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Photo by Anne Marie Fox 2003 Twentieth Century Fox. All rights reserved Alumna Catherine Hardwicke on the set of "Thirteen," which won her a director's award at the Sundance Film Festival.

battling hollywood sexism

Women filmmakers break down barriers

BY MARY DAILY and ANNE BURKE
UCLA Today

In 1960, when Barbara Boyle, now head of the Department of Film, Television and Digital Media at the School of Theater, Film and Television (TFT), was finishing UCLA law school, a professor sent her to American International Pictures in Hollywood to interview for a job as a labor relations attorney.

When she arrived at the studio, a security officer told her, “Honey, they’re expecting you,” and directed her to a room full of beautiful young women. Startled by the seemingly large number of female lawyers applying for the same job, Boyle waited until she was ushered into the office of Lou Rusoff, the studio’s head of production. “Take off your pants,” Rusoff told Boyle. Witnessing her horror, Rusoff retorted, “Look, I’m casting a beach party movie; you’re supposed to be in a bathing suit.”

After Boyle explained why she was there, Rusoff sent her across the lot, where she was hired as corporate counsel. But this jarring introduction to sexism in Hollywood stuck with the young lawyer. Over the next four decades, Boyle would spend much of her time fighting to make room for women in the male-dominated entertainment industry.

Photo by Carol Petersen Student and cinematographer Vanessa Holtgrewe.

The long struggle — though far from over — is paying off. Women are cracking the glass ceiling as studio heads, guild presidents, directors and producers.

Last year in particular brought triumphs for women directors. Sofia Coppola (“Lost in Translation”) — daughter of TFT alumnus Francis Ford Coppola — will attend the Feb. 29 Academy Awards as the first American woman ever nominated for best director. TFT alumna Catherine Hardwicke’s shocking take on teen rebellion, “Thirteen” (edited by production Professor Nancy Richardson), won the coveted Director’s Award at the Sundance Film Festival and an Oscar nod for supporting actress Holly Hunter. Fellow alumna Audrey Wells scored a box-office hit with her screen adaptation of Frances Mayes’ “Under the Tuscan Sun.” Other strong showings came from Nancy Meyers with “Something’s Gotta Give” and Patty Jenkins with “Monster.”

“This couldn’t be a better time for women in the industry,” said Boyle, who went on to a successful career as a studio executive and film producer who supervised such hits as “Desperately Seeking Susan,” “The Terminator,” “Platoon” and “Robocop.”

Through its efforts to train a diverse range of artists, UCLA has had an undeniable role in helping women gain equal access to the power corridors of Hollywood. “We’ve had to help redress the imbalances that have long characterized the entertainment industry,” said TFT Dean Robert Rosen.

That commitment from TFT leaders is what draws students like Vanessa Holtgrewe, who chose UCLA for her cinematography studies because she wanted to be treated fairly and taken seriously as an aspiring filmmaker. “I knew I wouldn’t have to push aside overly eager young men to get time with equipment and instructors,” Holtgrewe said.

Photo by Zade Rosenthal Department of Film, Television and Media head Barbara Boyle on the set of "Instinct," which she co-produced.

But Hardwicke said women directors still face an uphill battle and should not expect anything to come easily. “The fact that a lot of women made good films last year was no thanks to the studios, except for Sony with ‘Something’s Gotta Give,’ Hardwicke told UCLA Today. “Those other movies got made the old-fashioned way, by scraping and scrounging.”

Despite an impressive string of credits as a production designer (“Laurel Canyon,” “Three Kings,” “Vanilla Sky”), Hardwicke had a hard time securing financing for “Thirteen” — a low-budget indie and her first outing as a director. Determined to get the film made quickly and on her own terms, Hardwicke threw herself into the project. She refinanced her Venice cottage, badgered financiers and recruited friends to work without pay.

“I was just like a mad dog — I was going to make this no matter what it took,” said Hardwicke, who will attend the Feb. 28 Independent Spirit Awards as a nominee for best first feature.

Would financing have been easier if she were a man? “Being a woman doesn’t help,” Hardwicke replied reflectively. “But I don’t think we should dwell on our limitations. When everyone says, ‘No, it’s not possible to do what you want to do,’ my job is not to take ‘no’ for an answer. I’m going to figure out a way to make it happen.”

Sexism is nothing new in Hollywood. Although there were successful female directors as early as the 1930s, by the ’50s they had all but vanished. Female producers, cinematographers and studio heads were almost unheard of. Although Hollywood attracted a steady stream of ambitious young women eager for careers behind the camera or on the business side, most languished in lowly assistant jobs while their male counterparts climbed the career ladder.

Today, there’s no shortage of female role models in the executive suite. Among the most prominent trailblazers is Sherry Lansing, who in 1979 became head of Fox Production and is now chair of Paramount Pictures’ Motion Picture Group, a UC regent and a member of TFT’s Dean’s Advisory Board. Women are television network chiefs at ABC and Fox and are calling the shots as directors. Becky Smith, a professor in the production/directing program, is a director on the hit show, “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.”

Photo by Carol Petersen Professor Becky Smith, director of TV's "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy."

Other female role models can be counted on TFT’s faculty. Critical Studies Professor Janet Bergstrom premiered her documentary, “Murnau’s 4 Devils: Traces of a Lost Film,” at the Berlin International Film Festival. Animation Professor Celia Mercer’s animated film “Fossils” was selected for KINETICA 4, an exhibition celebrating abstraction in film and video. Directing Professor Delia Salvi has authored a new book, “Friendly Enemies: Maximizing the Director-Actor Relationship.”

Their success comes as no surprise to those who maintain that women have the skills as well as the temperament to succeed behind the camera.

Lili Fini Zanuck, a member of TFT’s advisory board, became in 1989 only the second woman to win an Academy Award for Best Picture when she took home a golden statuette for co-producing “Driving Miss Daisy.”

Zanuck said the personal skills she draws on as a producer are identical to those that many women use daily. Producing “requires you to see the big picture, but then to also micromanage people. ... It’s kind of a maternal thing and requires great organization,” Zanuck recently told “Back Stage West,” a newspaper for actors.

Women in the producer’s chair also tend to be generous in awarding credit to others, making them popular on the set and more effective leaders and managers, said Professor Denise Mann, co-chair of the school’s Producers Program, which now attracts as many female students as male.

Women are often less concerned with a film’s commercial appeal than with fulfilling their artistic vision, added Documentary Professor Marina Goldovskaya, once the only female cinematographer in a patriarchal film industry in Russia. That vision goes beyond the making of so-called chick flicks to films that address complicated political or social issues, like “Thirteen,” which Hardwicke co-wrote with teenaged friend Nikki Reed.

“Films that I feel really close to — like ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ and ‘Monster’ — these are tough, women’s films,” Hardwicke noted. “A lot of male films are a lot more squishy and sentimental.”
To help gain a competitive edge in a tough job market, women — and men — at UCLA undergo exhaustive training in the technical aspects of the industry, including sound, design, lighting, production design and camera operation. This well-rounded teaching method makes UCLA grads “extremely qualified to pursue careers in the film industry,” Smith said. “They are encouraged to master both technical and creative issues of film production.”

Given the chance to learn these skills and the encouragement to expand on their knowledge as storytellers, students gain confidence in their ability to compete, a valuable lesson learned by such alumnae as Gina Prince-Bythewood, who directed the 2000 feature film “Love and Basketball,” and Grace Lee, whose thesis film, “Barrier Device,” won a Student Academy Award in 2002.

Technological advances have also simplified entry into the film industry for both men and women. “You used to need a big crew and a lot of money, and everything was carefully scripted, but that’s no longer required,” Goldovskaya said.

Professor Linda Voorhees urges women filmmakers to take risks. “Don’t chase the marketplace or what has been. Go with your voice and your vision. Hollywood needs to be shaken up.”