Women's Authorship in American Cinema

This module explores the many and various ways that women have made movies in the United States. It examines a range of women filmmakers, from women film pioneers in early cinema to prominent contemporary directors, from Marion Wong, Lois Weber and Dorothy Arzner to Greta Gerwig, Kathryn Bigelow and Chloé Zhao. Furthermore, it explores the work not only of women directors but also issues of collaborative and multiple authorship and the authorship and creative labour of women in non-directorial roles. The module provides a grounding in histories and theories of feminism and feminist film scholarship as they relate to film authorship. It interrogates how women’s authorship has been theorised, how women’s authorship challenges dominant theories of film authorship, and how feminist film history has sought to recuperate women’s creative labour. Finally, it explores how women’s films have represented and responded to the changing lives of American women over the course of cinema’s existence.