Early in her essay, “Making
Movie Magic,” Bell Hooks writes,
“Most of us go to movies to enter a world that is different from the one we
know and are comfortable with.” Though on the surface a simple, undisputable
statement, I think that Hooks is giving the audience too much credit here. I
believe that she is talking about the ideal audience, one that goes to the
movies to learn something new, to have a fresh perspective and original
experience. But a lot of the time, the movies are used in a much simpler form
as simply a form of entertainment, and something to do on a Friday night. Yet,
the importance in what Hooks is saying is not diminished, as once the audience
enters the theatre and is presented with a movie, regardless of their reason
for being there, they will be exposed to a new world for 120 minutes. The
choice of what that world will present and how it will affect its audience lies
in large part in the hand of the movie directors.
Patricia Riggen, born
and raised in Mexico, is one of these movie directors. She moved to New York
City in her early twenties and received a masters degree in directing and
screenwriting at Columbia University. When asked about her opportunities in
Mexico, Patricia replied, ““When I was
growing up in Mexico there weren't any women directors around for me to see
that it was something I could do… There were four, [woman directors] and I
interviewed them feeling like being a director was equivalent to being an
astronaut -- the hardest most strange thing to be. Completely unaccessible, and
it shouldn't be like that” (1).
The opportunities for women in the film industry in countries like
Mexico are much more limited than they are here in the United States.
Patricia
is known for the 2007 film La Misma Luna which
tells the story of an immigrant woman working in the United States in hopes of
a better life, having left her son back home in Mexico, and the struggle she
faces because of that decision. I know many women who are in the same situation
so the story is especially evocative for me. Bell Hooks writes, “Movies remain the perfect vehicle
for… everyone who wants to take a look at difference and the different without
having to experientially engage ‘the other’” This movie is a perfect example of
how movies could potentially present to the viewer a way of life they are
completely unfamiliar and would otherwise probably never experience. Patricia
had to raise the money to produce the movie herself, as she saw that as the
only way to truly create the kind of film she envisioned, without constant
limitations set by a large studio. About her distributor, she says, “Fox
Searchlight has been wonderful and I'll tell you why- they're all women.
There's one guy at the top and then it's all women” (1). Nothing new there.
Patricia has a new film Girl in Progress starring Eva Mendez, coming out in theatres later this month about a single mom raising her teenage daughter.
1.http://womenandhollywood.blogspot.com/2008/03/interview-with-patricia-riggen-director.html
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