The Body and the Screen: Female Subjectivities in Contemporary Women’s Cinema (Thinking Cinema)

Permission to reproduce granted by Flach Film 157 8.2 Marie feels freedom, Romance. Permission to reproduce granted by Flach Film 158 If there is no such thing today as femininity, it is because there never was. (Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, p. 4) My criticism of Western philosophy above all has concerned the forgetting of the existence of a subjectivity which is different from masculine subjectivity: a subjectivity in the feminine. (Luce Irigaray, Key Writings, p. vii) The 'female' subject-position is linked to fleshy continuity, rather than to an autonomous and individualized 'soul' or 'mind' that merely inhabits the flesh. (Christine Battersby, The Phenomenal Woman, p. 10) A mid the campaigns about women's and feminist film to which so-called second-wave feminism gave birth in the 1970s, direct attention to the issue of female subjectivity was first drawn by Teresa de Lauretis in her book Alice Doesn't: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema in 1984. Responding to the hugely influential argument of Laura Mulvey's 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' (Mulvey 1989a), de Lauretis proposed that 'the present task of women's cinema may be not the destruction of narrative and visual pleasure, but rather the construction of another frame of reference, one in which the measure of desire is no longer just the male subject' (de Lauretis 1984: 8). In this opening chapter of this book I shall concentrate on the issue highlighted Since The 1980s The Number Of Women Regularly Directing Films Has Increased Significantly In Most Western Countries: In France, Claire Denis And Catherine Breillat Have Joined Agnes Varda In Gaining International Renown, While British Directors Lynne Ramsay And Andrea Arnold Have Forged Award-winning Careers In Feature Film. This New Volume In The Thinking Cinema Series Draws On Feminist Theorists And Critics From Simone De Beauvoir On To Offer Readings Of A Range Of The Most Important And Memorable Of These Films From The 1990s And 2000s, Focusing As It Does So On How The Films Convey Women's Lives And Identities.mainstream Entertainment Cinema Traditionally Distorts The Representation Of Women, Objectifying Their Bodies, Minimizing Their Agency,and Avoiding The Most Important Questions About How Cinema Can 'do Justice' To Female Subjectivity: Kate Ince Suggests That The Films Of Independent Women Directors Are Progressively Redressing The Balance, And Thereby Reinvigorating Both The Narratives And The Formal Ambitions Of European Cinema. Ince Uses Feminist Philosophers To Cast A New Veil Over Such Films As Sex Is Comedy, Morvern Callar, White Material, And Fish Tank; And Includes A Timeline Ofdevelopments In Women's Film-making And Feminist Film Theory From 1970 To 2011. Female Subjectivity In Philosophy And Theory -- Feminist Film Studies And Women's Cinema After Psychoanalysis -- Body -- Look -- Speech -- Performance -- Desire -- Freedom -- Conclusion. Kate Ince. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Includes Filmography. Examination of how the exploration of female subjectivity by selected French and British women film-makers has expanded and reinvigorated the "language" of contemporary cinema. Since the 1980s the number of women regularly directing films has increased significantly in most Western countries: in France, Claire Denis and Catherine Breillat have joined Agns Varda in gaining international renown, while British directors Lynne Ramsay and Andrea Arnold have forged award-winning careers in feature film. This new volume in the Thinking Cinema series draws on feminist theorists and critics from Simone de Beauvoir on to offer readings of a range of the most important and memorable of these films from the 1990s and 2000s, focusing as it does so on how the films convey women's lives and identities.Mainstream entertainment cinema traditionally distorts the representation of women, objectifying their bodies, minimizing their agency,and avoiding the most important questions about how cinema can 'do justice' to female subjectivity: Kate Ince suggests that the films of independent women directors are progressively redressing the balance, and thereby reinvigorating both the narratives and the formal ambitions of European cinema. Ince uses feminist philosophers to cast a new veil over such films as Sex Is Comedy, Morvern Callar, White Material, and Fish Tank; and includes a timeline ofdevelopments in women's film-making and feminist film theory from 1970 to 2011 Winner of the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies Best Book Prize 2018 Since the 1980s the number of women regularly directing films has increased significantly in most Western countries; in France, Claire Denis and Catherine Breillat have joined Agnès Varda in gaining international renown, while British directors Lynne Ramsay and Andrea Arnold have forged award-winning careers in feature film. This new volume in the “Thinking Cinema” series draws on feminist philosophers and theorists from Simone de Beauvoir on to offer readings of a range of the most important and memorable of these films from the 1990s and 2000s, focusing as it does so on how the films convey women's lives and identities. Mainstream entertainment cinema traditionally distorts the representation of women, objectifying their bodies, minimizing their agency, and avoiding the most important questions about how cinema can "do justice" to female subjectivity. Kate Ince suggests that the films of independent women directors are progressively redressing the balance, reinvigorating both the narratives and the formal ambitions of European cinema. Ince uses feminist philosophers to interpret such films as Sex Is Comedy, Morvern Callar, White Material, and Fish Tank anew, suggesting that a philosophical understanding of female subjectivity as embodied and ethical should underpin future feminist film study. Since the 1980s the number of women regularly directing films has increased significantly in most Western countries; in France, Claire Denis and Catherine Breillat have joined Agn#65533;s Varda in gaining international renown, while British directors Lynne Ramsay and Andrea Arnold have forged award-winning careers in feature film. This new volume in the "Thinking Cinema" series draws on feminist philosophers and theorists from Simone de Beauvoir on to offer readings of a range of the most important and memorable of these films from the 1990s and 2000s, focusing as it does so on how the films convey women's lives and identities. Mainstream entertainment cinema traditionally distorts the representation of women, objectifying their bodies, minimizing their agency, and avoiding the most important questions about how cinema can "do justice" to female subjectivity. Kate Ince suggests that the films of independent women directors are progressively redressing the balance, reinvigorating both the narratives and the formal ambitions of European cinema. Ince uses feminist philosophers to interpret such films as Sex Is Comedy, Morvern Callar, White Material, and Fish Tank anew, suggesting that a philosophical understanding of female subjectivity as embodied and ethical should underpin future feminist film study Since the 1980s the number of women regularly directing films has increased significantly in most Western countries: in France, Claire Denis and Catherine Breillat have joined Agnes Varda in gaining international renown, while British directors Lynne Ramsay and Andrea Arnold have forged award-winning careers in feature film. This new volume in the Thinking Cinema series draws on feminist theorists and critics from Simone de Beauvoir on to offer readings of a range of the most important and memorable of these films from the 1990s and 2000s, focusing as it does so on how the films convey women's lives and identities. Mainstream entertainment cinema traditionally distorts the representation of women, objectifying their bodies, minimizing their agency, and avoiding the most important questions about how cinema can 'do justice' to female subjectivity: Kate Ince suggests that the films of independent women directors are progressively redressing the balance, and thereby reinvigorating both the narratives and the formal ambitions of European cinema. Ince uses feminist philosophers to cast a new veil over such films as Sex Is Comedy, Morvern Callar, White Material, and Fish Tank; and includes a timeline of developments in women's film-making and feminist film theory from 1970 to 2011. Cover Contents Acknowledgements List of Figures 1 Female Subjectivity in Philosophy and Theory 2 Feminist Film Studies and Women’s Cinema after Psychoanalysis 3 Body 4 Look 5 Speech 6 Performance 7 Desire 8 Freedom Conclusion Bibliography Filmography Index