Florida Film Festival plans to salute silent-era female pioneers
Women have been a force in filmmaking from the beginning, and the Florida Film Festival will salute silent-era pioneers.
“There’s been a lot of talk in recent years about how underrepresented women have always been in Hollywood,” said author Elizabeth Weitzman. “But what’s often overlooked is the fact that women have been essential innovators in entertainment from the start. And I mean the literal beginning, as we’ll see in our Silent Film Pioneers program.”
Weitzman will present early films at “Turning the Tables: Renegade Women of Early Cinema.” The forum runs 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Wednesday at Enzian Theater in Maitland.
She will salute Alice GuyBlaché, Mabel Normand, Helen Holmes, Grace Cunard and Angela Murray Gibson.
“Alice Guy-Blaché helped invent cinema itself, though the short film we're showing from her feels genuinely modern and funny even today,” Weitzman said. “Mabel Normand was justly revered as a comedy icon, so it’s a shame she’s no longer as well-known as peers like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. I love Helen Holmes and Grace Cunard. At a time when editorials were fiercely debating whether women should wear pants, or drive, or work outside the home, these early action heroines casually did all three — and much more — in films they also wrote, directed and starred in.”
Weitzman has written the breezy “Renegade Women in Film & TV,” an illustrated celebration of Mae West, Hattie McDaniel, Lucille Ball, Hedy Lamarr, Carol Burnett, Mary Tyler Moore and others.
“My editor told me we had space to honor 50,” Weitzman said. “I really wanted to offer stories that represented a wide range of experiences, while also showing how the industry has changed over the decades.”
Weitzman interviewed trailblazers Barbra Streisand, Rita Moreno, Sigourney Weaver, Amy Poehler and “Wonder Woman” director Patty Jenkins. Streisand has dealt with so much sexism and casually dismissive language through her career, the author said.
“It’s become cultural lore that she’s a ‘diva,’ or ‘difficult’ or ‘demanding.’ But why? Who defined her this way?” Weitzman said. “Over the months of our interaction, I didn't see any of that. I saw someone meticulous and thoughtful and precise. As she observes in the book: ‘Strong men are seen as leaders. Strong women are seen as suspect.’ The more representation we have in our culture, the fewer double standards there will be.”
Weitzman said she knew the works of the women she profiled, but she did not know enough about their lives, struggles or persistence.
“Hollywood has traditionally been considered a bastion of male power and accomplishment,” she said. “It’s important to recognize that women have been working on a parallel track all along. It’s just that no one was giving them the same opportunities, or recording their stories in the same way. My hope is that this book will help shift the spotlight just a bit, so all of these crucial trailblazers finally get the respect they deserve.”
Email Hal at hboedeker@orlando sentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter: @tvguyhal. Instagram: TVGuyHal