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| The view: Will Sandra Bullock use her power for good? She is now Hollywood's most bankable female star and a producer of some clout. Let's hope she uses her position to spark a golden age for women-oriented mainstream moviesAmid the ongoing takeover of the world by Avatar, it would have been easy to miss the passing of another box-office landmark this week – the money involved is piffling in comparison to that amassed by James Cameron's juggernaut but the significance perhaps a shade greater. The breakthrough on this occasion came with the first movie with a lone woman as its above-the-title draw to make more than $200m (£125m) at the US box office, a feat achieved by the sports drama The Blind Side and its eternally perky star, Sandra Bullock.Make no mistake, these are good times for Sandy – the success of her latest project follows the still more lucrative triumph of The Proposal, a standard-issue romcom that pulled in huge audiences without troubling many of last month's end-of-year best-of lists. Of course, there's nothing new about the schism between the kind of movies that provoke serious discussion and those which break box-office records. But it may be a problem when the films concerned are bringing into cinemas vast numbers of that famously neglected demographic – grown women.Yet it's also a situation which could be transformed with just a small leap of the imagination. Because even before the pincer movement of The Proposal and The Blind Side, Bullock was already something of a totemic female presence in the mainstream film industry, one whose movies were always reliable earners, and who had also acquired a certain degree of clout as a producer. So it wasn't such a surprise to see her name being checked back on the other side of Christmas by New York Times critic Manohla Dargis in an interview with the feminist website Jezebel that itself followed a piece in Dargis's professional home on the ever parlous state of women directors in Hollywood and the quality of movies being made for female audiences.A woman with a contagious and blade-sharp love of cinema (an acquaintance of mine once described talking to her about film as like dancing), Dargis took on issues that remain sore points no matter how many times they're spotlit. Identifying the lack of opportunities afforded female directors even when the executives denying them are women, Dargis's Jezebel interview then went on in majestically blunt fashion to discuss the quandary in which female movie lovers routinely find themselves: "I'm of two minds. Sometimes I think what women should do is what various black and gay audiences have done, which is support women making movies for women. So does that mean I have to go support Nora Ephron [director of Sleepless in Seattle]? Fuck no."For Bullock, meanwhile, there was a message: "Use your power for good, Sandy!" Or, to paraphrase, given that the film business allows those who make the kind of money she does to at least fleetingly write their own ticket, maybe now is the time for the most dependable female star in Hollywood to swing her weight behind something more enriching for women than Mamma Mia! and Sex and the City, to bring that star-and-producer double credit to bear on movies which could send modern women's pictures off in a whole new direction.And no, I'm not suggesting that the scores of women who savoured every minute of Mamma Mia! need the approval of critics to legitimise their fun. But it would be just as wrong-headed not to admit that among the crowds singing along to The Winner Takes It All will have been women there, at least in part, because they had so few alternatives. "Starved of representation," Dargis says of female moviegoers, and when you look at what they're offered by the mainstream, you realise that most weeks the menu is Sandra's latest or nothing at all.Some women I know take refuge in the golden age of Hollywood, with its Hepburns, Tierneys and Gardners. Others pounce gratefully on the contemporary likes of Courtney Hunt's Frozen River or Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank. But for those who simply want a decent multiplex experience a couple of times a year, the pickings are, as always, thin. So who knows – in an industry weird enough to still be troubled by such an archaic kind of sexism, maybe it's not too much of a stretch to see a possible remedy in the form of its own current superwoman.Sandra BullockAndrea ArnoldDanny Leighguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Letters: Na'vis and Natives I thought I was the only one that so disliked Avatar, but my reasons differ from Andrew Pulver's (Shortcuts, G2, 11 January): the narrative of the noble savage triumphing with the help of the colonist who has gone native runs deep in Anglo-American mythology and is an insult to the historical reality even when presented as science fiction. Chris ÂMcGreal's article (Obama's Indian problem, G2, 11 January) clearly reveals what happens when an indigenous population comes up against a technologically advanced society bent on taking over the land and making a profit: a form of genocide that does not stop when the war ends.Dr DP MartinezSchool of Oriental and African Studies, University of London• Until my retirement a few years ago I worked in the court system on the Pacific west coast, which took me almost weekly to the local native reserve of about 650 people. Though not so severe as Pine Ridge, the problems and despair were parallel. I have seen and sensed some of the suffering from alcohol, drugs and other abuses. I believe that the problem is widespread across much of Canada. The federal governments of the US and Canada must stop using "spin" and pay attention to the wonderful wisdom of many of the native elders.John BloxhamPowell River, British Columbia, CanadaUnited StatesUS domestic policyAlcoholDrugsCanadaJames Cameronguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
This week's DVD and Blu-ray releases Fish TankDVD, Artificial EyeAndrea Arnold's Fish Tank is very much in the UK's lineage of social realist dramas. As with the works of Tony Richardson, through Ken Loach and Alan Clarke, Fish Tank presents, or rather captures, the world warts and all – even going as far as being filmed in the more TV-like aspect ratio of 1.33:1 to avoid any accidental glamour that widescreen might have delivered. The situations here are familiar to any follower of kitchen-sink drama but the settings and language have been updated, and it's in these details that Arnold really shows her talent. Mia (Katie Jarvis) is an argumentative and bored Essex teenager who dreams of becoming a dancer – her lonely practice sessions in a vacant council flat are her only real moments of calm. It's easy to see why she's so aggressive, with her limited opportunities and her single mother constantly chipping away at her. Her mum's new boyfriend, Connor (Michael Fassbender), is the only one to give her any time but their relationship presents a minefield neither can hope to traverse safely. Newcomer Jarvis holds the film together admirably. Her performance is far from showy, and despite her character's regular flare-ups, she's as convincing and nuanced in the moments of quiet, allowing the film to be more Ken Loach and less Kidulthood. It's a deceptively simple film. Scenes, like Connor's arrival or Mia's dance audition, are the life-changing events you'd expect them to be – but not in the way you'd think. Life can be like that. The DVD also contains Arnold's excellent, Oscar-winning short film, Wasp.The Queen Of SpadesDVD, OptimumBefore the brains behind TV scheduling decided that we would rather watch something about bargain hunting or house renovation, you could often chance upon rare movie treasures from the black-and-white era on television. Which is why it's heartening that people are still pushing forgotten British films like this back into the public eye, as Martin Scorsese does here (he delivers a special introduction on the disc). Directed by the underrated Thorold Dickinson (whose Secret People also debuts on DVD this week), and based on a short story by Pushkin, this 1949 work is one of those great films that seems to have fallen through the cracks. Anton Walbrook plays a Russian army officer, envious of his upper-crust comrades, who tries to level the playing field with a diabolic deal involving an old countess (Edith Evans). His lust for power costs him more and more of his humanity, and the supernatural elements that simmer for the first half burst into the film full force in the second. It's a lavish costume drama with a doom-laden, macabre atmosphere, as unusual and intriguing now as it must have been then.ALSO OUTCreation Charles Darwin agonises over his family and his theories in this solid drama, starring Paul Bettany.DVD & Blu-ray, IconDorian Gray Ben Barnes and Colin Firth lead an amped-up version of Wilde's Faustian tale.DVD & Blu-ray, MomentumFunny PeopleAdam Sandler's comedian confronts mortality in Judd Apatow's latest.DVD & Blu-ray, UniversalBig River Man Charming documentary on an alcohol-assisted attempt to swim the Amazon.DVD, RevolverNight Of The CometEighties-tastic B-movie in which two valley girls battle zombies.DVD, OptimumDVD and video reviewsPhelim O'Neillguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Nanga Parbat film restarts row over Messner brothers' fatal climb • Movie tells of 70s ascent of treacherous Pakistan peak• Portrayal of sibling's death false, say team membersA film retelling mountaineer Reinhold Messner's legendary ascent of Nanga Parbat, in which his younger brother was killed, has reignited a bitter mountaineering row and prompted fellow climbers to attack as "false" the version of events being portrayed on the screen.A group of climbers who accompanied Messner, now 65, and his brother Günther on the 1970 expedition have criticised the makers of Nanga Parbat for telling only one side of the story – and have threatened legal action.The film, by the director Josef Vilsmaier, is being advertised under the slogan "two brothers, one mountain, their fate" and promises to reconstruct the events when Günther disappeared after apparently following Reinhold down Nanga Parbat in Pakistan, the ninth highest mountain in the world and one of the most treacherous to climb. From the start the film, much of which was shot on location, makes clear that it is telling the story "from the point of view of Reinhold Messner".While Messner has always said that Günther, then 23, was buried by an avalanche, others on the trip claim that the older brother abandoned his altitude-sick sibling so that he could tackle alone the uncharted western side, the Diamir face.The discovery of Günther's remains on the Diamir face in 2005 gave support to his brother's version of events, but did little to quell tensions between expedition members.One, Gerhard Baur, said the film was biased and regretted that he and others on the expedition had not been consulted."It is a constructed story, and is not the truth about Nanga Parbat … it is presented as if it were a documentary when it doesn't reflect the facts," he told the German magazine Spiegel."The film repeats Messner's claim that … out of pure necessity he decided to descend via the Diamir face and that Günther was buried by an avalanche … I still don't accept this version of events … I was present three times when Messner spoke with great enthusiasm about his desire to tackle the Diamir face, saying that it would be the next leap in the world of alpinism."Baur said he felt "wounded" by the fact that the rest of the team stands accused of failing to offer their help to the younger brother. "It hurts a lot that those from the team who are no longer with us haven't got the chance to defend themselves."The expedition leader Karl Maria ÂHerrligkoffer's son accused Messner of insulting his father's memory and said he was considering taking legal action."I don't recognise my father as he's been portrayed in the film, and because he's dead he cannot defend himself," said Klaus Herrligkoffer, criticising the depiction of him as a tyrannical leader who failed to help the Messner brothers.Max von Kienlin, a fellow climber and former Messner friend, said: "The film is a falsification, adding things that didn't happen, and leaving out what did happen."Messner told German climbing magazine Klettern the film was intended to "trigger strong emotions in the viewers".He said: "I personally didn't need to make the film, but it was important for my family. We're not trying to make a story about heroism, rather I wanted to ask critical questions of myself of what happened on Nanga Parbat."GermanyPakistanClimbing holidaysKate Connollyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Jean Simmons: a life in pictures Jean Simmons, who died at the weekend at the age of 80, was one of Hollywood's most luminous stars. Here are some highlights from her long career guardian.co.uk |