Do Film Studies Need An Overhaul?

How the past is shaping the future of filmmaking

Roman Polanski, David Fincher, Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock. What do all these names have in common? Well, they are all male directors that appear in film studies curriculum. Alongside them is a plethora of recognisable names whose films have subsequently been dubbed classics, but I’ll give you one guess at how many of them are women. 

At the time of my studies in the mid-2010s it didn’t cross my mind (at least consciously) that most films we were studying were directed by men. And whilst it’s been a few years since I graduated the curriculum, I’ve discovered, is still pretty much the same. It’s very male-centric and it’s also very heavily rooted in the past. Now it makes sense to study films from our past in order to understand where film as an art form started and how it has evolved through the years, yet the most modern film I came across in my research was Moonlight from 2016. This signifies to me that universities are completely disregarding modern cinema as worthy of study. Now the far more likely explanation is the amount of time it takes to get reference works approved for study by the administrative nightmare that is the education system. But even that doesn’t explain why even in 2023 most of the films we’re studying are directed by men.

I looked at the 2023 1st year Film Studies Course Outlines from three Australian universities to compare what films were being studied. The most films directed by women I found on any of the study lists was 2 out of 10 or 12 total films, which is an average of around 16% of the curriculum. Knowing that the demographic of students that attend film school is a lot closer to a 50/50 gender split [4], this is not really acceptable particularly moving into the 2020s. The other factor that bothers me about these lists is that when I looked at the course I did back in 2014 the list, bar 2 films, was still exactly the same; which means in around 10 years the curriculum hasn’t been refreshed. The two films added weren’t new modern cinema films either they were just different ones from the past.

As stated before, I think it’s important to include films from the past when studying film to obtain a good understanding of where film started, how it progressed, the types of things people did with the technology of the time and how those past films informed the films we see today. Yet what film studies subjects fail to include are the pioneering women of cinema. How is it I completed an entire film degree and didn’t know who Alice Guy-Blaché was?

Wait, you don’t know who Alice Guy-Blaché is?

Well, from 1896 until 1906 she was the only female film director in the entire world. “She directed and produced or supervised almost six hundred silent films ranging in length from one minute to thirty minutes.” [5] She also is known for having created one of the first-ever films with a fictional story. Now a lot of her films are in private collections or in overseas universities and film archives, but I’m sure with a bit of effort you could find one to screen for a class of budding film buffs. My point still stands that we don’t really hear about the women who were pioneering cinema when we study it. There is a website from Columbia University called the Women Film Pioneers Project which you can visit to learn all about those pioneering women of cinema including Alice Guy. It is disappointing that the institutes that we trust to educate us are leaving out half of the narrative and instead, we must turn to external resources to find out about these amazing women.

To give you a bit of an example of what I’m talking about here are the lists of film resources for each university course I found:

There are certainly reoccurring names that come up. What I did find interesting was that the female directors don’t reoccur over these lists. Each university uses a different female director in its curriculum. Could we argue then that female directors don’t create classics? Because that’s what some of these male directors’ names are synonymous with isn’t it? Classic. Staple. Must-Watch. People like Hitchcock, Jean Lu Goddard, Francis Ford Coppola, Wong Kar-wai are all notable names in the film industry. I would argue that Sophia Coppola and Agnes Varda are also quite notable, but their names don’t reoccur over the lists.

Using the “classic” as a basis for film studies puts us at a standstill. How are the filmmakers of the future supposed to learn to tell new and interesting stories when we won’t stop looking into the same viewpoints from the past? And how did we determine that these films were classics in the first place? The Oxford Dictionary defines Classic as “judged over a period of time to be of the highest quality and outstanding of its kind” or as “very typical of its kind.” I would also argue that the definition has come to include a level of popularity or notoriety as well. For example, since Hitchcock was popular it has subsequently been revealed he was abusive to his actresses, particularly Tippi Hendron who has spoken about her experiences multiple times [6]. Do we still hold his work on a pedestal knowing what he had to do to create it or are we okay with separating the art from the artist? Particularly after the MeToo movement it almost seems insensitive to study films where the women involved were traumatised by their male directors. The Shining is on the University of Sydney’s list and it has since been revealed that Shelley Duvall was terrorised by Stanley Kubrick throughout the filming process. Yet despite this, both Hitchcock and Kubrick remain the pillars of cinema that they are. It’s hard to say whether films or indeed other forms of art can ever lose their “classic” title but perhaps because they keep being put on film studies lists it perpetuates the idea that these truly are the best examples of what film has to offer regardless of what we come to know of them after the fact.

I would argue that even separating accusations of abuse from the filmmakers there are better film examples to put forward. The week The Shining is listed as a resource is the study of Mise-en-scene. You could put almost any film in this week to discuss this topic. For those unaware mise-en-scene is “the arrangement of the scenery, props, etc. on the stage of a theatrical production or on the set of a film.” But if the goal was to stick with 80’s horror here I can think of at least two female-directed films that could replace The Shining. They are Pet Semetary (Dir. Mary Lambert) and The Slumber Party Massacre (Dir. Amy Holden Jones). But these aren’t considered classics, so I guess Kubrick it is.

Now I’m not saying the films on these curriculum lists aren’t good. Most of the films screened during my studies I really enjoyed. I’m also not saying that every male-directed film should be replaced by one directed by a woman but when you only have 10 or 12 films to showcase to a student body the key elements of filmmaking there have got to be more films directed by women out there that could be used as examples instead. This post also doesn't touch on the lack of directors of colour or lack of directors part of the LGBT community in film studies curriculums. Nor does it explore the narrow themes and often male-led casts of the films we study as we would be here all day. What I’m saying is this article is not all-inclusive. I’ve barely scratched the surface of where film studies courses need to rectify their resources for more inclusive and accurately representative curriculums. But where do we change the gender inequality issue within the industry? I would argue it’s with the next generation of filmmakers. If women and non-binary people cannot see themselves represented at the very first step of their filmmaking journey it’s disheartening. I was having this feeling the other day when researching videography businesses for inspiration. Many of them were male-led and honestly, it made me want to give up. If 50% of people who enter film studies courses are women and only 20% of the industry is women, then something happens in between that makes women give up. I know there are multiple factors to consider but studying female-directed films, and analysing stories told by many differing voices whilst studying the art form you want to use to tell your stories is SO important to ensure the industry continues to grow.

To prove a point I have created my own list of 12 female-directed films to use as resources for a 12-week university film studies course.

INTRODUCTION - A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour)
NARRATIVE – Mudbound (Dee Rees)
MISE-EN-SCENE – Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola)
CINEMATOGRAPHY – Portrait of A Lady of Fire (Celine Sciamma)
MONTAGE - Boys Don’t Cry (Kimberly Peirce)
EDITING – Promising Young Woman (Emerald Fennel)
FILM SOUND – The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow) or The Babadook (Jennifer Kent)
GENRE – The Hitchhiker (Ida Lupino)
DOCUMENTARY – Paris is Burning (Jennie Livingston)
AUTUERISM - The Piano (Jane Campion)
ANIMATION – The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Lotte Reiniger)
FILM MATERIALITY - Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley)

REFERENCES:

[1] https://www.adelaide.edu.au/course-outlines/110872/1/sem-1/

[2] https://www.sydney.edu.au/units/FILM1000/2023-S1C-ND-CC

[3] https://www.unsw.edu.au/arts-design-architecture/our-schools/arts-media/student-life/course-outlines

[4] https://www.filmink.com.au/film-schools-bridging-gap/

[5] https://wfpp.columbia.edu/pioneer/ccp-alice-guy-blache/
Jane Gaines, Radha Vatsal, and Monica Dall’Asta, eds. Women Film Pioneers Project. New York, NY: Columbia University Libraries.

[6] https://lithub.com/the-dark-side-of-an-auteur-on-alfred-hitchcocks-treatment-of-women/

[7] https://www.imdb.com/list/ls000865830/

[8] http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2018/the-10-most-studied-movies-of-all-time/2/