Completing more filmographies, but leaving the old white men behind

To say that I have only completed the filmographies of old white men during my bi-monthly series over the past few years is not exactly accurate. I mean, this whole quest to finish off filmographies sort of started with Spike Lee, who may be old and male, but is certainly not white. Of course, I didn't actually finish his filmography, since there were nine Lee features I hadn't seen and the bi-monthly schedule only allowed me to watch six of them.

As a corrective to failing to finish Lee's movies, I did choose auteurs in 2021 and 2022 whose filmographies I could finish with exactly six movies, though there were asterisks next to each. With Orson Welles, I had to ignore certain movie fragments that existed under his name, and with Martin Scorsese, I had to disregard documentaries. With both, the problem remained that they were old and white and male. 

In 2023, at last, I am turning this impulse in a distaff direction.

The problem is, due to age-old inequities in the film industry, there are almost no female directors who are both significant enough to be worth investigating in a series like this, and have a directing credit on six features I haven't seen. That's partly a credit to me for having stayed on top of the work of the more prolific female directors, but also partly a sad reality that there just aren't that many to choose from.

Now, if I dug back into history, I could find directors who worked decades ago who may be largely unseen by me, people like Lina Wertmuller or Vera Chytilova or Ida Lupino, who may have six or more films I haven't seen. But the impulse behind this series is not to discover somebody I'm unfamiliar with, and then work through their filmography. It's to take somebody I already know, whose work I already admire, and to finish it off.

So I've come up with what I think is a pretty good idea: I'm going to split the six films between two directors.

And to give a clear relationship between them that would make sharing this series logical, they'll be two of the three women who have won best director Oscars.

With apologies to Chloe Zhao, who has directed only one feature-length film I haven't seen, that means I'm focusing on Kathryn Bigelow and Jane Campion in 2023. 

And because of course I do, I've got a fun name for this series: Campion Champion and Bigelow Pro.

Yes that's a bit of a mouthful, but you only have to say it six times. 

Each director has three feature films I haven't seen, and yes, I may have watched K-19: The Widowmaker last year just to allow that to be the case. I may have. 

With Campion, it's An Angel at My Table (1990), Holy Smoke (1999) and In the Cut (2003). With Bigelow, it's The Loveless (1981), Near Dark (1987) and Blue Steel (1990). 

Is either director particularly a favorite of mine? Not necessarily, but they've each made at least one film that I love. With Bigelow it's Strange Days, which is in my Flickchart top 100, and with Campion, my most passionate feelings would probably be divided between The Piano and The Power of the Dog. 

There can be no doubt of these women's historical significance to the movies, though, considering that they were indeed the first and third women to take home the Oscar for best director, Campion just completing the feat a year ago.

Considering that all of my unseen Bigelow movies come before the first Campion movie I haven't seen, chronologically -- even though Bigelow is only three years older than Campion -- I could just watch all Bigelow's movies first, then switch to Campion for the "back nine," as it were.

Or, I could give the series more of a sense of evenness throughout by alternating titles, starting with The Loveless and then going to An Angel at My Table, and so on. Whatever I decide to do, I will go in chronological order at least within each director's filmography.

However I choose to approach it, I'll make that decision within the next week or two, as I plan to start this in January and have subsequent installments in March, May, July, September and November. 

And while I often do this bi-monthly series starting in February and ending in December, I have another bi-monthly series that will be filling that slot that I haven't announced yet -- partly because I haven't settled on it yet. It will be watching the films of one of two directors, and in this case it will be revisiting films I've already seen.

In either case I will likely start out with The Loveless as the oldest film on the list, having just confirmed its availability on iTunes. If you want to play along, you can watch that now and join me back here in a couple weeks for a discussion.