Directed By Women: Not A Pretty Picture (1976)

Criterion

After a long absence during which screenings were sold out, awards announced, the FGFF column is back! And I chose a devastating one for my return with Martha Coolidge’s “Not A Pretty Picture.”

Brave is a word that's wildly overused in an industry that doesn’t just love to congratulate itself, it practically lives for it. But “Not A Pretty Picture” wasn’t only Coolidge’s 1976 feature directorial debut years before her 1983 iconic film “Valley Girl,” it was her self-created introduction to the world, one that revolved around her own rape at 16 years old, which she recreates on camera.

What exactly gave her the confidence to do it? To dare to approach a subject that we still have no idea how to even start discussing? One that was so traumatizing, it affected her to a degree that at 28 she still had never had a committed relationship with a man? 

“Not A Pretty Picture” doesn’t provide an answer. It’s a deeply personal film, yet to some degree it isn’t about Coolidge at all. As she directs the reenactments of her rape and the events that led up to it, neither she or any of the cast and crew analyze where her inspiration sprung from and how she managed to follow through on a traumatic event she only came to realize was rape four years later at age 20 with the aid of a therapist.

Rather, the analysis is reserved for why it so often comes to this, and what the film quickly reveals to be a widespread phenomenon. “Not A Pretty Picture” is both docudrama and a discussion, and what it reveals is very much what the title promises. The assault is of course disturbing in its realism, no less so for Coolidge allowing the camera’s gaze to include the crew looking on during filming. But the true brilliance is the film’s depiction of the events leading up to and surrounding it, from what it brings out in the male lead who plays Coolidge’s rapist, and the complicity of many of the women in her life.

The generation before clearly had its own baggage, and likely thought that schooling their daughters in that complicity was a form of protection. For Coolidge, making “Not A Pretty Picture” was practically a form of self defense. “My mother told me that all my life,” she recalls. “There’s no such thing as rape because you do it. You get yourself into that situation.” 

The actress playing Coolidge was also raped, and described the experience of making the film as so close to her own that she felt like “I’m not really acting.” She no doubt had to cope with other women blaming her for the attack the same as Coolidge did, with so-called friends believing the familiar story her rapist told, leaving her reputation in tatters, and later, even spitting on her and the friend who dared to stand by her, and who also plays herself. 

That it was the 70’s no doubt lent itself to such a disturbing, complex story being told so well. Experimentation on film was something of a given at the time, and both the feminist movement and independent cinema were trending. This method of analysis feels brilliant in its simplicity, that of just allowing the actors to use their own approach in the story they were telling, and keeping the cameras rolling for discussion when Coolidge says cut.

Criterion

What is really chilling isn’t only the women telling their stories; it’s how honest the men are about the psychology of rape, especially the male actor who plays Coolidge’s rapist. He’s so careful to give examples to confirm his status as one of the good ones, that it’s far more alarming and terrifying when he casually recounts his own complicity (at the very least) with his male friends, and how he unthinkingly even justifies them. How casually? In high school he would often hear of encounters that were “technically rape” but is quick to say were “not necessarily malicious,” and how college meant escalation of this type of behavior, with lists comprised of women they would refer to as “pigs.”

The real relief is near the end, where your bff not not only sticks by you, but possesses the kind of macabre sense of humor that acts as a kind of catalyst for healing. After all, it’s not everyone who can find something to giggle and celebrate about the night you get your period and realize your rapist hasn’t impregnated you. 

Yet calling “Not A Pretty Picture” ahead of its time feels not only lazy, but dangerous, an insistence that nothing has changed, even if victim blaming and the toxicity of the masculinity under discussion feel venomously familiar. The film feels very of its time in much in the way Jennifer Fox’s “The Tale,” does, another very meta story of grappling with the aftermath of sexual assault. 

But like all oversimplifications, there’s an element of truth. “The Tale” managed to find a widespread audience, while “Not A Pretty Picture” had a short-lived run in a series of art-house theaters. This film’s rediscovery isn’t merely a chance to revisit one of the bravest and most insightful movies ever made, it’s a homage to an artist who not only laid the groundwork, but carved out a long career fulfilling many of her ambitions. Many of the women with stories like Coolidge’s weren’t so lucky, but “Not A Pretty Picture” feels like a tribute to them all.

52 Films By Women: Strange Days (1995)

IMDB

By Andrea Thompson

Some filmmakers, even the well-known ones, are full of surprises. Take Kathryn Bigelow, who has been directing for decades, but is mostly known for her later work, such as “The Hurt Locker,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” and “Detroit.” I've already covered another of her lesser-known films, “Near Dark,” but “Strange Days” is even more unfamiliar. It's also most likely the most ambitious film Bigelow has ever made.

It has a few things in common with with “Near Dark” in that it's a blending of genres, although “Strange Days” was such a flop it nearly ended Bigelow's career. Where “Near Dark” was a masterpiece which blended the vampire movie with the western, “Strange Days” is even more unusual, a sci-fi neo-noir which takes place in a bleakly dystopian 1999 Los Angeles, a mere four years after the film was made in 1995.

In Bigelow's vision, the riots which the city apart in 1992 after the Rodney King verdict never really ceased, but became a pattern of violent social unrest, transforming Los Angeles into a war zone. Not that it seems to really bother Lenny (Ralph Fiennes), a dealer who feeds on the disillusionment of the populace to sell his very illegal wares, which is where “Strange Days” really gets prescient. People can fit themselves with recording devices they attach to their head, which allows them to record not only their experiences, but their emotions and sensations. The resulting videos, which can range from pornography to, in one case, a robbery, are in high demand, and Lenny is happy to provide them to his customers. For a hefty fee of course.

IMDB

Lenny is also an ex-cop and an addict of the drugs he’s peddling, frequently retreating into footage of his past relationship with singer Faith Justin (Juliette Lewis), who has long since left him for sleazy music industry mogul Philo (Michael Wincott). Lenny doesn't need much of an excuse to want to get Faith away from her new beau, but he has more reason than usual after Faith's former friend Iris (Brigitte Bako) comes to Lenny with a desperate plea for help. Faith is clearly caught up in something, but insists to Lenny that their relationship is over and she doesn't need rescuing. Lenny thinks otherwise, and when he receives a recording of Iris being raped and murdered, he decides to dig deeper.

From a modern perspective, much of the recordings in “Strange Days” look like either YouTube videos or first-person shooters. And much like today, the fact that so many people have recording devices meant that people who were previously deprived of a voice could hold the powerful accountable. Race isn't often addressed in noir or sci-fi, but it's one of the central themes of “Strange Days,” as much of the unrest springs from inequality, specifically a system that dehumanizes much of its citizenry.

Even if most of the characters are white, the concerns of black people and the racism they face is what fuels “Strange Days.” But they're really embodied in Angela Bassett's badass performance as Mace, a limo driver who also becomes Lenny's bodyguard throughout their investigation. She and Lenny met when he was still a cop, the day Mace's former partner was arrested for dealing, and she found her son in his room with Lenny, who effectively shielded him from the trauma of watching his father get carted off to jail. But where Lenny encountered heartbreak and only made himself more vulnerable, Mace responded to her difficulties by making herself stronger. This is a pattern that repeats throughout the film, with Lenny often depicted as vulnerable, while Mace is the one who repeatedly fights off both her and Lenny's attackers, even if they often just barely escape with their lives.

IMDB

What their pursuers are willing to kill for turns out to be footage of two police officers murdering the Tupac-esque rapper Jeriko One (Glenn Plummer) at a random traffic stop. Mace wants to release the footage to the media, but as several characters point out, such an action could make their already turbulent city explode into an orgy of violence. It's an excellent point, but this environment, which is an almost laughably Mad Max vision of a city on the verge of the apocalypse. is also what makes “Strange Days” so cringey at some points. It's a 90s vision of edginess, with music that would barely appeal in its own decade, what with its annoying combination of the era's grunge, rock, and punk aesthetic. People just thought they were so dark and edgy in the 90s.

That's about the only part of the film which really feels dated, as the movie's flaws are more than compensated by the absolutely terrific performances and Bigelow's skillful direction. Ralph Fiennes has flexed his comedic muscles in films such as “Hail Caesar!” and “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” but he's mostly become known for his more serious work. In “Strange Days,” Fiennes is hilariously appealing as the weaselly, yet charming Lenny, and we have no problem rooting for him. And while Bassett is incredible in her supporting role as the film's moral center who isn't willing to compromise her ideals and bargain away a tape that could change things, Juliette Lewis might just be the one who accomplishes the most. Faith could've easily been another objectified damsel, but Lewis gives her real heart as a woman so desperate to sate her desires that she's willing to put her life and sanity in the hands of a man who's as paranoid as he is abusive, only realizing the true gravity of her situation until it's too late for her to escape unscathed.

It's really Bigelow, however, who makes all the difference. “Strange Days” features quite a few recordings that feature violence, rape, and murder, but she never glorifies the horrors on display. During the robbery, we share in every bit of the victims' fear as armed men burst in on them with guns, then the horror and panic as thing going south. Crucially, the rape scenes are brutal, but not graphic. We feel the pain of the women who are not only violated, but also made to see what their attacker sees, in essence witnessing their own assault and murder through his eyes.

IMDB

With so much unrelenting darkness, you'd think that the hope Bigelow offers at the end would feel hollow. But she surprisingly makes a damn good case that maybe, just maybe, things could be different in the new millennium. After so much brutality, the year 2000 actually kicks off with a high-ranking law enforcement official doing the right thing, a black woman being believed, and the police actually serving and protecting. Even if it feels like we've regressed in many ways, at least we seem to be confronting the many themes “Strange Days” addressed far before #MeToo, Time's Up, and Black Lives Matter forced such difficult discussions into the mainstream.