Miss Mary, (María Luisa Bemberg, 1986) starring Julie Christie, Nacha Guevara, Eduardo Pavlovsky, and Luisina Brando.
Following up my last blog entry on theories of women's film authorship, I have just posted a pre-publication version of a chapter on the early films of Argentine film director María Luisa Bemberg that I finally published in An Argentine Passion: The Films of María Luisa Bemberg edited by John King, Sheila Whittaker and Rosa Bosch (London: Verso, 2000).
Bemberg was an early favourite director of mine; I loved teaching about her films which were produced against the kind of political and economic backdrop that would dissuade (and did dissuade) many from attempting to make any kind of cinema, let alone the kind of feminist cinema that Bemberg launched herself into making later in life, at the still tender age of 58. I learned an awful lot about filmmaking just by studying her films, as well as the work of other filmmakers in whose films she had professed an interest (including, especially,
Ingmar Bergman,
Leopoldo Torre Nilsson). In turn, of course, Bemberg has been an important influence on a number of young filmmakers, most notably another favourite of mine,
Lucrecia Martel (see
HERE). Martel's films have been produced by Bemberg's legendary producer
Lita Stantic.
My chapter looks in quite a lot of detail at her decision to become a director following frustrations with the work of other filmmakers who directed her scripts. As she declared in 1989, "I had to stand behind a camera in order to be true to my own script and to unravel the common thread to all my transgressing characters".
In honour of Bemberg and her films, below is a list of high-quality and freely-accessible online studies of her work:
In English:- Caleb Bach, 'Maria Luisa Bemberg tells the untold,' Americas 46 (Mar/Apr 1994): 20-7
- Michael Chanan, 'Latin American Cinema in the 90's: Representational Space in Recent Latin American Cinema,' Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe 9:1 (enero-junio 1998)
- Catherine Grant, 'Intimista transformations: María Luisa Bemberg's First Feature Films,' in An Argentine Passion: María Luisa Bemberg and Her Films, John King, Sheila Whitaker and Rosa Bosch, eds. (London: Verso, 2000), 73-109
- Bernard McGuirk, 'Review of An Argentine Passion: María Luisa Bemberg and her Films, by John King, Sheila Whitaker and Rosa Bosch (eds.), London & New York: Verso, 2000,' Scope, May 2003
- Hugo Salas, 'Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others: María Luisa Bemberg,' Senses of Cinema 22 (September-October 2002)
- Cynthia L. Stone, 'Beyond the Female Gaze: María Luisa Bemberg's Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz,' Ciberletras, Number 13, July 2005
- Fernanda Vitor Bueno,'The Myth of Camila O'Gorman in the Works of Juana Manuela Gorriti, María Luisa Bemberg and Enrique Molina', PhD e-thesis, The University of Texas at Austin, December 2007
- Bruce Williams, 'Bemberg’s Third Sex: Argentine Mothers at the Dawn of Democracy', Cinémas/Cinémas, Volume 15, numéro 1, Automne 2004, p. 125-144
In Spanish:- Mary Elizabeth Barnard, 'Nietzsche y el cine latinoamericano: un estudio de tres obras,' Espéculo: Revista de Estudios Latinoamericanos (marzo-julio 2006)
- Anke van Haastrecht, 'Mujeres en rebelión: el discurso cinematográfico de María Luisa Bemberg', (date unknown)
- Clara Kuschnir, 'La narrativa, el cine y las mujeres,' Estudios feministas = Etudés feministes (agosto-diciembre 2005)
- Jane Mooney, 'Directoras latinoamericanas: Susana Amaral, María Luisa Bemberg, Viviana Cordero y María Novaro', La Tatuana number 3, (Cinenavaja), 2005
- Lourdes Vázquez, 'De identidades: María Luisa Bemberg, filmografía y bibliografía, 1967-2006 [Segunda edición],' SALALM Latin American Information series, no. 6a, edited by Laura D. Shedenhelm, University of Georgia Libraries, 2007
- Guillermina Walas, 'María Luisa frente al espejo: la (auto)_reflexión en María Luisa Bemberg', La Tatuana number 3, (Cinenavaja), 2005
In Italian:
Camila (María Luisa Bemberg, 1984) starring Susú Pecoraro , Imanol Arias, and Héctor Alterio