Television trusts women directors – and is all the better for it.
Directing is a notoriously male-dominated facet of filmmaking. In the Oscars’ 90 year history, only five women have been nominated for Best Director, and only one woman has won. Though 2017 was marked by calls for more women behind the camera and strides towards a more equitable Hollywood (Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman and Greta Gerwig’s director nom for Lady Bird, for example), only 8% of last year’s highest grossing films were helmed by women directors.
Television, however, tells a very different story. In the 2016-2017 season, women directed more episodes of television than ever. In a single year, the number of individual women directors employed in episodic television grew a whopping 45%, and an unprecedented 23% of television episodes were helmed by women. These women taking over television come from varied creative and professional backgrounds. Many are film directors by trade, often boasting impressive bodies of work and Academy Awards. Others are rising talents, able to break into television with the help of crucial equity initiatives.
The migration of accomplished film directors to television has been underway for the past decade. Though the small screen was once stigmatized as the plebeian, unsophisticated companion to film, prestige TV has completely reinvented the medium’s reputation. Television’s serial format, creative freedom, and newfound esteem have enticed many well-known directors, like David Fincher (House of Cards, Mindhunter), Steven Soderbergh (The Knick, Mosaic), Spike Lee (She’s Gotta Have It), and Cary Fukunaga (True Detective, Maniac).
The medium, however, also provides unique opportunities to established woman directors who struggle to land film projects worthy of their talent and skill set. Jane Campion, who directed the Oscar-winning The Piano, recently helmed the acclaimed mystery series Top of the Lake, and her move to television reinvigorated her artistic vision when the film landscape began to bore her: “In television, there is no concern about politeness or pleasing the audience. It feels like creative freedom,” she says. “The really clever people used to do film. Now the really clever people do television.”
Danish director Susanne Bier (who helmed the Oscar-winning In A Better World) also recently made the switch to television, directing the spy thriller mini-series The Night Manager. She credits the pressure to stand out in a crowded television landscape as motivational for producers to seek out new, non-traditional talent, and favors that “the market logic of big-budget television dictates that producers are required to think more adventurously and take more risks.”
Women directors find television to be a welcoming platform when film fails them. Karyn Kusama, who experienced box office flops with Æon Flux, and Jennifer’s Body, found prestige television to be welcoming when film relegated her to “Movie Jail,” which women are relegated to with far more frequency than men. When women’s films flop, they find it far more difficult to secure other directorial opportunities than when men flop; Hollywood’s collective memory is, unfortunately, woefully gendered. Unable to make the films she wanted to, she moved into television, finding a home for her distinct vision. Television provided her the perfect platform to hone and showcase her directorial skills, doing excellent work on critically-acclaimed shows like The Man in the High Castle, Billions, and Halt and Catch Fire.
The article Why Women Directors Are Thriving on Television appeared first on Film School Rejects.
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