Marleen Gorris

Marleen Gorris (born 9 December 1948) is a Dutch writer and director. Gorris is known as an outspoken feminist and supporter of gay and lesbian issues which is reflected in much of her work. In 1995, the Netherlands won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for her film,Antonia's Line. The film is the first feature film directed by a woman to win an Academy Award.[1]

Marleen Gorris
Marleen Gorris (1982)
Born (1948-12-09) 9 December 1948
Roermond, Netherlands
NationalityDutch
OccupationFilm director, screenwriter
Known forAntonia's Line (1995)

Early life

Marleen Gorris was born on 9 December 1948 in Roermond in the Netherlands.[2] She was born to Protestant, working-class parents in the Catholic southern part of the Netherlands.[3] Gorris studied drama at home and abroad.[2] She studied drama at the University of Amsterdam and has an MA in Drama from the University of Birmingham, England.

She began working as a filmmaker with almost no previous experience in the cinema and made an auspicious writing and directorial debut in 1982 with A Question of Silence.[2] The Dutch government provided the funding to finance the project.[4]

Career

It was not until the age of 30 that Gorris began writing scripts.[3] She took her first effort to the Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman, hoping to interest her in directing it.[3] Akerman, however, told Gorris that she must make the film herself. The result, A Question of Silence (1982), caused considerable international controversy with its story about three unacquainted women who murder a randomly chosen man. The film was hailed by some as a logical case study of what happens when women are driven to the brink by a male-dominated society, and others decried it as a juvenile revenge fantasy.[2] Gorris was honored in her homeland with the Netherlands' Golden Calf Award and earned a reputation as a subversive new filmmaker.[2]

She followed up A Question of Silence with Broken Mirrors (1984). Set among a group of prostitutes in an Amsterdam brothel, the film re-examined some of the themes at play in Gorris' previous feature, particularly in its analysis of the patriarchy.[2] It was greeted with mixed reactions; many critics recognized it as an insightful, disturbing look at the sexual threats (both literal and metaphorical) directed at women in everyday life.[2] She did not make another film until The Last Island (1990). The film, which told the story of a group of people (two women and five men) and a dog stranded on an island, was dubbed by one critic as "a feminist Lord of the Flies for the '90s."

In 1995, Gorris had her greatest international success to-date with Antonia's Line. Starring Willeke van Ammelrooy, the story of an independent woman and her female descendants was not as radical as the director's previous work, although a number of critics complained that the men in the film were portrayed as either ineffectual idiots or potential rapists. However, critical support for the film was overwhelming, and it was honored with a number of international awards, including a Golden Calf and an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.[2]

Her next film was Mrs Dalloway (1997), based on the novel by Virginia Woolf, with a cast that included Vanessa Redgrave, Natascha McElhone, and Rupert Graves. It earned a number of international honors, including an Evening Standard British Film Award.[2] She followed this movie with The Luzhin Defence (2000), based on a novel by Vladimir Nabokov. Starring John Turturro and Emily Watson, it tells the story of the love affair between an eccentric chess champion and a strong-willed society woman.[2] Carolina (2003), starring Julia Stiles, Shirley MacLaine, and Alessandro Nivola, was released direct-to-video in 2005.

Gorris's 2009 film Within the Whirlwind, starring Emily Watson, was not picked up for distribution. According to Watson, "It was delivered pretty much the day the market crashed so nobody was buying anything."[5]

Personal life

Marleen Gorris came out as a lesbian after the success of Antonia's Line.[6] Her partner, Maria Uitdehaag, served in its production as first assistant director, and was mentioned by Gorris in her Academy Award acceptance speech.[6][7]

Filmography

Film
Year Title Director Producer Writer Notes
1982 A Question of Silence (De stilte rond Christine M.) Yes Yes Golden Calf for Best Film
1984 Gebroken spiegels (Broken Mirrors) Yes Yes
1990 The Last Island Yes Yes
1995 Antonia's Line (Antonia) Yes Yes Academy Award for Best International Feature Film
Golden Calf for Best Director of a Feature Film
Nominated: BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language
Nominated: Golden Calf for Best Film
1997 Mrs Dalloway Yes Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Screenplay
2000 The Luzhin Defence Yes
2003 Carolina Yes
2009 Within the Whirlwind Yes

Television
Year Title Director Producer Writer Notes
1983 De geest van gras (The Spirit of Grass) Yes TV movie
1993 Verhalen van de straat (Stories of the Street) Yes Yes 5 episodes
2007 The L Word Yes Episode: "Livin' La Vida Loca"
2011 Rembrandt en ik (Rembrandt and Me) Yes Yes Director: 4 episodes; Writer: 1 episode

See also

References
  1. Redding, Judith M.; Brownworth, Victoria A. (1997). "Marleen Gorris: Uncompromisingly Feminist". Film Fatales: Independent Women Directors (1st ed.). Seattle, Washington: Seal Press. p. 173. ISBN 1-878067-97-4.
  2. "Marleen Gorris". The New York Times. 2010. Archived from the original on September 5, 2014.
  3. "Marleen Gorris". Yahoo! Movies. 2014. Archived from the original on September 5, 2014.
  4. "Marleen Gorris Films | Marleen Gorris Filmography | Marleen Gorris Biography | Marleen Gorris Career | Marleen Gorris Awards". FilmDirectorsSite.com. 2013. Archived from the original on June 22, 2013.
  5. Rees, Jasper (26 March 2011). "Emily Watson: 'I'm a character actor - who gets laid'". The Daily Telegraph.
  6. Redding, Judith M.; Brownworth, Victoria A. (1997). "Marleen Gorris: Uncompromisingly Feminist". Film Fatales: Independent Women Directors (1st ed.). Seattle, Washington: Seal Press. p. 177. ISBN 1-878067-97-4.
  7. "Academy Awards Acceptance Speech Database: Marleen Gorris". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
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