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Director Susanne Bier ‘TV is opening the door to female directors – film needs to catch up’

Until The Night Manager, I tended to make films about ordinary people caught in extreme and complicated situations. These films were often categorised as intimate dramas. With that background, and as a female director, the world of spies and arms dealers was not an obvious fit. Each time I’ve made a film, I’m told by a smart studio exec, as if having stumbled across Pythagoras’s theorem, that my audience is women between the ages of 20 and 50. For 20 years this “insight” has never changed. All my films have been different: I’ve made romcoms; I’ve been political; I’ve made films about violence and trauma. But because I am a female director they are all treated the same. Anything made by someone who isn’t a white male is labelled arthouse and niche.

Meaningful change can only happen when studios create a more imaginative way of considering their audience
In the meantime, television – and, in particular, episodic drama – has made a startlingly successful land grab for genres and stories that for so long have been exclusively articulated by a combination of arthouse cinema and male voices.

A couple of years ago, a piece in Variety asked if Hollywood sexism accounted for the lack of female directors behind big-budget action films. If Variety looked to television they’d see a different story. Many of the female directors that have moved from film to TV have gravitated towards genres outside of the studio exec’s proposed demographic. Jane Campion charted the way with her brilliantly atmospheric take on the murder mystery, Top of the Lake. Kimberly Peirce – of Boys Don’t Cry – is directing the atomic-bomb period thriller Manhattan, and Anna Boden – of Mississippi Grind and Half Nelson – is behind Sky’s The Affair.

This isn’t down to some soppy benevolence on the part of TV producers. Nor am I proposing that television is a feminist utopia. It’s a simple case of economic logic. In order to stand out in a crowded marketplace, TV producers are compelled to take more risks than their film counterparts. The past 10 years have seen an explosion in stories to meet the seemingly insatiable demand for quality drama. In a challenging year a film version of The Night Manager might compete against a Bond or a Bourne movie. The Night Manager on TV is up against an equally impressive roster of titles in the thriller/espionage field: House of Cards, Better Call Saul, Homeland, The Americans, Mr Robot, to name a few.

I was chosen by John le Carré’s sons, Stephen and Simon Cornwell, and producer Stephen Garrett, as well as AMC and the BBC, on a leap of faith that, as a woman taking on Le Carré, I could bring a unique and fresh vision to a familiar, very male world. The longform series allowed me to explore the subtle depths of the characters, the space between words that makes Le Carré’s extraordinarily detailed novels so challenging to the time constraints of the big screen.

Through The Night Manager I’ve wanted to make viewers feel like spies, peeping in through doors and windows, catching the characters unaware in moments of vulnerability. In tonight’s episode, Hugh Laurie’s Roper, an arms dealer described as “the worst man in the world”, jokingly tells off his son for “not watching the cups”, referring to a magic trick he performs with a ball hidden by one of three containers. I want my audience to have the patience to watch closely. Only the pace of episodic drama can allow this.
I believe that it is this desire to explore new ways of telling stories that accounts for why there are more female directors in television (US primetime TV had 16% female directors last year, while only 7% of the top 250 films were directed by a woman). There are also relatively more ethnic minorities working for the small screen. Shows such as Orange Is the New Black have developed talent that struggled to find a foothold in the film industry.

Now Hollywood wants them back. Film needs a diverse roster of talent. Until the film industry is incentivised to provide substantial and daring stories for everybody there will be a mismatch. Film’s loss will continue to be television’s gain.

There are several things that can be done to create incentives. Initiatives such as We Do It Together, a new production company set up with the aim of backing work that challenges female stereotypes, introduces film with a mission. Backed by big names such as Jessica Chastain, Juliette Binoche, Queen Latifah, Freida Pinto and Amma Asante, it will announce its first project at Cannes in May. Whether this actually affects the way the established players think remains to be seen.

In the wake of the #OscarsSoWhite row there was the interesting suggestion of introducing quotas for minority talent at award ceremonies. If we judge that male and female actors do distinct jobs – best actor, best actress – why not introduce an Academy award for best female director alongside best male director? At its most cynical this would reward the choices made by studios who consider the work of women film-makers, while shaming those who do not.

Ultimately, this is gesture politics. Meaningful change can only happen when studios create a more imaginative way of considering their audience. To assume that women aged 20–50 are a homogeneous group that will respond to a film in more or less the same way is not only stupid, it’s bad for business. Film as a popular art form will simply die out if it doesn’t tell more stories that deal with minorities and with women.

As a director I can make a difference to the stories I choose to tell. At the heart of The Night Manager is the intelligence operative Burr, played by the wonderful Olivia Colman. In Le Carré’s book Burr was a patrician gent in the mould of George Smiley. Changing Burr’s gender was about more than just updating a book written more than 20 years ago. Amid a cast of dubious crooks and conmen she stands for something different – goodness. I was worried that Le Carré would take against our meddling. On the contrary, he said if he were to write The Night Manager now, Burr would make more sense as a woman. There are numerous other male protagonists out there in desperate need of a sex change. I wonder who should be next…

Sourced from article written by Susanne Bier Director of Night Manager: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/05/tv-film-female-directors-susanne-bier-the-night-manager-le-carre


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