The Sydney Feminists

Stuntwoman Helen Gibson In its infancy, Hollywood employed roughly 50% women and 50% men. Everyone worked extremely hard and created 10,919 silent films between 1912 and 1929, of which approximately 14% still exist. Women acted, wrote, directed, produced and, in many cases, performed their own stunts. The work was dangerous and safety was not taken into consideration; it was a pioneering time and the risks had not yet occurred to people. Some of the stunts were performed over multiple takes and sometimes they resulted in death. The first stuntwomen came from theatre, dance and vaudeville backgrounds. Some had to jump into freezing cold water, some hung from buildings and others crashed cars, repeatedly. It was reported that during 1918 and 1919, between 37 Hollywood companies, 1,052 women and men were hurt performing stunts on set, 18 were seriously injured and three had died. Stuntwomen used to joke that pants were a luxury when they typically had to work in dresses....

Note: review tickets provided by Transmission Films. Review contains mild spoilers. I have to start this review by saying I am not religious. I may have missed the meaning of some scenes/themes as I know very little about religious stories and figures, but I was interested in how they would reimagine such an old story, e.g. Jesus’s crucifixion, in what’s being lauded as a feminist version. Basically,  Mary Magdalene  is a fictional story set around the time Jesus is rocking about performing miracles and being crucified, mainly from the perspective of Mary Magdalene. Before researching for this review, I thought Mary was a repentant sex worker, but this is apparently false, and the movie goes to lengths to tell us that this rumour was started and perpetuated by the church. That a woman, or woman figure, was slandered (at least in the eyes of those at the time) and revisionist history minimised her role and relegated her to the sidelines does not exactly surprise me b...

Lillian Gish was one of the most influential and famous actors in Hollywood’s history. Her first film was in 1912 and a career spanning seventy-five years followed. Gish’s partnership with pioneering director D. W. Griffith is regarded as one of the greatest collaborative relationships of all time. Some of their films include Way Down East (1920), Intolerance (1916), Broken Blossoms (1919) and the controversial, and highest grossing film of the silent era, The Birth of a Nation (1915). Not only having a successful acting career, Gish was also a writer, director and producer. She received an honorary Academy Award in 1971. As the years passed, the media dubbed Gish “The First Lady of American Cinema.” Lillian Diana Gish was born on the 14 th of October, 1893, in Springfield, Ohio. Her father left when she was young. Running low on money and with nowhere else to turn, Gish’s mother, Mary, and her daughters joined a group of traveling actors. Gish and her sister, Dorot...