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: Outrage (1950)

IMDB

By Andrea Thompson

If you want a female director to celebrate for #Noirvember, Ida Lupino is pretty much the go to. She wasn't just the main female director working at a time when noir films were at their height, she was pretty much the only one. And while her other films such as “The Hitch-Hiker” are far more well-known, it's the underseen “Outrage” that feels as disturbingly relevant now as when it was made in 1950.

Its beginning is a common one for noir, with a woman alternately staggering and running through a lonely street at night. She's clearly been through the ringer, and we immediately wonder what she's trying to escape. A pursuer? Is this the aftermath of a terrible crime? Or is she suffering from something more existential, like the past she thought she left behind? Is she a woman on the wrong side of the law, a player who got outplayed? Did she set a plan in motion that spun out of her control?

Turns out it's something simultaneously far simpler and complex. Ann Walton (Mala Powers) isn't a noir dame who walked into a bar with a plan and eye for her next mark. She's a happy, ordinary young woman with a loving fiance, Jim (Robert Clarke) a supportive, close-knit family, and a steady job with coworkers she likes and gets along with. Even the guy who serves food at the counter and frequently gives her attention she doesn't want doesn't disturb her. What “Outrage” does as it follows Ann's struggles is offer up a critique for something the film didn't have the words for, and were prevented from even naming, what we now call rape culture.

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Because that creepy counter guy that Ann barely notices follows her home one night when she's working late and rapes her. Not that the movie is allowed to say it, instead using using the word assault or attack to describe the horrifying sequence where Ann's unnamed rapist follows her throughout the dark, deserted streets as she desperately tries to call for help from various sources while attempting to evade him. When she collapses from running, the final tragic accident is a car horn which covers her implied screams, as well as a man who hears the horn but unable to see what is happening from his angle.

When Ann returns home disheveled, “Outrage” chooses empathy rather than revenge, as not only Ann but her family grapples with the aftermath of her attack. In “Lucky,” the memoir of her own rape, author Alice Sebold wrote how she learned that, “no one – females included – knew what to do with a rape victim,” and even Ann's loving parents are unsure of what to say to their daughter.

Nor does their community. How everyone learns of Ann's rape is left unsaid, but it's made very clear that they do. The students in Ann's father's class and the other teachers stare at him. More disturbing is how men try to be well-meaning and kind, patting her comfortingly, but the women mostly keep their distance as they stare and whisper. No wonder that when Ann attempts to go back to work, small noises quickly overwhelm her. After such silence, even the softest sounds are deafening to her, and the film doesn't so much as portray her mindset but embed us in it as we share Ann's pain and deterioration.

IMDB

The situation with her fiance also doesn't help. Jim still wants to marry Ann, but only on his terms. When he says he wants to tie the knot the upcoming weekend, she stares at him with a repulsion and horror modern audiences may not be able to fully grasp. Marriage didn't just mean sex, it meant a husband could legally demand it anytime he wished, marital rape not yet being illegal. When Ann refuses, Jim shakes her and tells her to shut up. She responds, “I don't want to get married, ever. I don't want you to touch me. Everything's dirty, filthy and dirty.” Shortly thereafter, she runs away from home and finds herself on an orange picking farm.

In “Outrage,” it isn't only Ann's rapist who feels he has a right to her body. Every man in the film is entitled is his own way, even the saintly Rev. Bruce Ferguson (Tod Andrews), who takes Ann in and helps her get work as a bookkeeper on the farm. But when's Ann's past rears its ugly head, he only takes her side up to a point. At a dance, a man comes up and keeps following Ann, touching her, and insisting after she repeatedly says no. It brings up memories of her trauma, so Ann hits him with a wrench, severely injuring him. But since he has a reputation as a good guy, he's given a pass for his creepy behavior and it's Ann who is blamed. Bruce never even asks if the man made her uncomfortable, even if he's eventually able to understand and empathize with her actions.

As Ann awaits judgment, she murmurs, “Maybe I am crazy. Sometimes I feel as if the whole world is upside down.” Even if “Outrage” can't quite fully grasp what exactly makes her world seem so backwards, it can hardly be faulted for failing to realize something we're still struggling to understand today. At least the film urges reform rather than punishment, not just for Ann, but for the man who raped her, who was caught and revealed to have spent half his life in reform schools and prisons without being identified or treated as a “sick individual.” Through Bruce, “Outrage” ends up advocating not just for compassion, but for more hospitals and clinics rather than prisons.

IMDB

As a result, Ann is not charged, but rather ordered to undergo outpatient treatment rather than sentenced to imprisonment or institutionalization. At Bruce's encouragement, she eventually stops running and goes back to the life she left behind. As she departs, “Outrage” optimistically imagines a happy future for Ann, one that is not defined by the trauma she endured. Even if it seems a bit too bright of an ending, it's one that's well-earned, and more than other movies seem to expect from women who have similar experiences.

52 Films By Women: Revenge (2017)

Film Affinity

By Andrea Thompson

They say hell is other people, and in the 2017 French film “Revenge,” a young woman is certainly put through the ringer, not just because of the men around her, but their toxic entitlement that views her as an object to be used and discarded at will.

However, “Revenge” isn't just a melding of genres, an action thriller that's also a horror film. It's clearly a rape revenge movie, a horror subgenre that doesn't get a lot of respect, and rightly so. Typically, they're films that claim to be about empowering women after a devastating attack, but more often than not, they're exploitative in the most unenjoyable way, relishing women's pain and not just the violence they inflict, but also endure. Such films also tend to enforce gender norms, typically depicting a stereotypically innocent girl or woman who is “tainted” by her rape and must be avenged. Sometimes it isn't even her who does the avenging, but her family, as was the case in “The Last House on the Left” and “Death Wish.”

Given such staples, it's hardly a surprise that nearly every film in the genre was written and directed by men. Even if “Revenge” contains all the typical elements, its female gaze makes all the difference. Coralie Fargeat wrote as well as directed the film, and the longer you watch “Revenge” the clearer her intentions become. Much like a film we previously discussed, “Revenge” caters to the male gaze, but Fargeat has far more success subverting it.

IMDB

The heroine, Jen (Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz) isn't just an atypical heroine, she's the girl who's more likely to be killed off as punishment for her sexual sins. From the minute she appears in all her blonde glory, sucking on lollipop and then going down on her handsome blonde lover Richard (Kevin Janssens), in his gorgeous, isolated desert home he uses as a getaway for himself and his friends' hunting trips, she seems doomed, with nearly every thought emphasizing her beauty and sexuality.

How doomed becomes clear once Richard's friends Stan (Vincent Colombe) and Dimitri (Guillaume Bouchede) join them early, much to Richard's dismay. From the beginning, they unsettle Jen, but she makes the best of it, and they party late into the night. In films such as “Straw Dogs,” Jen's deeply sexual dance would be a provocation, but in “Revenge,” it's just a party, and in no way an excuse for what occurs the next morning when Richard departs on an errand for a few hours.

Even if they've never been through such an attack, so many women can relate to what happens to Jen, and the discomfort she immediately feels sitting across the table from Stan. At first she's able to laugh off the unnecessary touching and the comments. Then his leering intensity, which Jen tries to ignore, makes her so uncomfortable she retreats to her room. Stan follows her, then gets angrier when Jen doesn't respond to his advances, which she first tries to placate, then flee from. It's to no avail, as Stan not only rapes her, but is abetted by Dimitri, who not only walks away, but turns on the TV to drown Jen's screams.

IMDB

Far from reveling in the attack, Fargeat refuses to show it or Stan himself, with the few shots emphasizing Jen's pain and refusing to consider it in any way justified. When Richard returns, his concern is keeping Jen quiet, and offers her a large sum of money as well as a job in Canada as a bribe. Jen is unsurprisingly less than receptive, only wanting to return home, and their argument escalates in Richard pushing her off a cliff, something which shocks even Stan.

Jen doesn't so much survive as experience a kind of rebirth, just barely able to at first evade the men who intend to finish the job Richard started once they discover she's alive. At first, Jen is little more than a wounded animal, but she needs no persuasion to do away with Dimitri, the first man who finds her. After that first kill, she spends the night healing herself thanks to a drug and some methods that don't seem like they'd be effective enough to allow her to walk, let alone run and fight, the next day. But in case we missed the point “Revenge” has been trying to make, the phoenix from the bar can Jen used to cauterize her wounds has become magnificently branded onto her skin. With such flourishes, who really cares about plot holes?

Sure enough, when Jen spots Stan, she runs toward him, not away. Is Jen objectified, even though she's become the hunter, rather than the hunted? To be sure. This is still an exploitation pic where a devastatingly attractive young woman woman is wreaking havoc in skimpy clothes. But Jen's scars are also her glory, adding to her new identity as a hawk-like avenging angel who tears her prey to shreds.

IMDB

Then again, she's not the only one who's objectified. The final showdown was always going to be between Jen and Richard, who underestimates her to the end, with him insisting he and his friends split up even when they discover Dimitri's body. He is also naked throughout their confrontation, and Fargeat's camera is like a voyeur, lingering behind Richard and emphasizing his vulnerability for the end we know is coming, and which leaves his immaculate home smeared with blood on nearly every surface, with his ultimate insignificance emphasized.

Neither Jen or Fargeat gives these men any mercy. They're all married, but their families only serve to emphasize their coldness and entitlement. They're all held equally responsible for Jen's suffering, and they all pay the price for their vicious misogyny. There is no voiceover, no running dialogue of Jen's mind, but Fargeat doesn't need it with an actress like Lutz. Her mostly wordless performance proves that less really can be more, with her journey from sex object to victim, and finally, action heroine, gives us a deeply satisfying, stylish feminist vision bathed in blood.