Ready for the weekend? I am. And I have a stack of reading material at the ready and probably (despite the weekend) not enough time to spend with it. I am not sure I have ever mentioned it before here, but when I am not reading I spend a lot of time going to movies. And often watching them at home streaming or tracking down DVDs of those more elusive films that are harder to track down and not streaming.
I have taken a number of film classes (just for pleasure and to understand how to 'read' a movie) at my favorite local indie cinema. My next class starts in just a couple of weeks. They run for five sessions on Saturdays and this time around we are watching/studying the films of Sofia Coppola. You know how I operate by now very likely. Why just dip a toe in when I can create a whole project out of something that interests me. Since two of the films by Coppola are adaptations, I have to read the books first, of course.
Our first film is The Virgin Suicides, so I have started reading Jeffrey Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides. It is an interesting read since the narrator is one voice in plural, if that makes sense. I have been reading it alongside a few articles about Sofia Coppola, and I found a (hopefully not too academically written) book about her films and Coppola as an auteur. I have yet to start reading the book on Coppola, but once I have read some basics I am hoping I can start making connections between her life and filmmaking style as well as her as a woman director.
I don't normally prepare like this when I take film classes. Our teacher always sends us a weekly reading to give us background on what we'll be watching and then she will give a brief lecture, we watch the film and then discuss as a group. It is amazing how much you can learn about a film genre or a director this way and the discussion is really interesting. Films I would never have appreciated watching on my own become really fascinating and I think now I could tackle just about anything, though watching in class makes them so much more accessible.
And then you know how it goes. You start something like this and it ends up morphing into something else. I cam across a book called The Female Gaze: Essential Movies Made by Women by Alicia Malone (because I always want to read books about ans by women--the same goes for movies). This book is very decidedly meant for the general audience. She shares 52 (one per week
should you choose to approach the viewing that way) of her favorite films directed by women. So, yes, I am going to try and watch my way through the list. If I can manage to find them all I will do so chronologically which seems to be how she has listed them. There are short essays about the film and why it is important. First up is a silent from 1906 called "The Consequences of Feminism" directed by Alice Guy produced by her own studio, Gaumont Studios. It is only about 7 minutes long--a perfect place to start.
So my weekend will be filled with a little Ruth Rendell, WWII--Jennifer Egan, something beachy--Elizabeth Poliner (all on my sidebar) and some movie watching.
Happy weekend reading (or movie-watching) everyone!