Tag Archives: Dorothy Parker

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Marie Curie would have been 144 today!

Marie Curie

Marie Curie

This past month, I nominated Marie Curie as the embodiment of female leadership, while I searched for the definitive movie heroine. Little did I know that I did so just weeks before what would have been her 144th birthday. Thank you Google for reminding me today of her life and times.

Reading online biographies of her I learned that not only was she a leader and a distinguished scientist but she embodied another quality that I admire – unconventionality. I had missed that quality because I understood that she partnered with her husband in her research and her life, a conventional path to success in a field like science.

Marie Skłodowska-Curie, a two-time Nobel Laureate, changed our understanding of physics and chemistry. She developed mobile x-ray units for field hospitals in the First World War. She became the first female professor at the Sorbonne. You go girl.

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Mrs Henderson Presents (2005) – A Heroine Found

A reader suggested that I should use the keywords Judi Dench during my quest to find my personal, archetypical movie heroine. Sound advice with outstanding results. Thank you, Nancy!

Mrs Henderson Presents was inspired by a true story that unfolds between 1937 and 1943 in London, England and the war cemeteries of France. Judi Dench plays Laura Henderson, recently widowed, who lost her son in WWI. As the film opens, we watch her husband’s funeral unfold.

When Laura Henderson asks her previously widowed friend how to be a widow, she advises Laura to acquire a hobby; join a committee or buy things. Laura follows the advice. The hobby and the committee work are not successful. Eventually she buys something.

Bob Hoskins, produced the film, and plays the part of Vivian Van Damme, a theatre manager, who Mrs. Henderson hires to run her purchase – the Windmill Theatre in London’s West End.

If I weren’t on a quest to find a movie heroine with the leadership skills of Marie Curie, the wit of Dorothy Parker and the unconventionality of Katherine Hepburn, I would still find much to praise in Mrs Henderson Presents:

  • The costumes – colourful 30′s embroidered silks cut to resemble Chinese robes.
  • The jewellery – stunning Art Deco pieces dangling from her ears and circling her throat.
  • A beautiful claret coloured Rolls Royce, with uniformed chauffeur.
  • 1930s music, stage sets and upper class affectations.
  • British character actors playing eccentrics and the privileged.
  • Poignant moments of loss and jealousy and love.

Judi Dench’s Laura Henderson speaks wittily, leads craftily and is wonderfully unconventional. Bob Hoskin’s character describes Laura as selfish, rude and eccentric. One man’s thorn in the his side is another woman’s perfect movie heroine.

Warning: Much nudity. This is not a family friendly movie. 2 hankies.

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#MorningGlory – The Quest for a Movie Heroine Continues

Morning Glory, the Movie

Cinema Poster for Morning Glory

Continuing my quest to discover a movie heroine that embodies the leadership qualities of Marie Curie, the wit of Dorothy Parker and the unconventionality of Katherine Hepburn, I stumbled upon Morning Glory. Rachel McAdams stars with Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton. The film’s pedigree includes J.J. Abrams as a producer and a script by Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada).

I found the film using the keywords Diane Keaton, because she has made a career out of flaunting convention and has been known to turn an elegant phrase when being interviewed. She may be the real life personification of the fictional heroine I seek. Diane Keaton became my compass rose.

Morning Glory is about female leadership and communication. McAdams plays an Executive Producer of a low-rated morning show, whose ambition is to move on up into the big time – NBC’s Today Show.

Keaton plays the female host of Daybreak, who is eventually professionally paired with Harrison Ford doing his impersonation of Dan Rather after the fall. Their stories are the after, while McAdams represents before. This is a cautionary tale folks!

The behind-the-camera scenes of the low budget, struggling Daybreak were reminiscent of every small town radio and television station at which I have worked. Most broadcasters work in less than glamorous conditions. Only a rare few make it to the top echelon. I identified with the intoxicating effect of ambition and possibility.

I did not find my heroine, however. McAdams’ Becky is a clutch leader, coming through in the end accidentally. She lacked wit although she had her wits about her. Becky is a conventional character, in a conventional world, who came to understand the appeal of unconventionality – again by accident.

I wonder where my quest will take me next?

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My Quest for a Movie Heroine

Scene from The Jane Austen Book Club

Scene from The Jane Austen Book Club

Having established my personal definition of a movie heroine, I am on a quest to find her. First stop – the Jane Austen Book Club.

Attesting to her staying power, the writer has her own fandom, complete with fanfiction. How 21st Century for a 19th Century author? Many TV and film adaptations have been made of her books. One could say Jane is a heroine in her own write.

I agonized over employing the feminine heroine, as the contemporary trend is to use what is a masculine term, such as actor, in a genderless manner: The feminine term perceived to imply an inferior worthiness. I eschew the assumption that applying the masculine form of a word to a female assures equality. Rather, that use enforces the implication that the masculine has greater value than the feminine.

Do Jane Austen and the women of The Jane Austen Book Club meet my heroine criteria?

  1. Lead like Marie Curie.
  2. Demonstrate the wit of Dorothy Parker.
  3. Embody unconventionality like Katherine Hepburn.

The heroines of this film are played by Mario Bello, Emily Blunt, Kathy Baker, Amy Brenneman and Maggie Grace. The iridescent Kathy Baker as Bernadette stands out, although disappointingly her unconventionality is cast off in the final scene. How very Jane Austen.

I admit that one year I assigned myself the task of reading all her novels, just as the Book Club does in the film. The objective was to turn a loathed commute into a palatable journey. Success was limited. Attempting to read Northanger Abbey ended the self-improvement project.

Jane, as all fine authors are advised, wrote what she knew, with a virginal wit and anonymity. She was a keen observer of the mores of the society in which she lived. She was, however, conventional. Therefore it is fitting that the female characters of The Jane Austen Book Club echo the behaviour of Austen’s heroines, albeit with  contemporary flair.

I enjoyed the film, but did not find the archetypical movie heroine that I seek. My quest continues.

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True Grit and the subject of Heroes

How does consistency play out in your world? Yesterday, I came to understand that the fictional heroes that appeal to me consistently share certain qualities. Alatriste, Sharpe and Rooster Cogburn may be physically different. The tales in which they star are set in different eras, yet I believe the trio would be comfortable in each others company, as I am in theirs.

True Grit (2010) starring Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon inspired that insight: Badge-wearing figures of authority who pay lip service to the rules that define them. They bend the rules – or as we say in the 21st Century – they are proponents of creative problem solving. My heroes are ambivalent toward their enemies, speaking of them with admiration if not respect.

My heroes keep company with women of questionable character. If they marry, their spouses are respectable, and long-suffering. Seldom do they make life-partners of the heroines with whom they have a heartfelt connection.

True Grit‘s heroine, Mattie Ross, played by Hailee Steinfeld, loses a forearm and lives the conventional life of a spinster once her adventuring days end. That supremely disappointing finale of True Grit may have changed the definition of an appealing hero for me.

In the future I’m going to seek movies with independent, charismatic, adventurous, rule-bending females. Allow me to be clear: I’m not seeking heroines of questionable sanity, man haters or Disney Princesses. I want a movie heroine who leads like Madame Curie; expresses herself like Dorothy Parker; and ignores convention like Katherine Hepburn. Can you recommend one?