Week One: Women Make Film Episode 1
Tuesday, September 1
Night One: Openings and Tone
Two Airings on TCM: 8:00 PM and 10:45 PM
Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema takes viewers through hundreds of examples in a montage of scenes from movies across the world and over many decades.
Spanning 1943 to 2013 and traveling from China to Iran, Australia to Finland, Women Make Film: Episode 1 presents viewers with two chapters for consideration. The first on openings delves into various techniques for how to open a film—ranging from mysterious, floating, and foreboding to direct and plunging straight in. Chapter two looks at the ways in which directors set the tone of their films—delight, anger, poetic, moral seriousness, caring, edgy, violent and more.
Chapter One – Openings
| Film | Filmmaker | Country(ies) | Year |
| The East is Red | Wang Ping | China | 1965 |
| First Comes Courage | Dorothy Arzner | USA | 1943 |
| The Silence of the Palaces | Moufida Tlatli | Tunisia | 1994 |
| The Quarry | Marion Hänsel | Belgium, France, Netherlands, Spain | 1998 |
| Strange Days | Kathryn Bigelow | USA | 1995 |
| Thumbelina | Lotte Reiniger | UK | 1954 |
| Le Bonheur | Agnès Varda | France | 1965 |
| Blackboards | Athina Rachel Tsangari | Greece | 2010 |
| Attenberg Be My Star | Valeska Grisebach | Germany | 2001 |
| The Last Stage | Wanda Jakubowska | Poland | 1947 |
Chapter Two – Tone
| Film | Filmmaker | Country(ies) | Year |
| Merrily We Go to Hell | Dorothy Arzner | USA | 1932 |
| On the 12th Day of Christmas | Wendy Toye | UK | 1955 |
| By The Sea | Angelina Jolie | USA | 2015 |
| Peel | Jane Campion | Australia | 1982 |
| Beau Travail | Claire Denis | France | 1999 |
| Maedchen in Uniform | Leontine Sagan | Germany | 1931 |
| Two in One | Kira Muratova | Ukraine-Russia | 2007 |
| Betoniyö | Pirjo Honkasalo | Finland, Sweden, Denmark | 2013 |
Complementary Film Schedule
Airing on TCM, times given in Eastern Time
9:15 PM – Merrily We Go To Hell (1932) directed by Dorothy Arzner
12:00 AM – Olivia (1951) directed by Jacqueline Audry
1:45 AM – Sleepwalking Land (2007 ) directed by Teresa Prata
3:30 AM – Seven Beauties (1975) directed by Lina Wertmüller
5:30 AM – Je tu il elle (1974) directed by Chantal Akerman
7:15 AM – Mädchen in Uniform (1931) directed by Leontine Sagan
9:00 AM – La Ciénaga (2001) directed by Lucrecia Martel
Academy Assignment
For individual pondering or sharing via the site comments. Watch one of this week’s films through the lens of openings and tone. Questions to consider:
- How would you describe the technique used by the director in the film’s opening?
- How would you characterize the film’s tone?
- Making the connection, did the film’s opening carry through to the film’s tone?
- Bonus: How did the Women Make Film openings and tone chapter material influence how you watched this film?
Classic Couple perspectives will be shared before next week’s assignment so check back regularly.