defiant women
Throughout the 20th century, women struggled against the roles and boxes they'd been put into. Suffrage, women joining the workforce, sexual liberation, these key breakthrough moments were accompanied by shifts in culture as well. Women as the stars of their own stories, women writing and directing films, stories about defiant women pushing through the suffocating limits placed on them by the men around them. Featuring a variety of creators from within and without the Hollywood system, Calgary Cinematheque is proud to present a series exploring the ways women fight back - whether through crime, performance, sex, or by inspiring the other women around them to say no to a society that is too content to tell them what they can and cannot be.
Art by Sheena Agnew
Series Films
wANDA (1970)
Directed by Barbara Loden
january 12, 2023
Shot on location with a low budget and a small crew, actress Barbara Loden's sole feature film as a director has a cinema verité realism in its depiction of an unhappy housewife turned bank robber that serves as a marked contrast to the glamourization of films like Bonnie and Clyde made just a few years earlier. Highly critically acclaimed since its release and recently voted #48 on Sight and Sound's critics Top 100 list, Wanda is a challenging film with its depiction of a woman who wants more out of life than she is getting, but has been so beaten down by the world around her that she doesn't know how to get it for herself.
Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)
Directed by Dorothy Arzner, Roy Del Ruth
JANUARY 26, 2023
Written and directed by women, starring women, this Golden Age Hollywood drama remains as relevant as ever with its depiction of compromised dreams, hypocritical morals, and the double standards imposed upon women who are expected to showcase their physical beauty and yet are shamed for doing so. Maureen O'Hara stars as a ballet hopeful who has to make do performing burlesque alongside the show's main attraction, played by a pre-television Lucille Ball. Directed by Dorothy Arzner, who was practically the only woman directing studio pictures during the Golden Age of Hollywood, this mediation on the struggle between personal integrity and making ends meet speaks to the compromises made by artists but also the difficult line walked by women who want to be seen but not gawked at.
liquid sky (1982)
DIRECTED by Slava Tsukerman
February 9, 2023
A cult classic and the most financially successful independent film of 1983, this bizarre tale of the New York new wave fashion synthpunk night scene features Anne Carlisle in the dual role of bisexual model Margaret and her arch rival Jimmy. Carlisle also wrote the film's story, wherein Margaret discovers she can kill people by having sex with them, and uses this newfound ability to cut a swath of death through her social circle of phonies, assholes, and bigots. Could this strange power have anything to do with the aliens living on the roof of Margaret's apartment? Having never experienced an orgasm, Margaret uses the orgasms of those who see her only as a sex object against them in this visually inventive indie darling was made completely outside the standard systems of filmmaking by Russian director Slava Tsukerman and is a beloved midnight movie to this day.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE FABULOUS STAINS (1982)
Directed by Lou Alder
february 23, 2022
When a group of angry teens form a punk band, the Stains, their lack of musical ability sees them derided and blocked by the men around them. But their defiant spirit and outspoken attitude wins them a legion of fans of similarly angry teenage girls, and soon the fabulous Stains have more attention on them than they know what to do with. Starring a 15 year old Diane Lane and a 13 year old Laura Dern, this studio picture was shot like an indie and barely released by its original distributor. Picking up popularity as a cult film on the arthouse circuit and winning praise for its depiction of feminist teen rebellion, the film was marked by a constant struggle for creative control between its male director Lou Adler, and its female writer Nancy Dowd. With appearances by members of the Sex Pistols and the Clash, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains has inspired future generations of female musicians from Bikini Kill to Kate Nash.
