The star of this year's TIFF? Complicated women working in the arts

Jenna Benchetrit · CBC News

· Posted: Sep 17, 2023 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 2 minutes ago

A particular taxable has emerged astatine the Toronto International Film Festival, wherever respective of this year's movies overgarment portraits of women artists forced to grapple with however they — and their creation — are perceived by society.

Some are unravelling from the pressures of creating successful an manufacture that doesn't privation them to succeed, oregon their art is being utilized against them to devalue their humanity.

Atom Egoyan's Seven Veils, for example, is astir a Canadian opera manager who begins to suffer her footing portion remounting a portion that her erstwhile person (who was besides her overmuch older mentor) staged years earlier her. In Days of Happiness, an orchestra director's promising vocation is tightly controlled by her agent-father, and she indispensable take whether to prosecute perfection oregon happiness.

Then there's Anatomy of a Fall, successful which a palmy German writer — and her novels — are enactment connected proceedings for the execution of her husband; portion the biopic Wildcat wrestles with confederate gothic writer Flannery O'Connor's unwavering content successful her often-contentious work, portion it is chronically misunderstood by the radical astir her. 

WATCH | Maya and Ethan Hawke connected Wildcat: 

These look to tally counter to the mainstream feminist fare that has emerged since the #MeToo question began, overmuch of which centred, for amended oregon for worse, astir heroic women successful pursuit of a amended satellite (think Captain Marvel oregon She Said or Bombshell, oregon adjacent astir recently, Barbie.)

"There was this question of radical — an assemblage oregon adjacent filmmakers — being like, 'Oh, we're going to marque films astir "strong pistillate characters,"'" said Justine Smith, a movie professional and the surface exertion of Montreal arts and civilization website CultMTL.

"Which — I don't cognize wherefore — soon became a awesome of this caricature of a pistillate who tin bash nary wrong, who is ace strong, ace powerful, is virtually a superhero successful a batch of cases. And it is not a reflection of reality. It reveals nary complexity."

"It ends up feeling similar an over-correction that erases immoderate complexity to being a woman, to being a quality being, even."

The offerings astatine TIFF suggest that a fistful of filmmakers are progressively preoccupied with a much analyzable representation of women — and specifically, women artists. Some are manipulative; immoderate are caught successful a rhythm of abuse; immoderate person to support the quality of their art.

"One of the things that emerged retired of [the #MeToo era] is what it means to beryllium a pistillate successful the satellite of entertainment. And we tin broaden that to beryllium the satellite of art," Smith said.

"We're having a batch of precise hard oregon challenging conversations astir however sex plays into the creator process successful general. And so, to me, that is what is benignant of fuelling a batch of these types of films."

Fascination with geniuses

Justine Triet, the French manager of Anatomy of a Fall, discussed her feelings astir however she is perceived arsenic a pistillate successful the originative industry, and whether immoderate of that was channeled into her film, successful which her protagonist Sandra's novels are picked apart.

"The quality successful galore ways is tracked oregon surveilled and she's analyzed for overmuch much than her actions. She's analyzed for her [social] mores," Triet said.

WATCH | The trailer for Anatomy of a Fall: 

Much of the movie plays retired similar a procedural, with excerpts from Sandra's published works presented arsenic grounds successful the courtroom. ("Her books are a portion of this trial," the authoritative insists.) The assemblage is simply a surrogate for the audience: Do we deliberation she committed murder? What does that accidental astir us?

"It took immoderate clip for maine to travel to truly recognize the stakes of a feminist struggle, and to beryllium capable to place the places successful which I was being judged and wherever I was a unfortunate of a strategy of critique whereby women aren't allowed to marque errors successful the aforesaid way, and wherever occurrence is ever a small spot much suspect," she said.

WATCH | Triet, Chloe Robichaud connected the world of being pistillate artists: 

Part of the entreaty of these films mightiness beryllium our fascination with originative geniuses, says Smith.

Last year's intelligence thriller Tár was about a powerful, world-renowned conductor (Cate Blanchett) whose manipulation and maltreatment of her pistillate subordinates, including a erstwhile pupil who committed suicide, begin to drawback up with her. The rubric character — who is simply a lesbian — embodies many of the cliches of the antheral genius, Smith said. 

"What I find absorbing astir a batch of these films astir women is that they don't instantly presume that they're a genius successful the mode that we mightiness a movie astir Mozart oregon different antheral genius," she said.

"There's much complexity to dealing with that question and what it means and also, again, what it gives you support to bash successful the world."

Similar themes reverberate across Seven Veils, arsenic Amanda Seyfried's character seems to participate the aforesaid rhythm of power-tripping and manipulation that she was a unfortunate of successful her youth.

These ideas are besides present, albeit to a antithetic extent, in Wildcat. While O'Connor isn't the manager of an orchestra oregon an opera, nor does she person subordinates successful a firm mounting — she holds a antithetic benignant of power, Smith says.

"She's almighty due to the fact that she's perceived successful a mode arsenic a genius," she said. "We spot each these scenes aboriginal connected successful the movie wherever she's astatine the Iowa [Writers] Workshops, wherever she's successful these classes and she's a writer, and we don't needfully spot the different students work, but done the framing, we recognize that she is supra them."

Speaking to CBC News up of the film's premiere, Wildcat star Maya Hawke — who is the girl of Wildcat director Ethan Hawke and histrion Uma Thurman — said that she was fascinated by O'Connor's substance of creator ambition and self-doubt.

"I deliberation a dialog of wherever you beryllium and who you acceptable successful with and however to bash a bully occupation astatine your enactment is simply a beauteous communal feeling," and 1 that she wanted to research wrong O'Connor's story, she said.

WATCH | The trailer for Quebecois drama Days of Happiness: 

Ethan Hawke said that the younger Hawke wanted to play a "really analyzable woman" whose beingness communicative didn't revolve astir a man.

"It was astir herself and her cognition of herself and her religion and her creativity and her ain demons," helium said.

Chloe Robichaud, who directed Days of Happiness, says that, portion she tin lone talk for her ain experiences arsenic a pistillate moving successful a originative industry, the demands enactment connected women are a communal thread that widen beyond the creator world.

"I consciousness we tin each subordinate to that benignant of unit to beryllium everything," she said. "I don't deliberation that it's arsenic specific. I deliberation it is conscionable what we inquire successful wide to women."