S01E01 Openings, Tone
“Openings”. With examples from 1943 to 2013, from China to Iran, Australia to Finland, we look at how to open a film: from mysterious, direct, floating, foreboding beginnings to plunging straight in. All are instructive...
Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema
S01E02: Believability, Introducing Character, Meet Cute
“Believability”. It’s easy to spot, but not so easy to understand. Believability is about simple human stories, the truth about life, real emotions, and responding to the world. How do directors create a reality without it feeling fake? True stories can help. But what’s the trick? “Introducing Character”. Going to a house, overhearing people, witnessing bizarre action—there are many ways to meet people and be introduced to characters in films. “Meet Cute”. The classic Hollywood trope of a “meet cute” invites a variety of interpretations, from intimate glimpses to worlds colliding spectacularly.
Overview
As told through clips from 183 female directors, this epic history of the cinema focuses on women’s integral role in the development of film art. Using almost a thousand film extracts from thirteen decades and five continents, Mark Cousins asks how films are made, shot and edited; how stories are shaped and how movies depict life, love, politics, humour and death, all through the compelling lens of some of the world’s greatest filmmakers – all of them women.
Episodes
S01E02 Believability, Introducing Character, Meet Cute
“Believability”. It’s easy to spot, but not so easy to understand. Believability is about simple human stories, the truth about life, real emotions, and responding to the world. How do directors create a reality without...
S01E03 Conversation, Framing, Tracking
“Conversation”. A basic human interaction—how to make it cinematic? “Framing”. Frames describe and paint the scenes. They shape the cinematic world. “Tracking”. Tracking shots are too many an essence of filmmaking magic. They can ask...
S01E04 Staging, Journey, Discovery
“Staging”. Scene staging is an element of film form pointing clearly to cinema’s origin: theater. “Journey”. Movement is key to a motion picture, and journeys in film can be horizontal as well as vertical (into...
S01E05 Adult/Child, Economy, Editing
“Adult/Child”. Most famous movie genres—war pictures, westerns, etc.—are about adults, but in this chapter, Jane Fonda narrates the story of eighteen films about children, from Germany, Belgium, Mongolia, Sweden, Russia, Canada, Senegal, Argentina, and Scotland....
S01E06 POV, Close-up, Dream
“POV”. Is cinema the art of point of view? Jocelyn Moorhouse, Ida Lupino, Edith Carlmar, Sofia Coppola, Liliana Cavani, Kelly Reichardt, Larisa Shepitko, Jennifer Kent, and other great directors demonstrate the art of POV. “Close-up”....
S01E07 Bodies, Sex
“Bodies”. Bodies in cinema can be enticing, athletic, or brutalized. Jane Fonda narrates this chapter about how some of the great directors—including Agnès Varda, Andrea Arnold, Marva Nabili, Pirjo Honkasalo, Márta Mészáros, and Wanda Jakubowska—have...
S01E08 Home, Religion, Work
“Home”. Refuge, shelter, or prison? Sharmila Tagore narrates the story of home on-screen in the great films of Edith Carlmar, Lynne Ramsay, Mai Zetterling, Liu Jiayin, Forough Farrokhzad, Antonia Bird, and others. “Religion”. Narrator Sharmila...
S01E09 Politics, Gear Change, Comedy
“Politics”. Another aspect of everyday life. From silent cinema to the twenty-first century, movies from the visually astonishing THE ENCHANTED DESNA to DIVORCE IRANIAN STYLE to STRANGE DAYS have gained their energy and attack from...
S01E10 Melodrama, Sci-Fi, Horror & Hell
“Melodrama”. A genre as popular as comedy, but what are some of the great scenes in melodrama? Sharmila Tagore narrates a story that takes us from the silent American film SHOES to Kira Muratova’s brilliant...
S01E11 Tension, Stasis, Leave Out
“Tension”. Thrillers, and so much more. We look at gripping scenes in films as diverse as Joel DeMott’s documentary DEMON LOVER DIARY, Kathryn Bigelow’s BLUE STEEL, Carol Morley’s DREAMS OF A LIFE, Mimi Leder’s THE...
S01E12 Reveal, Memory, Time
“Reveal”. How does Lynne Ramsay do a reveal, in MORVEN CALLAR? How does the great actor-director Kinuyo Tanaka? Or Sarah Polley? Or Alice Rohrwacher? “Memory”. As cinema is a kind of time machine, it’s no...
S01E13 Life Inside, The Meaning of Life, Love
“Life Inside”. Novels are great at describing thoughts, but how do films do so? In this chapter, we see how great directors from France, Ukraine, the UK, the U.S., New Zealand, and Algeria have illuminated...
S01E14 Death, Endings, Song and Dance
“Death”. The biggest subject in life, the most universal subject—no wonder that Japan’s Kinuyo Tanaka, Canada’s Caroline Leaf, Spain’s Ana Mariscal, Holland’s Paula Van der Oest, and other great filmmakers in this chapter embrace it....
Cast
Tilda Swinton
Narrator (voice)
Adjoa Andoh
Narrator (voice)
Jane Fonda
Narrator (voice)
Sharmila Tagore
Narrator (voice)
Kerry Fox
Narrator (voice)
Thandiwe Newton
Narrator (voice)
Debra Winger
Narrator (voice)
