Role Of Fatma Begum

This paper was prepared for Introduction to Film History, Module 1 Homework Assignment, taught by Professor Stephanie Sandifer.

Mulvey, Laura. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975) - Laura Mulvey. Thesis. N.d. N.p.: Laura Mulvey, 1975. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975) - Laura Mulvey. NG Communications, 2006. Web. 20 Feb. 2014. .

In contemporary film women's roles in films have varied quiet considerably between genres, geographical placement, and between

female protagonists in children’s film. In this blog, Babich aims to give a voice to women by

This genre is typically modern, perky and upbeat, but the common narrative in all of them is that it features a woman who is strong and she overcomes adversity to reach her goals. There is also a message of empowerment that also struggles with a romantic predicament and using comedy to poke fun at the male characters. Industries are still producing soppy romantic comedies for the female audience but the divide between the standard chick flick and romantic comedy is slowly disappearing. Similarly to the beginning of this essay it is evident that institutions are moving in the direction of women’s place in culture in relation to this film genre; women are usually shown as the super power since they are made to appeal to the female audience. However

There are several successful women making fiction feature films within the UK, such as Clio Barnard, Lynne Ramsay, however ‘there are still relatively few British women directing feature films. In the areas of documentary and experimental film, however, women have directed a substantial body of work. This suggests that away from the constraints of the commercial film industry, greater opportunities still exist to explore the representation of women’s lives and their subjective experience within Britain’ (Helen Wheatley Aitken, 2005). Pratibha Parmer, a UK documentary maker, believes that women have trouble getting into fiction filmmaking and states that, ‘some female directors have produced fictional work, but we can still say that this is the exception rather than the rule. These are two very different worlds, and the passage between them is not easy. There are very few women who can break through into the world of fiction filmmaking, partly because of the enormous budgets involved, the great risks and the

I first remember hearing about Mira Nair last year, not in my Introduction to Cinema class but from my half-Indian friend who praised Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding. It should be noted that my first film teacher was a white man, older than sixty and not concerned with women directors; out of the sixteen films screened for the semester, two were directed by women and none by women of color. Mira Nair has a unique understanding that she is fighting a long and slow battle for her films to be made relevant. Because of her race and gender, the system is against her. Thankfully, Mira Nair creates her films for herself and usually based on her own experiences and thoughts and is not waiting around for people to give her chances, she is taking them. She is a radical, feminist filmmaker with the way that she makes her own actions of making all type of films (shorts, documentaries, and fiction films) and packs a meaning behind them with her themes that are intended to make her audiences experience impressions of the life she has lived.

Since the 1940’s, movies have predominately portrayed women as sex symbols. Beginning in the 1940’s and continuing though the 1980’s, women did not have major roles in movies. When they did have a leading role the women was either pretreated as unintelligent and beautiful, or as conniving and beautiful: But she was always beautiful. Before the 1990’s, men alone, wrote and directed all the movies, and the movies were written for men. In comparison, movies of the 90’s are not only written and directed by women, but leading roles are also held by older and unattractive women. In this paper I will show the variations and growth of women’s roles in movies from the 1940’s though the 1990’s.

Within film, stories are typically told through the perspective of a male; many have attempted changing this setup, yet women’s voices are still an uncommon phenomena. Jane Campion, director, brings to light the necessity for a female narrative in cinema. Campion utilizes feminist film techniques and artistry within her shots to compose an indirect dialogue, critiquing the male dominated film industry. All the while, Campion simultaneously creates a voice for women, art that the feminine populace can empathize with.

‘Sita Sings the Blues’ is an animation movie created by an American woman, Nina Paley. The three strands that make up the warp and woof of the narration are: the personal story of Nina Paley’s betrayal by her husband; heartfelt- blues, the sentimental songs of Annette Hanshaw; and the larger-than-life canvass of the epic Ramayana. The movie, prima facie, is the story of the Director’s failed marriage as is evident from the official tagline of the movie ‘the greatest break up story ever told’. But the overarching depiction of Sita’s plight in the Ramayana, parallel to her own, assumes great significance. The portrayal of the travails and tribulations of Sita in the movie instead of the usual glorification of Rama, lends this movie

The costs, methods of distribution, and themes of Hollywood and Nollywood films reflect strongly their target audiences; how the target audience affects the production of a film and how the production of a movie is designed to capture a specific

Women are still facing steady discrimination through the film industry. Even as women gain more rights on the political front and through social movements, they are still locked into inferior roles beneath their male counterparts. As time progresses, the independent woman, Anna, in the original text of The English Governess at the Siamese Court is reduced to the role of a romantic partner for King Mongkut by the media of film adaptation. There is a trend in which films increasingly reduce the role and contribution of women from independent to dependent in order to appeal to a male-dominated audience.

As seen in most third transnational films from Asia countries, “popular cultural products criss-cross cultural borders everyday” therefore these cultures remain circulating in transnational cinema (Aquilia 2006). The power of transnational cinema could not be ignored as global screen reflects a transnational cultural exchange (Aquilia 2006). My clip shows that those sections of films we studied consisting crossover boundaries of actors and actresses, overseas settings and different cultures portrayed. Athique also argues that non-Indians and people with little Indian history background found enjoyment in the mixture of Bombay films (Athique 2008). Thus, transnational cinema in both ways depicted the cultural identity audiences can relate to, as well as transnational culture exchange among the globe.

It was not until the mid-1910’s did the film industry shift “towards a model that prized business legitimacy. This shift ultimately marginalized the woman filmmaker” (Mahar 133).

This essay discusses the different types of masculinity depicted in Apur Sansar (1959), directed by the Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray. These representations are explained by analysing and contrasting different male characters and their attitudes in the film. In addition to this, the significance of presentism is a key theme when it comes to reflecting on the conventions of the 1950s, not only in the West but also in Bengal. Finally, the relation between men and women are explored in order to achieve a better insight about the topic, highlighting Apu and Aparna’s relationship during their marriage.