the studio/producer is the true author" (i.e the argument often proposed regarding the MCU).
"All you Fascists bound to lose."That's interesting. I presume that is in the video you linked, it's just that I cannot see it at work.
haha film nerrrrrrrrrrd. Neeeeeerrrrrrd.
Edited by Aszur on Feb 16th 2021 at 1:32:45 PM
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothesThe video is more of a discussion of the auteur theory as it currently "stands" (i.e the whole "male director fantasy" thing) as it pertains to the Room, though it does address some of the history. What I said is mostly the hard-earned butchered regurgitation of a graduation in film school and a master's in the same field.
For a more thorough story of essentially what I described in video form there's this vid:
Children Expelled After School Finds Out About Mom's OnlyFans Account
It kind of begs the question of just how the other parents found out about her account in the first place.
The article does note that this family is relatively fortunate, since the Onlyfans account is successful enough to rake in $150,000 a year. Imagine if this was a mother struggling to make ends meet.
Edited by M84 on Feb 24th 2021 at 1:57:46 AM
Disgusted, but not surprisedOy. Isn't the mother's activity, like, way outside of the school's area of jurisdiction?
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanThe school's justification is that them holding an interview making it public somehow violated the school's policies.
I don't really want to look up the interview itself since it's with The Sun.
Edited by M84 on Feb 24th 2021 at 3:22:58 AM
Disgusted, but not surprisedI assume that it’s a private school, presumably one with a morality clause not only for the kids but also the parents.
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ CyranIt's a Catholic school, which might be private. If it is private, then there is indeed a contract involved, and damn near every private school includes in their contract the right to expel students for damn near any reason.
Disgusted, but not surprised
While I get what you're trying to say, as a woman it honestly just feels weird to me if guys apologise "on behalf of their gender". Apologise for yourself if you've done something wrong. You are not responsible for the way others act.
Edited by Murataku on Nov 20th 2020 at 9:28:29 PM
The last thing you hear before an unstoppable juggernaut bisects you with a minigun.