The New Woman's Film : Femme-centric Movies for Smart Chicks

With the chick flick arguably in decline, film scholars may well ask: what has become of the woman's film? Little attention has been paid to the proliferation of films, often from the independent sector, that do not sit comfortably in either the category of popular culture or that of high art––films that are perhaps the corollary of the middle-brow novel, or "smart-chick flicks". This book seeks to fill this void by focusing on the steady stream of films about and for women that emerge out of independent American and European cinema, and that are designed to address an international female audience. The new woman's film as a genre includes narratives with strong ties to the woman's film of classical Hollywood while constituting a new distinctive cycle of female-centered films that in many ways continue the project of second-wave feminism, albeit in a modified form. Topics addressed include: The Bridges of Madison County (Clint Eastwood, 1995); the feature-length films of Nicole Holofcener, 1996-2013; the film roles of Tilda Swinton; Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme, 2008); Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen, 2013); Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, 2012), Belle (Amma Asante, 2013), Fifty Shades of Grey (Sam Taylor-Johnson, 2015) and Jane Campion's Top of the Lake (Sundance Channel, 2013-). Cover 1 Title 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 CONTENTS 8 List of Figures 10 Acknowledgments 12 Introduction: What Do Women Watch? 14 1 After the Woman’s Picture: The New Woman’s Film and the Chick Flick 20 2 The New Woman’s Film in the Twenty-First Century: The Smart-Chick Film and Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme, 2008) 39 3 Anticipating the Twenty-First Century: “Dirty Harry Bathed in a Romantic Glow?” and The Bridges of Madison Country (Clint Eastwood, 1995) 61 4 Nicole Holofcener as the American Female Auteur: “Keeping It Real”— Walking and Talking (1996), Lovely & Amazing (2002), Friends with Money (2006), Please Give (2010), Enough Said (2013) 82 5 Stardom, Celebrity and the New Woman’s Film: Tilda Swinton and the Maternal Melodrama—“Winning an Oscar Was Wasted on Me” 104 6 Oscars for Women and the Films of Woody Allen: Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen, 2013) 125 7 The Girl Crush: Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, 2012), “The Toast of Telluride” 144 8 Diversity, the Female Biopic and the New Woman’s Film: Belle (Amma Asante, 2013) 165 9 A Past with a Future, the Ongoing Evolution of the New Woman’s Film: From Top of the Lake (Sundance Channel, 2013–) to Fifty Shades of Grey (Sam Taylor-Johnson, 2015) 186 Coda: Feminism Redux 203 Select Bibliography 208 Index 215 Femme-centric Movies for Smart Chicks