film festival – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Anita Loos: An Introduction with Dr. Rosanne Welch, Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting and the Retroformat Silent Film Society [Video]

During each of our Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting we take our MFA candidates on field trips around Los Angeles and this January that included the screening of a silent movie – “The Social Secretary” – hosted at the Historic Women’s Club of Hollywood with a full audience. Many attendees had never watched a film shown from a projector, much less a silent film on such a large screen with live piano accompaniment. The MFA co-sponsored the event with the , a group dedicated to promoting education and enthusiasm about the art of silent film.

I was happy to be asked to deliver this introduction to the work of screenwriter and novelist Anita Loos whose work bridged the worlds of silents – where she was instrumental in creating the swashbuckling character for Douglas Fairbanks – to talkies and screenplays to novels to Broadway plays. Her Gentlemen Prefer Blondes remains a classic, never having gone out of print, and it led to several film versions including the famous one starring Marilyn Monroe. Her book for Gigi helped give the play a successful transition to the well-known film that showcased Leslie Caron.

If you don’t know much about this prolific woman writer, check out my introduction and then go watch some of her films, many of which are on YouTube. Yet the experience of seeing it on the big screen became one of this Workshop’s most appreciated events.

RMW Rosanne Signature for Web

Transcript:

…Rosanne Welch. [Applause]

Hello everybody. I am Dr. Rosanne Welch. I run the Stevens College MFA and TV and Screenwriting where we study film with a female gaze.

So we study Anita Loos and so I’m gonna –– we’re here for an hour and a half lecture right?

Very quickly, I just want to make sure people who are here know what we’re talking about. First of all, what we do in our program is we teach the history of screenwriting because in most places they teach you the history of film and that tends to be the history of directors which becomes the history of Great Men. While we love men, women founded Hollywood and need to be remembered.

So I was really pleased when Tom said I have the Anita Loos print and I was like, oh yeah Anita Loos. We study her. We love her and it would be lovely to see it with real live accompaniment.

[Applause]

I’m gonna say a very quick things about Anita. I want people who don’t know her to know these things. First of all, we have to remember her as the first person to put wit in her title cards and today when someone writes a television or film script, in their action lines they use that technique. They use their own voice. They say funny things. They don’t just say the door opens right? They are still doing something essentially we learn from Anita. So I think that is a reason that she should stay with us. I think it’s also important to remember her as a star maker. She’s the reason you know who Douglas Fairbanks is. He was just the stumblebum actor until she made him a swashbuckler and then he became the Douglas Fairbanks –– the founder of the Academy right? She also –– I’m sure many of you can think about Carol Channing and Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend. Talk about a character that lived forever in that actress. So I think that’s brilliant for Anita. She was also known for her diligent work ethic. The woman got up at five o’clock and wrote until two or three in the afternoon and then dealt with business –– that and she would tell people she didn’t work very hard. It wasn’t very hard at all. Think about that. So I think that’s really beautiful. I think it’s important to think about all the literary friends she had. She was friends with Theodore Dreiser , and H.L. Mencken – these are major names of their day. Interestingly enough her name is still a little more famous than theirs are. So there’s something about her work. Though people made fun of films and film writing clearly she survived where some of their stuff isn’t read that much anymore and also she was a brilliant friend to other women in the business and we know that that’s how everyone who moves up in the world by taking the next person below you and bringing them up right? So she was friends with the young Ruth Gordon. Y’all don’t remember when she was young but she was and Anita was someone who helped her move forward in the business. She was best friends with Helen Hayes who many people remember. So the idea that she understood that sisterhood was the way to help everybody. So those are the reasons that I still admire Anita. I always say that I met her when I was six years old – not the person but in her memoirs and so if you haven’t read A Memoir of hers you should because they’re funny and witty and teach us a lot about this time period and also we’ve written about her in this book which we will have for sale afterward. There you go. I’ll teach Tom how to sell. Which was written by the first inaugural students in our program about seven years ago and there’s a chapter on 25 different famous female screenwriters of that period. So if you’re interested we’ll have some more of those and we’ll talk afterward and we have three of the original authors of chapters right here with me tonight. So with that, I hope that everybody adores if you haven’t met Anita Loos before you will listen to her voice today and laugh. Have a great night.

[Applause]

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15 Conclusion From Jeanne to Suso to Julie to Spike: How Jeanne Macpherson’s Manual on Screenwriting Influenced Italian Realism which Influenced Black Independent Film in the U.S. [Video]

Transcript:

…and I think it takes it all back globally because, of course, he’s going to become the judge. He’s going to bring all his movies to Cannes and so he’s going to get international fame from doing this and of course then he’s going to become the first African-American judge in the Cannes Film Festival and I think just seeing that circle to me is – it fills in this whole global idea and while he’s judge, we’re going to see an award go to a Japanese film right? Something that had – I can’t even remember if that had happened in the past – and then to a female, only the second female to come up with a Palme D’Or and that’s because – partially because he was on the judging team and I think it’s important to think that Jeannie and Cecil and all these women in the past to be proud and look at the judging group that year. It’s split 50/50 women and men. So we’re getting to a place where we’re getting all the perspectives in the room. So I think that’s it. There you go. That’s it. Thank you. Thank you very much.

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At the recent Screenwriting Research Network conference in Vienna, I gave this talk titled “From Jeanne to Suso to Julie to Spike: How Jeanne Macpherson’s Manual on Screenwriting Influenced Italian Realism which Influenced Black Independent Film in the U.S.”

In the talk, I trace the ways a manual about screenwriting by silent film writer Jeanne Macpherson influenced Suso Cecchi d’Amici who began to utilize Macpherson’s ideas and became the queen of Italian neorealism screenwriting in Europe. Then those Italian neo-realist screenwriters in turn inspired the Los Angeles School of Black Independent Film Makers (the L.A. School). In turn, such as Charles Burnett, Billy Woodberry, Haile Gerima, and Julie Dash and their ideas fueled Spike Lee. Finally, when he became the first Black man to head the jury at the Cannes Film Festival (where Suso had once served) his choice of films influenced yet another generation of screenwriters.

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14 Julie Dash and Spike Lee From Jeanne to Suso to Julie to Spike: How Jeanne Macpherson’s Manual on Screenwriting Influenced Italian Realism which Influenced Black Independent Film in the U.S. [Video]

Transcript:

Then we get “Daughters of the Dust” by Julie Dash. So now a female coming into that rebellious you know LA rebellion was largely a male thing but now Julie Dash comes to it and tries to give the real story of the Gullah family – using their language and their conversation, which is really quite beautiful and we move over to Spike Lee. I would argue that “Do The Right Thing” is kind of the ultimate American – African-American – neo-realist film. Looking at the trouble in his area again due to poverty and then the heat and all of that that goes on and I think it’s important to look at Spike in the new Museum to the academy that they built in Los Angeles – which we finally got to visit after the pandemic – they have a room for directors and I would call this writer’s inspiration. I’m really tired when they call it director’s inspiration and he’s the director but you know what he got his only Oscar for – writing. Let’s just remember that. They gave a couple of writers writers yes writer/directors rooms to show their Inspirations and you’ll see right here “8 1/2” and “Rome Open City.” The man’s whole career is built around what he studied at New York Film Academy.

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13 Bless Their Little Hearts From Jeanne to Suso to Julie to Spike: How Jeanne Macpherson’s Manual on Screenwriting Influenced Italian Realism which Influenced Black Independent Film in the U.S. [Video]

Transcript:

Charles Burnett is then gonna write but not direct “Bless Their Little Hearts” and again – so his style I think is one of the most examples of that. Likewise, instead of the bombed-out cities due to war, he’s showing us the destructed cities where all the factories have died and the jobs have gone and now there’s nothing. So in a strange way again it’s a different kind of War that’s being imagined in his films. He also like “The Bicycle Thief” – his main character comes up with an idea about selling fish and making money out of the trunk of his car which is already a fail when you think of it but he’s trying so hard and he does fail because nobody wants to buy fish that hasn’t been on ice. So it’s exactly the same ending we get in “The Bicycle Thief”, that it’s this futility but yet he’s going to wake up tomorrow and try something else which I think is really cool.

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The new classics: 10 of the best feminist films you need to watch in your lifetime

Recently, I was quite happy when sent this link to a RUSSH website and their article The new classics: 10 of the best feminist films you need to watch in your lifetime.

Why? Because among the 10 they chose are 3 that Peg and I cover in the new book American Women’s History on Film (On the Basis of Sex, Hidden Figures, Confirmation):

Check out the rest in American Women’s History on Film:

Remember, you don’t have to buy the book to read it – you can request that your local library buy a copy that can then be shared with many, many others!

12 Martin Scorcese From Jeanne to Suso to Julie to Spike: How Jeanne Macpherson’s Manual on Screenwriting Influenced Italian Realism which Influenced Black Independent Film in the U.S. [Video]

Transcript:

…and then we get you know Marty gets into the Italian films and he starts kind of mimicking it but he never quite gets there I would say. I would say of all his films “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” gets there because it’s a bleak story about a woman who is hoping to be a singer and but as she’s driving across the country to get to her singing career she has no money. So she has to get a job as a waitress. Many people know there was a TV show in the 70s. It’s based on this film but it was much more comedic and didn’t go into the sort of sadness and essentially the melodrama of her life. In the end, she meets Kris Kristofferson. They fall in love. Do you give up your dream for the love because she has a son who needs a house and security and so she’s going to make a choice. I won’t tell you what. You have to see the movie but it has the bleakness to it. Again now we’re in the non-African-American world. So I think Marty’s doing that but it doesn’t happen. It doesn’t take off. There’s too many other styles in the quote-unquote, you know, white Cinema if you want to call it that.

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11 Charlie Burnett and “Killer of Sheep” From Jeanne to Suso to Julie to Spike: How Jeanne Macpherson’s Manual on Screenwriting Influenced Italian Realism which Influenced Black Independent Film in the U.S. [Video]

Transcript:

Charles Burnett who wrote”Killer of Sheep”. There you go and this is kind of an amazing really good example of taking neo-realism and bringing into the African-American storytelling. This is in many ways– people who now look at it say this is truly a perfect example of transmitting from one culture to another a style of film and you can see very similar not just – and this is in the scripts, by the way not just the visuals– Always written down but the idea of having children deal with the rubble. The trash The leftovers of society, not a beautiful lovely playground as we’ve seen walking through town here. So completely mimicking what we see in “Rome Open City” and also there’s this idea that there’s got to be some beauty in that. One of the things that is considered brought into black Cinema is that you still have to say that there’s struggle but you have to have hope. Otherwise, what’s the point of just showing the struggle. So I think it’s really beautiful. There are moments where the couple is dancing in their home. It’s a very barely furnished home but you can still see that there’s love involved. So that’s an element that black filmmaking brings into this neo-realistic feeling.

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10 Claudine From Jeanne to Suso to Julie to Spike: How Jeanne Macpherson’s Manual on Screenwriting Influenced Italian Realism which Influenced Black Independent Film in the U.S. [Video]

Transcript:

…and then “Claudine.” I always have to credit my students. I have a list of films they watch in every of the four semesters we do the history of screenwriting – all chronological from science to modern day – and people come to me and say how come this film wasn’t on the list and sometimes it’s a film I’ve never seen. “Claudine” was a film like that. I’d not seen it. It’s a lovely story about a woman with several children who’s on welfare – so again we’re seeing what happens in the cycles of poverty and when you’re not allowed to get a decent job to move out of that – and she falls in love with James Earl Jones. Early James Earl Jones. So pre-star Wars and he has to decide. He’s a man with a job. Does he want to take on a family and this much obligation and that’s going to get in the way of their love story. So it’s a beautiful love story that has to deal with the issues of poverty but that – just like “Marty” – ugly people can be in love. In this case, people who are so like why can’t you have love if you’re a poor person and how come the issues you face every day are in the way. So this is a beautiful film that I have to credit my students for bringing to you. Written by a male husband and wife team, Tina and Lester Pine but she died young so we don’t see a lot more work from her. Which again is how women fall out of this the history. Many of the women of the early days died in their 40s and the men went on to live to their 80s and did the oral histories and talked about their own world. So the same thing. We lose Tina early on.

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09 More On Neo-realism and Black Cinema From Jeanne to Suso to Julie to Spike: How Jeanne Macpherson’s Manual on Screenwriting Influenced Italian Realism which Influenced Black Independent Film in the U.S. [Video]

Transcript:

“Nothing But A Man” deals with this really in a way we hadn’t seen before. Then we get into “The Cool World” and this is now the first time we’ve seen sort of gang life and it’s not glorified and it’s not beautiful. This is a very sad version of this is all I have to make money. This is all I can do to survive. Which is very post-war and Italy except there’s no war here. Except the constant war that had been fought against African Americans from the very beginning right? So thinking about the trauma of it and all those things being reflected and always there’s youth in these movies to see how that trauma affects yet the Next Generation and again and again. Which I think I see a lot in “Rome Open City.” Then we get Melvin Van Peebles coming along with “Sweet Sweetbacks Badassssss Song” and suddenly we have auteurs in the black theater rebellion and that’s kind of a fascinating new idea. He breaks out into more mainstream. People know who he is. He’s the beginning of a kind of a dynasty because his son Mario also becomes a filmmaker and that’s the first time that we’ve seen that opportunity.

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08 Neo-realism and Black Cinema From Jeanne to Suso to Julie to Spike: How Jeanne Macpherson’s Manual on Screenwriting Influenced Italian Realism which Influenced Black Independent Film in the U.S. [Video]

Transcript:

So it’s been really important to reincorporate these movies into and to see the progression of how they fit into International World Cinema. I think that’s really important. So I’m starting with “Nothing But A Man” which is a beautiful film interestingly enough made by not an African-American filmmaker but considered to have captured the struggle quite well. In this Ivan Dixon plays a railroad worker and he just moves from state to state avoiding the Jim Crow South. Trying to avoid the treatment that he would receive if he settled into any of these locations but you see him receive the treatment. So we’re dealing with the underpinning of how Americans are treating Americans of color in this time period and that was very harsh. It’s a sad side note. I actually worked with Ivan Dixon’s daughter on a show years ago and he did a show called “Hogan’s Heroes” which you may or may not have seen in reruns and it kind of ruined his independent film career because they thought he’d sold out but in fact, it’s a show about four prisoners of war in a German prisoner War Camp. It’s a comedy. I don’t understand how they ever thought that was a good idea but it was very popular in the late 60s and when people argued with him about why he did that piece because it made Nazis funny he said I had to prove that black men were there in the war and I thought that seeing me in that set of prisoners was important enough that I should do that but it meant that he didn’t do a lot of more serious films after that because of doing a comedy which I think is sad.

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