Editor’s note: The following is an exclusive excerpt from “Film Censorship in America: A State-by-State History” by Jeremy Geltzer. The book, which follows Geltzer’s previous effort “Dirty Words & Filthy Pictures: Film and the First Amendment,” will be released on December 19. In this excerpt, Geltzer explores the forgotten legacy of pioneering female filmmaker Nell Shipman.
Far from the soundstages of Hollywood, Nell Shipman ventured into the wild to produce movies that celebrated independent women in exciting scenarios. Although Shipman’s name may no longer be familiar, she deserves to be remembered as one of cinema’s important female pioneers.
Nell Shipman was born in British Columbia and arrived in Southern California by 1912. She found success as a writer—winning both first and second prize in a scriptwriting contest. In the early days of Hollywood before corporate structure was set in place, several women were able to develop behind-the-scenes power.
Far from the soundstages of Hollywood, Nell Shipman ventured into the wild to produce movies that celebrated independent women in exciting scenarios. Although Shipman’s name may no longer be familiar, she deserves to be remembered as one of cinema’s important female pioneers.
Nell Shipman was born in British Columbia and arrived in Southern California by 1912. She found success as a writer—winning both first and second prize in a scriptwriting contest. In the early days of Hollywood before corporate structure was set in place, several women were able to develop behind-the-scenes power.
- 11/8/2017
- by Indiewire Staff
- Indiewire
Last week Kino Lorber launched a new Kickstarter aimed to fund their latest project “Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers,” a collection of important American films directed by women, including Alice Guy Blaché, Lois Weber, Nell Shipman, Dorothy Davenport, and many more, between 1910 and 1929.
The ambitious project will be presented in association with the Library of Congress and be the largest commercially-released video collection of films by female helmers. It will include HD restorations of both the most important films of the era, as well as lesser-known works, including short films, fragments and isolated chapters of incomplete serials.
“By showcasing the ambitious, inventive films from the golden age of women directors, we can get a sense of what was lost by the marginalization of women to ‘support roles’ within the film industry,” reads the Kickstarter page.
Read More: ‘The Eyeslicer,’ A New Variety Series By and For Indie Filmmakers, Launches Kickstarter Campaign...
The ambitious project will be presented in association with the Library of Congress and be the largest commercially-released video collection of films by female helmers. It will include HD restorations of both the most important films of the era, as well as lesser-known works, including short films, fragments and isolated chapters of incomplete serials.
“By showcasing the ambitious, inventive films from the golden age of women directors, we can get a sense of what was lost by the marginalization of women to ‘support roles’ within the film industry,” reads the Kickstarter page.
Read More: ‘The Eyeslicer,’ A New Variety Series By and For Indie Filmmakers, Launches Kickstarter Campaign...
- 10/25/2016
- by Liz Calvario
- Indiewire
A prized moment from Gene Kelly in New York, New York, a 1966 network TV special. Film buffs in Los Angeles are about to sample a wide range of films and television shows recently preserved by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Robert Altman, Cecil B. DeMille, Cleo Madison, Gene Kelly, Charley Chase, Duke Ellington, Dorothy Dandridge, and Roy Rogers are among the directors and performers who will be showcased at the Billy Wilder Theater in Westwood from March 3-27. (See the full schedule Here.) Every other year, UCLA unveils its latest work in this eagerly anticipated series, which makes…...
- 3/3/2011
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
By Michael Atkinson
Todd Rohal's "The Guatemalan Handshake" is one of the most inventive, most poetic, most disarmingly authentic indies of the last few years . so, of course, you've never had a chance to see it. It's a movie that seems to have dropped out of the sky, inexplicably, like a satellite fragment landing on Main Street. Naturally, it's not a project constructed around a traditional idea of storytelling propulsion . Rohal has whipped his world from the weedy ground up into a fiery, relentless storm of quirk, but he's original enough in his cataract of details to keep us in a constant state of enchanted disorientation. Why was "Napoleon Dynamite," with its relatively stereotypical uber-misfit, a hit, while this 2006 daydream foundered out of sight?
Set in some Forgottentown, Pennsylvania, "The Guatemalan Handshake" encounters characters undramatically, and its narrative gradually coalesces around them: Donald the triangular-electric-car-driving nebbish (Will Oldham); his...
Todd Rohal's "The Guatemalan Handshake" is one of the most inventive, most poetic, most disarmingly authentic indies of the last few years . so, of course, you've never had a chance to see it. It's a movie that seems to have dropped out of the sky, inexplicably, like a satellite fragment landing on Main Street. Naturally, it's not a project constructed around a traditional idea of storytelling propulsion . Rohal has whipped his world from the weedy ground up into a fiery, relentless storm of quirk, but he's original enough in his cataract of details to keep us in a constant state of enchanted disorientation. Why was "Napoleon Dynamite," with its relatively stereotypical uber-misfit, a hit, while this 2006 daydream foundered out of sight?
Set in some Forgottentown, Pennsylvania, "The Guatemalan Handshake" encounters characters undramatically, and its narrative gradually coalesces around them: Donald the triangular-electric-car-driving nebbish (Will Oldham); his...
- 4/29/2008
- by Michael Atkinson
- ifc.com
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