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AE: Well part of it is that these women pick projects that are more personal.
LK: That's exactly it, like Nicole Holofcener is also someone we interviewed and what we found universally was none of these women that we interviewed at least had the kind of ambition to make movies that were not movies that they cared about.
So I'll say this by a way of comparison that Angela Robinson who I'm just absolutely in love with, I just think she's f***ing amazing, and I was on a panel with her at Sundance when we did In the Company of Women and it was a panel about women filmmakers--she basically sat there and said, “Well actually the career I want is George Lucas' career.” She didn't want Nicole Holofcener's career, she wants actually George Lucas' career and wants to have the studio and wants to have action figures and wants all these things.
So to her, making a film like D.E.B.S. is really a fantastic way to also get your entre into being a Hollywood director, which is what a lot of boy filmmakers do and a lot of gay boy filmmakers do. Tommy O'Haver (Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss) and Jim Fall (Trick)…they've gone onto be Hollywood people, a lot of them direct teen movies, but they didn't make these queer movies so they can make more queer movies…You know someone like Jodie Foster could be a big Hollywood director if she wanted to be one, if she wanted to direct all this crap that's out there, she could do that.
AE: In Fabulous! you interviewed Angela who crossed over from independent lesbian filmmaking into big-time Hollywood with Disney hiring her to direct Herbie: Fully Loaded.
L.K.: It's interested to see a film like D.E.B.S. and know that Angela has it in her mind to make these other bigger movies that may have gay characters or may not have gay characters. My six year old loves Herbie: Fully Loaded (laughs) and I love that I can say that somebody I know made that movie…And I know that's not all that Angela will do with her career. I think why not, I love that I can say to her, “My son loves that movie, we bought that movie and he watches it all the time.”
AE: Did you feel very pressurized making Fabulous because it's so personal and it's the world you're in?
LK: Yeah. I think I very much wanted to make sure that we weren't doing anything really wrong. We were very careful, one of the reason we wanted to have historical consultants was because we didn't want to get anything wrong in what we said. I felt very much the need to try and include as many people and films as possible…
It's such a big topic and it's such a personal topic to so many different people that everyone has their favorite films and of course it's such a very rich and deep topic that there are many, many more films and sort of sub-genres of films that we just never could get to. There are many independent filmmakers of the 70's--lesbian separatist films--there's lots of that…I was extremely aware of wanting to make sure that we got it right.
The good thing about is that because I was already involved in the queer film community and pretty involved in the indie community, most of these people were accessible…In our film we try to have the spine of the story and then let people like Ruby and Jenni and (Outfest director) Steven Gutwillig, let people lead us to those important moments. But the heart of the film are all the interviewees own experiences of seeing these films is really the heart to our film because it's one thing to hear Jenni Olson talk about why Desert Hearts was important because it was the first theatrical release of a lesbian (romantic) film but when you hear Jane Lynch talk about her experience watching that film and what it meant to her as a gay person, to me that's the heart of a film and little bit more how you can process the stuff at the same time.
AE: Do you keep any queer indie film memorabilia or posters?
LK: Yeah, I have lots of different things, I'm actually a collector of old photographs, I'm looking at it on my wall right now. Many of them have queer connotations (laughs), one is a big group photo of an all girls school in the 20's and a bunch of girls holding hands, holding each other. I love that, my Dad gave that to me. And I have another one of guys and girls in drag from what looks like the 20's or 30's--they guys are dressed like girls and the girls are dressed like guys. Pretty gay.
Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema premieres on IFC July 16 at 10pm ET and repeats during the month. Go to IFC.com for more details. Fabulous! will be released on Netflix the following week and on DVD in the fall. For more info on Lesli Klainberg go to orchardfilms.com.
Lydia Marcus is a Film Critic and Entertainment Journalist who has written extensively about queer and indie film since 1995. This native Los Angeleno has contributed numerous cover stories to Frontiers, Girlfriends, and the LN (Lesbian News), where she also writes the monthly “At The Movies” column. She has also contributed reviews, features and photos to many websites and publications including The Los Angeles Times, AOL, The Advocate, Planetout.com, Gay.com, indieWIRE.com, IN LA, GO NYC, AfterElton.com and AfterEllen.com. Email Lydia at filmcritic@earthlink.net
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