Filmmaker, producer and author Izzy Lee joins Patrick for a discussion of David Cronenberg's classic, the state of women in film and her new short films "For a Good Time, Call..." and "Rites of Vengeance," both premiering at the Boston Underground Film Festival.
Download this episode here. (30.7 MB)
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Check out more from Izzy Lee at Nihil Noctem Films and follow her on Twitter @NihilNoctemFilm.
"Rites of Vengeance" Teaser:
"For a Good Time, Call..." Teaser:
Really interesting listen! I hope those shorts become available after the festival run somewhere.
ReplyDeleteThis was amazing thank you!! Keep doing what you are doing!
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ReplyDeleteTotally agree about women villains. I feel like I'm always seeking them out. Show them to me, show me a character arc or at least some real angles. Women as Angels- or even "perfect" women who start out as smart, strong, amazing or just unexplained- I just don't gravitate to that - I want to see women have real sides and who can change and develop somehow. Otherwise it's not fair to their characters. That's why The Intern really bugged me- in the end, I felt like that movie, which was like surfacey-feminism, was slyly NOT about her. An old dude told her husband to shape up because she was perfect and so great, just let her do what she wants.
Feminism can mean having equal representation in patriarchal systems - like consumerism, which is what The Intern's character was entrenched in (and my mom, who is a gorgeous, high powered mucky-muck business woman) or it can mean fighting these systems and living on one's own terms. Feminists like Jesse Crispin talk a lot about this, though I'm not ready to say I agree with her about everything.
Anyway, I'm always looking for stories with strong willed villainous women AND even a guy who can help her. Overboard is like that. I don't care that he kidnapped her. I care that she, as a character, had this crazy out of body experience practically and then she got to CHOOSE which path she wanted to take at the end. She got TWO fleshed-out lives to choose from in that movie!
My mom really overpowered my dad when I was young, because he let her, because she was so gorgeous and glamorous and smiley and charming and talkative and dynamic and great at business. But she was so insecure she was really willful and destructive underneath all that glam. She put business before our family, too. So it's great that she had "woman power" and could make it in a mans world, sort of "an equal", and women should definitely have a right and the choice to do that if they want. But that didn't help her as a person, I'll say. In fact all that illusion of power, I felt, helped to sell her short from finding out who she really is on her own terms.
Thank you so much for doing The Broods! It's one I'm always thinking about, and I have to work up the nerve to see. Pleasure hearing Izzy Lee!
PS sorry I wrote a book here!
DeleteThanks so much for this, it was really enjoyable, and it's always a good reminder that everyone can be conscious of their own possible trespasses against women no matter how small. Nothing can change if people don't hold themselves accountable for their own bullshit.
ReplyDeleteThis was an angry podcast at times and I fucking loved it. I was woefully unfamiliar with Izzy's work but I will definitely check it out - she's awesome.
ReplyDeleteI watched The Brood for the first time last SMM during a Cronenberg run and thought it was great. Oliver Reed is such a creepy, cult-leader figure and the ubiquitous-on-Canadian-TV Art Hindle plays a great earnest, caring father in a fucked up situation with an awful woman. I agree that there's nothing generalizing about the movie so I don't think it's misogynistic - it's very specific and very personal to Cronenberg, which I think truly great art usually has to be. It's like his Possession (but not quite that great).
Great guest, great podcast!
I don't think it's a good thing to carry anger in your heart. It's destructive and no one wants to be around it.
ReplyDeleteAnyways... Patrick, if you haven't covered Night Moves (2013) I think you should.