Although there were important women directors in the silent era, notably in the United States and in France, opportunities became scarce as cinema became industrialized. In this programme, we highlight two exceptional artists, pioneers in feminist filmmaking.
Born in what is now Ukraine, in 1917, but brought up in the USA, Maya Deren is best known for her surrealist 14 minute short Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), an extraordinary piece of avant garde filmmaking which prefigures the work of Kenneth Anger, David Lynch and many others. Meshes of the Afternoon was voted the 16th greatest film of all time in Sight & Sound’s poll of film critics and scholars in 2022.
Věra Chytilová (born 1929) was the first woman to study directing at the famous Czech film school FAMU. She made her first feature in 1963, Something Different, and then the radically confrontational Daisies, which was promptly banned in her home country. In the Sight & Sound poll, Daisies was voted =28th.
Sunday’s Pantheon screening will be preceded by a 15 minute introductory lecture and feature a book club-style discussion afterwards.
May 19: Introduced by Alla Gadassik, Associate Professor, Media History & Theory, Emily Carr University of Art + Design
Surely one of the most exhilarating stylistic and psychedelic cinematic explosions of the 1960s, Daisies is a madcap and aggressive feminist farce that explodes in any number of directions. Although many American and Western European filmmakers during this period prided themselves on their subversiveness, it is possible that the most radical film of the decade, ideologically as well as formally, came from the East— from the liberating ferment building toward the short-lived political reforms of 1968s’s Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia.
Featuring two uninhibited 17-year-olds name Marie (Jitka Cerhova and Ivana Karbanova) — whose various escapades, which add up less to a plot than to a string of outrageous set pieces, include several antiphallic gags, a penchant for exploiting dirty old men, and a free-for-all with fancy food that got Chytilova in trouble with the authorities. This disturbing yet liberating tour-de-force shows what this talented director can do with freedom. A major influence on Jacques Rivette’s Celine and Julie Go Boating, Daisies is chock-full of female giggling, which might be interpreted in context as what Ruby Rich has called “the laughter of the Medusa”: Subversive, bracing, energizing, and rather off-putting (if challenging) to most male spectators.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
Daisies is as subversive as it is hilarious.
Kate Muir, The Times
Brace yourself for some of the most exuberant and disjunctive Pop Art imagery ever put onscreen.
David Edelstein, New York Magazine
Presented by
Vera Chytilova
Jitka Cerhova, Ivana Karbonava
Czechoslovakia
1966
In Czech with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Credits
Screenwriter
Ester Krumbachová, Věra Chytilová
Editor
Miroslav Hájek
Cinematography
Jaroslav Kučera
Original Music
Jiří Šust, Jiří Šlitr
Also in This Series
Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise)
The crowning glory of classical French cinema, this sumptuous melodrama brings to life the early 19th century Boulevard du Crime in Paris, where popular audiences for mime shows and carnival rub shoulders with wealthy patrons of classical theatre.
The Wild Bunch (Director's Cut)
The Mexico/Texas borderlands, 1913: Pike (William Holden) leads his gang of aging outlaws on a foray south for one last hurrah. Peckinpah's masterpiece, a savage lament for men who believe in nothing but find respect by dying in vain.
The Ascent
During the darkest winter of WWII, two Soviet partisans venture through the backwoods of Belarus in search of food, always at risk of falling into enemy hands. In her masterpiece Larisa Shepitko zeroes in on profound spiritual and philosophical themes.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Céline Sciamma's queer costume drama -- about a painter covertly studying a young noblewoman who refuses to sit for her portrait -- was voted 30th Greatest Film Ever Made in a 2022 poll, the highest ranking film of the past decade.
I Am Cuba
Infused with a palpable love for the country and a righteous anger at the injustices of the Batista era, I Am Cuba features some of the jaw-dropping camerawork ever filmed. A euphoric celebration of Cuba, the Revolution, and revolutionary cinema.
The Colour of Pomegranates + The House Is Black
This month's Pantheon screening is a double-bill, Sergei Parajanov's extraordinary evocation of the life and work of C18th Armenian poet Sayat Nova, and, The House is Black (22 min), the only film directed by the great Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad.
Fantasia
Walt Disney pushed the boundaries of animation and sound recording when he put together a movie concert: eight classical pieces by Bach, Beethoven, Stravinski et al, each animated in a different style. It's playful, sometimes cute, other times inspired.
Image: © Disney, 1940