From pioneering cinema by Alice Guy-Blaché to contemporary icons, Sofia Coppola and Kathryn Bigelow embody two opposing approaches to the female gaze. At the 82nd Venice Film Festival, filmmakers of different generations and sensibilities explore introspection, empathy, and stylistic fluidity while confronting the legacy of the male gaze, expanding the narrative possibilities of contemporary cinema.
Tra scopofilia e voyeurismo, il male gaze è ampiamente e giustamente messo in discussione nella sua vocazione dominante e violenta. Da Sartre in poi, lo sguardo maschile è ritenuto responsabile dell’oggettivazione del corpo – primariamente femminile – nonché di assoggettamento, passivizzazione e gerarchizzazione. Il female gaze invece, ancora minoritario nelle arti come nel cinema, da De Lauretis a Irigaray, cerca di costituirsi non come antagonista del maschile, ma come nuovo soggetto, portatore di istanze diverse, più libere e fluide, meno ossessionate dal controllo, tanto nelle intenzioni che nelle forme. Da Alice Guy-Blaché, prima donna a dirigere fin dai tempi del muto uno studio di produzione, nonché regista con al centro le donne, a Ida Lupino, che negli anni ‘50 ha affrontato temi considerati tabù, fino ad Agnès Varda, vera e propria icona del cinema universale, e Chantal Akerman. Quest’anno due interpreti opposte del female gaze si fronteggiano simbolicamente al Lido e portano la sfida a un secondo livello, più globale: Kathryn Bigelow, in Concorso con House of Dynamite e Sofia Coppola, Fuori Concorso con Marc by Sofia.
After an eight-year absence from the screen, the Academy Award-winning director of The Hurt Locker returns to the Venice Competition with a gripping and sharp-edged thriller that intertwines geopolitics, military tension, and moral dilemmas. When a nuclear missile str...
It all began as a youthful friendship that soon grew into a deep bond, shaped by the paths their lives and careers would take. Sofia Coppola and Marc Jacobs: the early ’90s, New York nights, creative complicity, a shared aesthetic that propelled them to success. Thirty years...
Between scopophilia and voyeurism, the male gaze is widely and rightly questioned for its dominant and violent nature. Since Sartre, the male gaze has been considered responsible for the objectification of the body – primarily the female body – as well as for subjugation, passivization, and hierarchization. The female gaze, on the other hand, still a minority in both the arts and cinema, from De Lauretis to Irigaray, seeks not to position itself as the antagonist of the male gaze, but as a new subject, representing different, freer, and more fluid perspectives, less obsessed with control, both in intentions and form. From Alice Guy-Blaché, the first woman to run a production studio since the silent era and a filmmaker centering women, to Ida Lupino, who in the 1950s tackled taboo subjects, up to Agnès Varda, an icon of world cinema, and Chantal Akerman, female voices have continually reshaped cinematic vision. This year, two opposing interpreters of the female gaze symbolically face off at the Lido, taking the challenge to a broader level: Kathryn Bigelow, in Competition with House of Dynamite, and Sofia Coppola, Out of Competition with Marc by Sofia.
