Ida Lupino

Actress, director, producer, screen-writer, filmmaking pioneer.

Ida Lupino's 'Woman's' films were gritty social tales that somehow made it past the Production Code censors. And when Ida Lupino made Film Noir the femmes were not so fatale. Instead, the male characters were the source of their own social, moral, psychological undoing.

Her films include: Outrage (1950), The Bigamist (1953) and The Hitchicker (1953)

She was the first, and only, woman to direct a Film Noir. You can watch it here!

Stepanova

'The 'sanctity' of a work as a single entity is destroyed. The museum, which was the treasury of art, is now transformed into an archive'Stepanova with a cigarette, Rodchenko, 1924

'Composition is the contemplative approach of the artist.'
'Technique and Industry have confronted art with the problem of construction as an active process and not reflective.'
For Susie

In Memory of Dede Allen

Dede Allen, 1925-2010

Close-ups

Jump-shots

Overlapping sound

Liberazione per le donne!

I remember watching Italian television with my grandparents and so I was pleased to read about one woman's quest to change the way women are represented in Italian media (which somewhat applies to most national media, dare I say) and to highlight the effect that it's having on Italian feminine culture.

Lorella Zanardo's documentary, Il Corpo delle Donne (The Body of Women) is a protest. Watch the English-subtitled version of the documentary here. Read the BBC article here.

Odetta

'One of the privates in a very big army'

The thing about Whip It is...

Is that it's a film just as much about older women as it is about teenage girls. Iron Maven's speech about it taking her until the age of 31 before she found something that she was good at, Maggie Mayhem's speech about being a mother blended with teenage dreams of escape and a search for identity. And, it's directed by Drew Barrymore. Go see this movie, it's one of the most positive films I've seen in a long time!

2 Days in New York

In development

Julie Delpy wrote, directed, produced, starred, edited, photographed and composed her 2007 film 2 Days in Paris. I'm looking forward to the next installment.

The Gentlewoman

I saw this magazine posted on my favourite blog and I thought you might like to know about it too.

"The Gentlewoman is a new biannual style magazine for a new decade. Featuring inspirational, international women, it pairs ambitious journalism with a sartorial and intelligent perspective on fashion that is focused on personal style – the way women actually look, think and dress."

A magazine for the modern day gentlewoman

Moe Tucker

Maureen Tucker by Jonathan Richman
"I had the chance to see Moe Tucker play many times with The Velvet Underground from 1967 to 1970.
She was not just a good drummer. For those who were hypnotized by their sound she was one of the head hypnotists. Those attentive enough to notice her way with a beat and her electrifying sound as she stood there and hit probably all still remember it. Sometimes she'd use mallets on the snare drum. She turned the bass drum horizontal and she hit that with mallets, using it like a tom-tom. No one ever did this! It made her sound unlike any other drummer before or since. And for those of us who loved the sound of that band this drum style was much a signature of the Velvets as was any other of their sounds. It was raw and wild."

Read an interview with Moe Tucker here.