User:Cadebabade/Marleen Gorris

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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.

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It was not until the age of 30 that Gorris began writing scripts. She took her first effort to the Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman, hoping to interest her in directing it. 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. Gorris was honored in her homeland with the Netherlands' Golden Calf Award and earned a reputation as a subversive new filmmaker.

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. 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. 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."[citation needed]

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.

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. 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. 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."

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Whether or not I work on this section is dependent both on how much I can find and on time constraints.

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

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Marleen Gorris (born 9 December 1948) is a queer Dutch writer and director who was most prolific from the early 1980s until the mid 2000s. Gorris is known as an outspoken feminist and supporter of gay and lesbian issues which is reflected in much of her work. She found recognition across European and North American festival circuits and In 1995, the Netherlands won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for her film, Antonia's Line making her the first woman to win an award in this category.

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The result, A Question of Silence (1982), caused considerable international controversy by telling a story through the eyes of a woman lawyer whose job it was to question three women who had spontaneously murdered a man for the sole reason of him being a man. Some interpreted the film's feminist message to be about pent-up "female rage" and dissatisfaction with a patriarchal system that boiled over the surface, while other critics claimed it goes too far and couldn't be taken seriously. The film was well received for its quality but still shocked many who watched it for its lack of condemnation of the murderers. At the Netherlands Film Festival in 1982, she was awarded the Golden Calf for Best Feature Film for A Question of Silence, a feat she would repeat in 1995 by winning Best Direction for her most well-known film Antonia's Line.

Soon after the success of her first film, Gorris released her second: Broken Mirrors (1984). The film holds similarities to A Question of Silence both in production and in theme though many found Broken Mirrors less impactful. Large portions of the cast and crew, including the leading women, crossed over to work on this with her. The film follows two parallel plots, the first of women working in a brothel called Club Happy House and the second of a woman kidnapped and starved to death by an unnamed man for his pleasure. Broken Mirrors explores female viewpoints and experiences, though this time with a larger focus on the oppressive nature of the patriarchy and power dynamics within it. The ending of the film proposed that a defense against these powers are unity and solidarity among women though this sentiment did not resonate with everyone. She did not make another film until The Last Island (1990). The film yet again tells a story of violence where a group of plane crash survivors are on an island. The men turn on each other until only the two women remain alone and stranded.