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Nina Menkes addresses critics of her new documentary and why people have a need to defend how movies have historically filmed women<\/p>\n
Independent filmmaker Nina Menkes can hardly believe that her new documentary \u201cBrainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power\u201d about the gendered politics of shot design is causing a stir.<\/p>\n
The film is being released in theaters starting Friday via Kino Lorber at the Laemmle in the Los Angeles area and at DCTV\u2019s Firehouse Cinema in New York City, with a national rollout to follow.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of rave reviews, but we\u2019ve also been attacked and it\u2019s unbelievable to me that women would attack this film,\u201d Menkes, who also teaches film production at California Institute of the Arts, told The Wrap. \u201cIt\u2019s just like the whole way of cinema being based on these kinds of beautiful, fragmented female bodies seems to be like something people are dying to defend.\u201d<\/p>\n
The documentary\u2019s premise is that male and female actors are often shot in very different ways regardless of the context, decade or genre of film, Menkes explained. Camera shots help sexualize females, for example, by focusing on select body parts such as their breasts and butts, while that\u2019s rarely done for men. In addition, the female is often the object of a shot \u2014 the one who is being looked at through a heterosexual male gaze \u2014 rather than the subject who\u2019s doing the looking. Females are also more likely to be bathed in fuzzy, male fantasy-like lighting rather than 3D lighting with shadow and depth.<\/p>\n
This system of shot design runs like an undercurrent consistently through films to such a degree that it often goes unnoticed, Menkes said.<\/p>\n
Now that Menkes, who uses some 200 film clips as examples in her documentary, is calling attention to this power dynamic, \u201ca lot of people are all upset about it,\u201d she said. \u201cYou know, \u2018How dare you say these things about cinema!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The L.A.-based filmmaker said it\u2019s hard to believe this would be open to debate in 2022. But \u201cthe world is still in the Dark Ages as far as misogyny,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also reflected in other ways in Hollywood, too. She noted that Harrison Ford, who\u2019s 80 years old and has wrinkles to show for it, is set to star in \u201cCaptain America: New World Order\u201d and is considered sexy while a woman\u2019s acting career in Hollywood is often considered over at 40 or 50.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf your primary value is as a young sex object, then obviously if you\u2019re like 50 and over, it doesn\u2019t really work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Menkes\u2019 first feature film was Magdalena Viraga (1986) about a sex worker in East L.A. who has been imprisoned for the murder of her pimp. The film, which Menkes shot and has been hailed as a staple of feminist cinema, showed only the protagonist\u2019s face during sex. The protagonist, played by Menkes\u2019 sister Tinka Menkes, also never takes off her clothes on camera.<\/p>\n
The film earned a Los Angeles Film Critics Award and it was shown at scores of film festivals but the director said she could not get another film financed in Hollywood afterward.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople were very freaked out by the film in the industry,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd it seems like people are still freaked out when you confront \u2018the male gaze.\u2019 It\u2019s very contentious. It\u2019s very, very ingrained in the way that cinema is made by male and female directors.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBrainwashed\u201d was executive produced by Tim Disney, Susan Disney Lord and Abigail Disney and received funding from the Disney family.<\/p>\n
Menkes believes it got funded largely because of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigation into allegations of Hollywood\u2019s discriminatory hiring practices against female directors that launched in 2015 and the force of the #MeToo movement.<\/p>\n
Part of the solution is raising consciousness about these issues, she said. Menkes hopes \u201cBrainwashed\u201d will be able to do just that \u2014 despite the pushback the film has gotten in some reviews.<\/p>\n
Though in Elizabeth Weitzman\u2019s review of \u201cBrainwashed\u201d for TheWrap, she felt the documentary was must-see viewing. \u201cIf you\u2019ve ever watched a classic movie and wondered why no one else seems uncomfortable with its portrayal of female characters, you\u2019ll want to see \u2018Brainwashed\u2019 as soon as possible,\u201d she wrote. \u201cAnd if you haven\u2019t \u2014 well, that may be all the more reason to seek it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I hope from \u2018Brainwashed\u2019 is that the awareness of this and how pervasive it is will make people think twice instead of just automatically shooting in this kind of way,\u201d Menkes said.<\/p>\n
View this article at The Wrap<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u2018Brainwashed\u2019 Director Rails Against Hollywood Misogyny: \u2018The World Is Still in the Dark Ages\u2019: Nina Menkes addresses critics of her new documentary and why people have a need to defend how movies have historically filmed women Independent filmmaker Nina Menkes can hardly believe that her new documentary \u201cBrainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power\u201d about the gendered politics of shot
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